Full text of "A History Of Foreign Words In English"

35369

A HISTORY UK

FOREIGN WORD'S

IN ENGLISH

A HISTORY OF

FOREIGN WORDS

IN ENGLISH

MARY S. SERJEANTSON

M.A, (Liverpool), D.PIul. (Orori). Keader in
English Language in the University of London .

NEW YORK

K, P. DUTTON & COMPANY
1930

CONTENTS

CHAP. TAG 33

PRKFACE vii

LUST OF AmmMvrATiONH .... ix

L INTRODUCTORY 1

IF. LATIN WORDS BKVGRK THK CONQUEST ... 11
Til. OTIIKR FORKKIN ELKMICNTS -UKFORN TIIW CONQOTST.
(A) THK (xRKiQK KLMMKNT. (B) TIIK CELTIC

KLKMKNT 51

IV. TlJK SCANDINAVIAN KhKMKNT . 61

V. TIIM KRMNCJH KLKMKNT 104

VL (jo\v (}MUMAN AND Hiuu (JJKRMAN . . 170

VI L THK ITALIAN KUMMNT . . J83

VFIL Ttiw KPANIHH KLMMKNT 195

IX. LOAN-WORDS KROM OTIIKR KUROIKAN JjANcurACJies.
(A) (JKi;ncJ. (H) PORTIWJUMHK. (0) SLAVONIC.

(D) IIUNOAHIAN. (K) MlHdMUiANMOCTK . - 203

X. LOAN-WORDS KUOMTUK KAST. (A)ARAio. (B) INDIAN
DiALFxms. ((}) PKKKIAN. (I 1 )) TURKIC. DIALKOTH. (B)
DRAVIDIAN, (V) HIOMITWI I)IAUT. ((3) TIBBTO-

OHINKHK (II) JAMNIOSK 213

XI. MAhAY-POLYNKHIAN AND AlWTRAMAN . . .241

XII. TIIK LANairACiKH OP AFRIOA 246

XII I. KUOM THK NKW Wow-i) 250

LATOR I^OAN-WOUDM FROM LATIN AND (]RKKK . 259
AlTKNUlK A. J^K-CONQUKHT LOAN-WOJKDH FROM

UTTK 271

vi CONTENTS

PAGE

APPENDIX B. NOTES ON THE PHONOLOGY OF LATIN

LOAN-WOBDS IN OLD ENGLISH .... 289

APPENDIX C. SCANDINAVIAN VOWKLS IN OLD AND

MIDDLE ENGLISH 203

APPENDIX D. NOTES ON THE PHONOMMI Y OK FUKNOH

LOAN-WORDS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH . . . 295

BIBLIOGEAPIIY 301

SUBJECT INDEX 303

WORD INDEX . 307

PREFACE

Tho first thing that is wrong in this book is the title. Very
many of the words dealt with arc certainly not now e foreign ',
but have boon complotoly naturalized in English for centuries.
But since thoy are in origin not of the common Germanic stock,
the phrase * foroign words * may stand, and will perhaps be
pro for rod by Homo to tho tochnical term c loan-words '.

In a volumo which has to cover so long a period as that of the
wholo history of tho English language, tho treatment must
noooswarily bo incomplete. Perhaps tho time has not yet come for
a roally comprehensive work it would need several volumes
on loan-words in KJnglish. A groat doal of spade-work on
individual languagos and problems remains to be done. The
groat Period DiotionarioH now being prepared in America, to
tho publication of which wo aro looking forward, will be of the
utmost value in supplementing the material afforded by the
(h-ford K'Hfll'ixh Dictionary ; and more material may be found in
still unpublished records and accounts of early travellers and
traders.

Tho present volumo does not limit its attention to foreign
words existing in English at tho present day. This would give
a wrong iw proton of earlier periods. It docs not, howevcr 3
attempt to trace tho history of loan-words in all tho local dialects
of Mnglish at all periods; thin requires separate study. Emphasis
has been laid throughout on the/w'/, introductions from individual
languagos and the fmt a[)poaran<'.os of individual words. The
groat ost amount of Hpac^o has boon dovotod to (surly loans from
Latin, French, and Scandinavian, since these, languagos aro the
most important sources of our adoptions. Kxatnplos of the words
in actual use (i.e. quotations from contemporary writers) are
given freely, especially in tho earlier periods.

In the sections on Old English, all tho most important literary
texts, glossaries, mid other documents have boon examined. For
Middle Knglwh only a comparatively small number of what it is
hoped urn roally representative, tuxta arc discussed ; tlwuw are of

vii

viii PREFACE

various types and from various areas. This seemed the best
method of dealing with the masses of material available. In
considering words from Middle English texts it is, of course,
safest to take the words as belonging to the time of the manuscript
used, and not necessarily to that of the original document,
if the former is a copy. There is obviously always the possibility
of changes and additions in copying.

Probably no two people would agree entirely as to what words
should be admitted to such a volume as this, especially when the
words in question come from the more remote languages such as
Chinese, Maori, and so on. Words which are quite familiar to
people who live or have travelled in the East, in Australasia,
in South America, may be quite unknown and of small interest
to those who are familiar only with other parts of the world.
My choice of words to be discussed in the sections on the modern
period may seem arbitrary, but I have tried to include those
which the ordinary English reader is most likely to come across
in not too specialized literature.

The appendices on the phonology of Latin, French, and
Scandinavian words give, as will be seen, only the main features,
and these very briefly ; they are merely intended for reference.

Discussion of controversial matters has been avoided, but
references will in some cases be found in footnotes to books or
articles dealing with individual points.

The Bibliography gives only the most important of the works
which have been consulted. I am most deeply indebted to the
Dictionaries mentioned in this list, and in particular to the
Oxford English Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary, without whose help this book could certainly not
have been written.

I have to thank my colleague, Dr. E. C. Martin (Header in
Imperial History, University of London), for advice and help
in historical matters, and for her patience in answering questions.
I should also like to thank my family for much practical
assistance, and several generations of students who have helped
by asking questions.

M. S. S.

WESTHELD CO:LLEGE

(UmvEBsiTY OF LONDON).
January, 1935.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

A.-N.,

Anglo-Norman

M.L.G.,

Middle Low German

Ame.r.,

American

Mai,

Malay

Arab.,

Arabic

Med.Lat.,

Mediaeval Latin

Austr.,

Australian

Mex.,

Mexican

JSraz.,

Brazilian

Mod.E.,

Modern English

C.Fr.,

Central French

Mod.Gk.,

Modern Greek

Cawb.,

Caribbean

Mod.Lat. 9

Modern Latin

Ch.,

Chinese

N.F.,

Norman-French

Corn.,

Cornish

O.DU.,

Old Dutch

Dan.,

Danish

O.E.,

Old English

Du.,

Dutch

O.Fr.,

Old French

E.E.T.S.,

Early English Text

O.H.G.,

Old High German

Society

OJr.,

Old Irish

E.Mod.Du.

, Early Modern Dutch

O.N.,

Old Norse

E.Span,.,

Early Spanish

O.S.,

Old Saxon

Eng.,
fflem.,

English
Flemish

O. Span.,
O.W.,

Old Spanish
Old Welsh

French

Pers.,

Persian

Gak.,

Gaelic

Peruv.,

Peruvian

Germ.,

German

Port.,

Portuguese

Gh.,

Greek

Pr.O.N.,

Primitive Old Norse

Gmc.,

Germanic

Prov.,

Provencal

Goth.,

Gothic

Rom.,

Romance

Hait.,

Haitian

Russ.,

Russian

Heb.,

Hebrew

S.Amer.,

South American

Hind.,

Hindustani

Scand.,

Scandinavian

Hung.,
lr.,

Hungarian
Irish

Scrt. 9
S^nghal.,

Sanscrit
Singhalese

Ital.,

Italian

Slav.,

Slavonic

Jap.,

Japanese

Span.,

Spanish

Jav.,

Javanese

Sw&d

Swedish

L.G.,

Low Gorman

Turk.,

Turkish

Lai.,

M.DU.,

Latin
Middle Dutch

Vulg.Lat.,

Vulgar Latin

Middle English
Middle Flemish

w.,

W.Afr.,

Welsh
West African.

M.H.G.*,'

Middle High German

W.Flem.,

West Flemish

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

The English language has throughout its history accepted
with comparative equanimity words from other languages with
which it has been in contact, and though there have been periods
during which speakers and writers of English have made use
of foreign words to an exaggerated extent, it is probable that
most people will agree that the foreign element in normal English
usage has been of value.

Some languages avoid as far as possible the use of alien terms,
substituting for them, when an expression for a new object or
idea is needed, new words made up of native elements, but
England has always welcomed the alien, and many hundreds
of words of non-English origin are now part and parcel of our
vocabulary, indistinguishable from the native stock except to
those with some knowledge of etymology. The language of this
country has, it is true, been particularly open to foreign influence,
partly through the succession of invaders who came into contact
with English speakers during the Middle Ages ; partly through
the enterprise of the English themselves, who have carried their
language into the far corners of the world, where it has gathered,
like a snowball, new matter as it passed on its way. There are
few nations and few languages which have had as many
opportunities as the English for acquiring new words by the direct
influence of other tongues.

The adoption of foreign words in any dialect may come about
in different ways, and the extent to which foreign elements
become naturalized varies very considerably. Contact between
peoples of alien speech may be of several kinds ; they may meet
for instance through conquest, through colonization, through
trade, or through literature. When one nation subdues another
which speaks a different language, the conquerors, if their object
has been political power rather than settlement, may constitute
an authority, or ruling class, which is in point of view of numbers

2 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

much in the minority compared with, the whole body of the
conquered people. In a case like this, it is usually the native
language that survives, though the incoming dialect will very
probably transfer to the native vocabulary words which express
its own methods of government, and other cultural words,
This has happened in several instances in Western Europe in
the early Middle Ages : the Franks in Latin-speaking Gaul,
the Normans in France, the Norman-French in England. In
each of these some members of the ruling classes as well as of
the subject-classes must have been bilingual, and each in speaking
his own language would be liable to introduce into it words,
especially of a technical or specialized character, that he has
learnt from the other.

This is what takes place when the conquerors who form a
governing minority have established themselves in their new
country as a separate unity, and have retained little or no
connexion with their original home and the speakers of their
own language, or have become politically independent. If,
however, the conquered country or province does not become
an independent state under its new rulers, but is controlled by
the original government, so that the ruling class is in constant
contact with, and continually reinforced by, people speaking
their own language, it has usually happened that the dialect of the
rulers has won the day, and has spread throughout the community,
absorbing some words from the native speakers, chiefly such, as
concern local products, natural features, etc., but without
necessarily undergoing radical changes in itself- An example of
this is afforded by the relative positions of the Romans and Colts
in Gaul, where the Latin speech established itself after acquiring
a very small proportion of words from the native Gaulish dialect,
A different set of circumstances arises when the invasion is
for the purpose of settlement or colonization rather than merely
for the sake of political power. If the newcomers arrive in such
numbers as to form a majority over the native speakers, and in
such military or political strength as to acquire complete control
over these, or dispossess them, the dialect of the conquerors or
colonists will have the upper hand from the start, wherever they
establish themselves. They will, however, adopt from the natives
whom they displace words which denote native products, etc*,

INTRODUCTORY 3

and occasionally native customs, which may have been unfamiliar
before. This happened, for instance, when the Anglo-Saxons came
to England, eventually in numbers large enough to render the
Britons a minority of little importance, or in some areas perhaps
to oust them altogether. It has happened again in many areas
of European colonization (e.g. the English in Australia), where
the language of the newcomers has never shown any likelihood
of yielding to the native idiom.

Sometimes warfare aiming at conquest results in a type of
immigration, rather than colonization, as in the case of the
Scandinavians in this country, where conflict led finally to more
or less peaceful settlement, where the invaders established
themselves side by side with the natives without overwhelming
them or driving them out, and where the race, customs, and even
the language, of the two peoples were sufficiently alike to make
intercourse between the two, and the subsequent bilingualism,
easy and natural. Here the Englishman who acquired Scandinavian
(and no doubt also the Scandinavian who learnt English)
introduced the new terms into his own language, where they
remained even after English had established itself in all the
areas of the Nordic settlement, and Englishmen and Danes alike
had ceased to be bilingual.

Of course, immigration is not always preceded or accompanied
by hostility, and immigrants into a colony with an already
constituted authority will usually adopt the general speech of
the colony even if their own is an alien one. If the immigrants
come in a large enough body to form a small community of their
own within the greater one, they are likely to retain their own
speech, for a time at least, even though eventually yielding to
the pressure of the language spoken all about them. There are
many instances of this in the communities of different nationality
which have settled in the United States Jewish, German,
Norwegian, etc. and now are gradually giving up their own
dialects, though carrying into their newly acquired English some
part of their own vocabulary, some words from which may
spread to more distant fields.

For English speakers, trade has always been an important
factor in the introduction of new words and of new ideas. Even
before English had separated from its Germanic stock it was

4 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

trade almost as much, as conquest which brought into it its first
words from other languages, as will be seen in the following
chapter, in which the influence;of Latin on the Germanic vocabulary
will be dealt with. It was trade that in later times brought us
acquainted with the words of many another nation in the New
World as well as in the old. In this respect trade and scientific
exploration go hand in hand, and can hardly be separated ;
and the merchant-adventurer holds an important place in the
history of the English language.

So far we have considered words borrowed in actual speech.
Sometimes, however, loan-words will come into a language from
a written source ; in this case they usually pass first into the
written language, and thence may or may not pass into the spoken
language. Examples of this may be found in plenty in the
borrowings from Latin in the later Old English period, when
English writers and translators took over, from Latin originals
or models, Latin words to serve their purpose, sometimes retain-
ing their original inflexions, sometimes using the appropriate
English inflexion. Perhaps the majority of these words remain in
the category of what may be called " learned " words, and never
reach full currency with the average speaker, if indeed they roach
the spoken language at all. We may instance the Old English
aspide * asp ', sanct e saint ', lenticul ' lentil ', protomartyr,
imlite ' soldiery ', poknte, grammatic, tircul c circle ', anfiteatra,
termen ' fixed] point ', as various types of learned words ; and
as words which, introduced first from literature, became more or
less 'popular', cleric ' clerk, priest', qffrian 'to sacrifice',
apostel, non ' noon ', oucumere * cucumber ', turtur ' turtle-
dove '. In more modern times it is science rather than literature
that has been responsible for the introduction of words of a
learned type, and English dictionaries, of a general character
as well as purely scientific, contain hundreds of words formed
directly from Greek or Latin elements, which are never used
by the ordinary speaker and may never be seen or heard by him*
Here again, some of these words of scientific origin do pass into
popular speech, as has obviously happened in such eases as
telephone, telegram, telegraph, gramophone, and medical terms
such as appewlioitis, bronchitis, which are used by the layman
as well as by the specialist.

INTRODUCTORY 5

It happens frequently in the course of the history of our
language that a word is borrowed more than once from the
same source (or from developments of this source), perhaps
once as a popular word and again as a learned or technical
one. The Latin word undo, was adopted by Germanic (on the
continent) as a measure of length, and appears in Old English
as ynce, Modern English inch ; a few centuries later, English
borrowed the word again, this time in its Romance form, *unt$ia,
which becomes in Old English yntse (now obsolete), used as
a measure of weight ; the French descendant, unce, once, of
Romance *untsia, came into Middle English, again as a measure
of weight, and has become Modern English ounce ; all these were
popular loans ; but the final version, uncial, borrowed in the
seventeenth century from Latin undalis, the adjective of unda,
is definitely a learned loan.

English has a particularly large number of these * repeated '
loans (in some of which each of the pair or group is of a quite
ordinary popular type), owing to the fact of her numerous
borrowings from Latin in the Early Middle Ages followed by
even more plentiful adoptions from French, which developed
from Latin, and further by the continued contact between
English and French which has led to many more introductions
from French in recent times, by the English habit (renewed in
the Renaissance period) of adopting words from Latin, and
finally by the fact that even within the Middle English period
a word may be borrowed twice over, from different dialects of
French. Not very many original Latin words appear in all these
five forms in Modern English, since a new loan has often ousted
an earlier one, but a large number may be found in two or three
of these groups ; of. catch, chase, capt(ive) etc. ; mint, money ;
wine, vine(yard) ; drake, dragon ; master, magistrate) ; trivet,
tripod ; castle, chdteau ; corpse, corps ; and so on.

Some words have entered English, not by direct contact
with the language which is their source, but indirectly, through
an intervening language. In this way many of the earlier Italian
loans came to us through French, the Italian of the Renaissance
having reached France first, and thence having passed on to us.
In thiB way, too, the earliest loan-words from the east have come
to us through Latin, many of them having already passed through

6 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

Greek before reaching Latin. Even in the early centuries of this
era, before communication became as simple and rapid as it is
to-day, words travelled thousands of miles, westwards from Asia
to Europe, across Europe from east to west and from south to
north, all round the shores of the Mediterranean, from nation
to nation and from generation to generation. Most of these
much-travelled words are objects of trade or culture. The word
pepper, for instance, came first from some eastern language into
Greek, thence into Latin and thence into English; elephant
was first Egyptian, then Greek, Latin, French, and finally English ;
camel was originally Semitic, and this too passed through Greek
and Latin before reaching our language. Albatross is based
ultimately on a* Phoenician word which drifted successively
into Greek, Arabic, and Portuguese, and then into English.
Apricot began a long history in Latin, from which it passed in
succession to Greek, Arabic, Spanish, French, and English.
Silk has been Chinese, Greek, Latin, and finally English. Carat
comes through Greek, Arabic, Italian, and French.

In recent times, English has partially adopted from distant
countries many words which are used chiefly or exclusively in
connexion with the countries from which they come, by people
who themselves know these countries, or in books describing
them, either of necessity (for lack of equivalent English terms), or
for the sake of local colour. The book about South America
will have its gauchos, lariats, vaqueros, ponchos, cordilkras, and
llanos; the Malayan its amboynas, copra, ihlang-ihlanfl,
mangosteens, krises, parangs, and sarongs ; to the Anglo-Indian,
his chota hazris, tiffins, chits, baksheesh, dhobis, punka/is, arc as
much a part of his everyday life as his chutney $ and curries,

When used by English speakers, such, words practically always
adopt English inflexions. It has indeed been usual all through
the history of loan-words in our language for thorn to become
rapidly acclimatized enough to be treated grammatically and
syntactically as English words. In modern times perhaps this
does not mean very much, since so many of the more recent
loans are nouns, and English nominal inflexions arc so few ;
but it holds good in the earlier periods, when verbs and
adjectives were adopted freely from Latin and French, though
occasionally in Late Old English some words of the learned type,

INTRODUCTORY 7

borrowed in the written language, may keep their Latin inflexions.
A few foreign plurals chiefly in more recent borrowings from
the classical languages have been retained in English, these
having become familiar, to many of those who use them, in the
course of a classical education ; such are agenda, desiderata,
data, magi, radii, gladioli, nebulae, criteria, crises, theses ; some
nouns have the foreign plural as well as a native form, sometimes,
though not always, with a distinction of meaning, e.g. appendixes,
appendices ; indexes, indices ; formulas, formulae ; funguses,
fungi ; geniuses, genii ; hippopotamuses, hippopotami ; and in
words other than Greek or Latin, cherubs, cherubim ; bandits,
banditti ; virtuosos, virtuosi. But classical words, even the more
recent adoptions, which have become entirely popular never have
foreign plurals ; we have irises, crocuses, drvuses, villas, spectators,
omens, nasturtiums, not wides, croci, circi, villae, spectatores,
omina, nasturtia.

Foreign words, when once adopted into English, have always
been used freely with native prefixes and suffixes. Adverbs
in -ly, adjectives in -ful, -less, abstract nouns in -ness, -ship,
are found with French first elements almost as frequently as
with English (e.g. nicely, pleasantly ; cheerful, beautiful, fruitless ;
gentleness, companionship, etc.) ; and so also the English
prefixes un-,fore-, over-, etc., may have foreign second elements
(e.g. unaided, unbar, unconscious, forecast, overcharge, overawe,
etc.). Hybrid compounds of noun plus noun, adjective plus
noun, etc., are not uncommon; such are salt-cellar (English
and French), heirloom (French and English), fainthearted (French
and English), longlegged (English and Scandinavian), blackmail
(English and Scandinavian), as well as the more recent scientific
words such as claustrophobia, Anglophile, and even television.
English has, moreover, adopted foreign (especially Latin) prefixes
and suffixes, and many of these are living elements which can
be used with words from any source (e.g. pre-, infra-, inter-,
-ism, -ize).

When a foreign word is borrowed, it may or may not retain
its original pronunciation in the adopting language. If each of
its sounds already exists in the latter, it will probably be adopted
in a pretty accurate form ; if, however, some of its sounds are
alien to the adopting language, each of these will be replaced by

8 HISTORY OP FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

the nearest native sound. Even if some speakers are familiar
with, and can pronounce, the dialect from which it comes, their
pronunciation will not be generally adopted. Thus there were
different pronunciations of some of the French words borrowed
in Middle English, the French nasal vowels, for instance, being
retained for a time at least by bilingual speakers, while those
who spoke only English substituted for them the English non-
nasal vowels. Sometimes a foreign word in English will be
partly anglicized, even by those who speak the language from
which it comes . For instance, the word garage is usually pronounced
with the first vowel as in English hat [], and not with the French
vowel, but retains the French [z] for the final consonant, though
this sound does not occur as a final consonant in native words.
Among some who do not speak Standard English, the word
is completely anglicized, the [z] being replaced by the group
[dz] (as in the second syllable of carnage), which is common in
English in this position. Similarly, the word voile, as the name
of a material, usually retains its French [wa], though somewhat
lengthened, but is sometimes heard, in shops, etc., with the
anglicized (spelling pronunciation) oi [voil] ; while French
words with 6, , or e have the vowel diphthongized to [oi] (e.g.
fete, fianct) since Modern Standard English has normally no
long [e]. Again, the Spanish II, which is an I made with the
middle of the tongue (in the same position as the consonant
y [j]) and not with the tip, has the ordinary English I substituted
for it, in words such as llama, llano \ and for the Spanish ft
(pronounced like the gn in French montagne) English people
will use the two consonants [nj], sometimes oven writing it ny,
e.g. in canyon (Spanish cafiori).

Once a word has become perfectly assimilated in the spoken
language, each of its sounds will follow all the fortxtnes of that
sound in the adopting language ; French 1 and e, for example,
borrowed in the Middle English period, undergo the same
developments as the English 1 and e of that period, the former
becoming [oi] as in Present-Day English, line, fine, the latter
[I] as in chief, brief.

Apart from the anglicizing tendency already referred to, the
more recently a word has been adopted in English, the more
likely it is to retain its original pronunciation, since it will have

INTEODUCTORY 9

been affected by fewer purely English changes changes which
have been going on continuously ever since English became an
independent language in the fourth or fifth century.

The principal languages which have affected the vocabulary
of English have been Scandinavian, French, and Latin, the last
most of all. Scandinavian words were borrowed most freely
between the ninth century and the twelfth, [French words during
the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, but Latin
words have been making their way into English, throughout
almost the whole period of its history, first into the spoken
language, later into written English (through religion, literature,
and science), though this latter form of borrowing has given
many words also to the spoken language.

During the Modern Period, that is to say after about 14=00,
the most important period of foreign borrowing was the latter
part of the sixteenth century, and the early seventeenth century.
Then, as will be seen, many different languages first become
represented in the English vocabulary, owing to the remarkable
increase in England's direct contacts with foreign countries
at this time, which led to direct borrowing from languages
which had previously affected the language only indirectly,
and also to the appearance of words from languages previously
unknown in England or even in Europe.

Before beginning an historical examination of the types of
words borrowed from each of the languages which have influenced
English, of the circumstances in which such borrowing began,
and of the character of the sources in which they are first recorded,
it will be well to consider some of the classes of what may be
reckoned as loan-words which are not dealt with here.

Phrases from foreign sources are not often folly acclimatized,
and are almost always used as aliens printed in italics, or in
inverted commas, and so forth ; such are many French phrases,
e.g. de trop, en rfyle, tout ensemble, femme de chambre, par excellence,
feu de joie, joie de vivre, and Latin phrases, e.g. non seqwitur,
a priori, ad hoc, sine die, sine qua non (though it is true that to
some people such Latin groups have a less foreign atmosphere
than the French ones, probably because they are usually
pronounced with entirely English sounds).

Secondly, names of places, when these are used as the names

10 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

of products, etc., without, however, the original sense being
fully lost. Some place-names have become so thoroughly
obscured (through early borrowing and consequently numerous
sound-changes, or by dissociation from an original place of
manufacture), that they have to be accepted as ordinary loans,
e.g. chest(nut), currant, cambric, calico, which should be compared
with such forms as Chablis, Moselle, Ohianti, and other names of
wines, Angora (wool), Morocco (leather), Nankin (china), etc.,
(some of which may be used either absolutely or attributively,
like the last three).

Then there are what are sometimes called ' translation-
loans ', especially common in the case of compounds in the older
periods of English, when a foreign word expressing a new idea
is represented by the nearest equivalent of each of its elements,
as when in Old English, for the Latin word uni-cornu$, the English
form cm-horn, = one-horn, is coined ; all-mihtig for Latin
omnipotens, god-spell (Gospel) for Latin evangelium (from Greek
eu-angelion ' good message ').

Another type of word not dealt with in the present volume
is to be found in forms borrowed by Standard English from other
dialects of English, e.g. words from American English ; or from
Scottish or Northern English, such as bairn, raid, hale, which have
a typically northern phonological development, or are known
to have been widely current in the north before they appear in
Standard English. (Words in Scottish, Irish, etc. of non-English
origin, are, however, included, since these are really foreign words.)

To conclude this chapter, it must be emphasized that the
c first recorded use ' of a word, especially in the earlier periods,
does not necessarily imply ' first use \ (a) because a word may
be in current use for some time before it appears in any written
document, and (b) because obviously many words may have
been recorded for the first time in documents no longer extant.
But in later periods the first occurrence in writing, particularly
of words from the more remote languages, or of purely ' learned *
loans, such as some of those mentioned in the concluding chapter,
may be in actual fact the first use of the word in English speech
or writing, or be almost exactly contemporary with this.

And so, leaving more general considerations, we must turn
to a more detailed study.

CHAPTER II
LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST

The history of Latin words in English begins in the continental
period before the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes crossed the North
Sea to settle in this country. From the time of Julius Caesar
onwards we have evidence from the Roman historians of contact
between the Germanic and the Latin peoples, which led to the
adoption of Germanic words into Latin, and of Latin words into
Germanic. The Roman armies included northern cohorts, and
their familiarity with Latin military terminology and with the
names of everyday objects in use in camp and town, served to
introduce Latin terms into the native dialects of these soldiers
from Nordic tribes. Tacitus mentions Germani who understood
Latin, but close acquaintance with it was perhaps not widespread
even among members of the legions, a limited, partly technical,
vocabulary of Latin words being sufficient for professional needs.

The interchange of words between Germanic and Latin speakers
for the first two or three centuries of this era took place in the
spoken language ; that is to say, it was not usually Classical
Latin which lent and borrowed but the widespread, popular,
Vulgar Latin, which was the ancestor of the modern Romance
languages, and which, even as early as the third century, was
beginning to split up into its different branches in different parts
of the Roman Empire. From our point of view the most
important of these was the Gallo-Roman, from which came the
majority of such early loans into English as show any dialectal
variation from Common Romance or Vulgar Latin.

Ihe words adopted from Germanic into Latin for the most
part show no particular dialectal characteristics, which indicates
that the borrowings date from an early period (perhaps before
A.D. 350~40), though some are not recorded until considerably
later, appearing for the first time in the individual Romance
languages (e.g. in French or Italian). Most of these words are
military terms ; there is, for instance, Iwrgus (cf. OJE. bwh

12 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

' fortified place, city ', ModJE. borough ; Goth, laurgs) in the
sense of ' small fort ; watch-tower ' (the modern French form
is bourg), which appears in second-century inscriptions, and is
used by Vegetius in the fourth, century. This writer, however,
implies that the word is not fully naturalized : castellum
parvulum, qu&m burgum vacant ' a little fort, which they call
burgus '. Isidore, more than two hundred years later, has a similar
phrase : burgos vulgo vacant ' they call them burgos in the vulgar
tongue '. Drungus ' a body of soldiers ' is used by both Vopiscus
and Vegetius in the fourth century. Carrago ' a barricade of
wagons ', from carr + Gmc. *hago ' hedge, barrier ', is recorded
by Ammianus Marcellinus about A.D. 400 as a Gothic word.
(The element carr, which, appears also in Latin as carrus ' wagon ',
is a Celtic word.) Among terms denoting articles of commerce,
Latin borrowed spelta, a kind of grain, ' spelt ' (first recorded
A.D, 301, see Walde, Lat. etymol. Worterbuch), sapo ' soap ' ; and
among names of animals alce($) 'elk' and urus 'wild ox'.
Further, Romance used the words brando ' sword ', helmo
6 helmet ', gonfakne ' standard ', mariscako ' farrier ', baldo
6 bold ', besides several nanies of colours, which are common to
a number of Romance dialects, and the adoption of which, it
has been suggested, was due to the habit of the Germanic tribes
(mentioned by Tacitus) of painting their wooden shields with*
colours. Thus Mod. French has blanc, brun, gris, bku, all o
Germanic origin. It happens not infrequently that a word
borrowed by Romance from Germanic, and established in the
French dialects, was later adopted by English among its loans'
from Anglo-Norman or Central French.

It has been indicated above that the first spread of Latin words
into Germanic was due to military influence. After the Roman
soldier came the Roman merchant. From the time of the first
establishment by Julius Caesar of an imperial province in the
neighbourhood of the Rhine, tlie trade of Italy turned in this
direction, and the inhabitants of the new province quickly learnt
to approve the new stuffis and household vessels, the plants and
their products, the ornaments and the games, which came to
them from the south. Roman coins became generally used, and,
when local miats were eventually set up, classical designs were
followed. Towards the north, beyond the limits of the Roman

LATIN WOEDS BEFOKE THE CONQUEST 13

province, the spread of objects and ideas, and the words which
accompanied them, was slower, and there is a not inconsiderable
number of early loan-words from Latin to be found in the southern
dialects of Germany, which apparently did not penetrate as far
as the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea, and therefore are
not found in Old English, or appear there only in a form which
makes it certain that they were borrowed after the settlement
in this country.

Since the earliest records of English date from the seventh
century only, it follows that our evidence for the earliest loan-
words from Latin is of an indirect character. Of the Latin words
which occur in Old English, a fairly large number occur also in
Old High German, in Gothic, in Old Saxon, in Dutch, or other
Germanic dialects, and their wide diffusion points to early
adoption. Sometimes, instead of or in addition to this, the form
which they have assumed in Old English indicates the date of
borrowing, since many of the sound-changes characteristic of
Old English can be fairly accurately dated, and the absence
of certain distinctively English developments in the borrowed
words shows the time of their introduction to have been
subsequent to such phonological changes. (Of. the [sk] of school,
O.E. scol, Lat. schola, and of scuttle, O.E. scutel, Lat. scutula,
'with the [/] of the earlier loan shrine, O.E. s&nn, Lat. scnwivm ;
when the two first were adopted the tendency for sk to become
[/] in English was at an end.) Further, the presence or absence
in the borrowed words of certain datable developments in Vulgar
Latin gives some indication of the date of borrowing ; for
instance, O.E. pipor ' pepper ' must have been adopted before
the time of the Vulgar Latin change of intervocalic p to 6, later
v (cf . Pr. poivre), or O.E. would have *pifer (f = v) ; on the other
hand, O.E. caefester ' halter ' (Lat. capistrum) represents Vulgar
Lat. cdbistrum or ccwistrum, and so must have been borrowed
after the period of this change.

After the English came to this country the chief source of
Latin loan-words was the Vulgar Latin used by the Romano-
Britons. It is sometimes impossible to distinguish between loans
of the later continental period (between 300 and 450) and those
of the first centuries of the settlement (450-650), and in some
cases, though these are in a minority, words included in, the

14 HISTORY OF FOBEIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

lists representing these two periods respectively (see App. A)
might be transferred from one to the other with equal probability
of correctness. After about 650, words are introduced which no
longer come under the influence of the early Old English sound-
changes ; now, too, the source of the loans is Classical Latin as
much as, or more than, Vulgar Latin or Romance, owing to the
western spread of Latin writings and scholarship. The intro-
duction of Christianity into England during the early seventh
century was the starting-point of this new influx, and since
much of the early prose of this country is of a religious
character, and is partly at least dependent on Latin sources,
many of the new Latin words which now appear are of
a religious character. Later, ' learned ' words relating to
scholarship in general appear in English works as the scope of
these is widened.

It will be seen that a large majority of the earliest loans are
nouns the names of concrete objects. Adjectives and verbs
are rare, and most of the latter are derivatives from nouns
(e.g. jnnian ' to punish, torment ', from the noun pm, from Lat,
pena, poena * punishment '). More verbs are introduced during
the third period (i.e. after 600-650), but even then arc less
common than nouns ; adjectives are still rare, and such as do
occur are often remodelled by the change of a Latin suffix to
an English one (e.g. mechanic-us ( mechanical ' appears as
mechanise, with the substitution of Eng. -isd, Mod. -ish,
for Lat. -ic-). Old English suffixes are used freely to
form derivative nouns, adjectives, and adverbs from Latin
nouns; e.g. papdom 'papacy', from Lat. papa and O.E,
-dam (as in kingdom) ; sacerdhad ' priesthood ' ; regolKte
* according to rule '. Hybrid compounds arc not un-
common, e.g. sealms&op 'psalmist' from Lat. psaJma and
O.E. scop ' poet '.

Not nearly all of the words borrowed before the Conquest
have survived to the present day. Many were replaced by intro-
ductions from French, which, though coining from tho same
Latin form as the Old English word, have acquired a distinctive
form in French itself. Thus Mod. Eng. gem is from Old French
gemne, from Lat. gemma ; the latter had been borrowed by
Germanic before the English settlement in England, a&d appears

LATIN WOEDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 15

in Old English as gimm ; if this had survived it would have been
yim in Modern English. 1

The extent to which the individual words are used varies
considerably. Some words may be found in almost any Old
English text which is examined ; for our knowledge of others we
are dependent on a single occurrence, perhaps in a glossary of
the tenth or eleventh century, or in a medical prescription. This
fact probably does not in all cases reflect the frequency of use in
the spoken language, since the distribution of the words in writing
naturally depends on the subject dealt with, and the Old English
documents, though their scope is fairly wide, do not cover all
aspects of ordinary life.

A list of the Old English loans from Latin is given in
Appendix A for reference, with their Latin or Romance originals,
divided roughly into three periods and classified according to their
meaning. It should be noted that a number of words coming
into English from Latin were previously adopted into that
language from Greek ; this is often the case with words relating
to the arts and sciences ; the corresponding Greek forms are
given in the lists.

A glance at the list will show the changing character of the loan-
words in the different periods. In the earliest stratum there are
moderately large groups of military and official and of general
trade terms ; a longer list for dress and textiles (twenty-three
words), and equally long ones for vessels and receptacles, and
for towns, houses, and building. But words for plants and
agriculture form the largest group ; many of the plant-names
are ultimately of more remote origin than Latin (some are from
Egyptian and Asiatic sources) and imply the gradual introduction
into Western Europe of plants from the south and east. 2 A
number of the animal-names, too, are non-European, and indicate
the increasing acquaintance of Europe with the Eastern world.

Of the lists from the second period, the longest are provided
by vessels (again) and by plants and agriculture. The number of

1 In the chapters on Old English and in Appendix A the modern English
equivalent, if it is derived directly from the O.E. form, is given in small capitals.
If a modern denvative exists, though not exactly the same in meaning as the
O.B. word, it is added in brackets in small capitals.

* On early agriculture and horticulture in England see Hoops, Waldbdume
und Kutturpflanzen, especially ohs. xiii-zv.

16 HISTOEY OF FOEEIGN WOEDS IN ENGLISH

vessel-names from this and the earlier period implies a very
large variety of these used by Latin-speaking peoples, and only
a small number used by the Germanic peoples before they came
into contact with the south.. Some of these terms survive now
as very common words : cup, bin, chest, pan, pail, pot. The
etymology of many of their Latin or Vulgar Latin forms is
doubtful.

In the second period a new class is added : Learning and
religion. (For the earliest introductions under the influence of
Christianity see the section on Greek.) This includes such words
as MONK, NUN, and MINSTER, besides pinsian * to reflect,
consider ', gl&san ' to interpret, gloss ', grssf * a style for
writing '.

In the third section words relating to religion and learning
have very much increased in number. As has already been said,
many of these depend directly on written sources, and did not
always penetrate into the spoken language. It is not always
possible in the Old English texts to distinguish between the
foreign words which the writer accepted as English, and those
which he still considered foreign, and used, as it wore, in italics.
There is a fairly large group in this period of words relating to
music and poetry large, that is, when compared with the few
words for these in the native vocabulary. (The most important
Germanic instrument was the harp (O.E. hearpe), and the chief
words for * music > were gleo (Mod. Eng. glee], dream, hkopor,
and (ge)sang (Mod. Eng. song). The word poeta is not recorded
before the Conquest ; the native word was stop.)

For the large number of plant-names which are recorded in
Old English we are indebted in particular to throe books of
medicine, on which some notes will be given later. It is probable
that the plants named were not all grown in England at that
time ; some of them are impossible to identify with certainty.

We shall now discuss briefly the Latin clement of the chief
Old English documents, giving instances of the uses of the
foreign words.

BioHTH-OBNTtray GLOSSARIES

We may begin with a group of eighth-oontury glossaries :
the Corvus. Ewinal* and Erfurt Glossaries, lists of Latin words

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 17

with their Old English equivalents, of which the last two date
from about A.D. 700, and are often identical, while the first is
a little later and longer than the others, though certainly related
to them. Citations are from the Corpus Glossary x unless a special
reference to one of the others is given. The majority of the
Latin loan-words which appear in the Old English lists are from
the oldest stratum of loans ; some of them are actually the
English developments of the Latin words they translate :
luxus box (tree) (not in Ep^nal-Erfurt) 47 ; castanectr ciesten
(beam) ' chestnut ' 47 ; cerasius ciser-(beam) * cherry ' 49 ;
cokandrum cellendre * coriander ' 53 ; ekctrum elotr * lupin '
59 ; fimculus finugl c fennel ' 63 ; mentJia minte mint '
35 ; nap^s naep ' turnip ' 79. Among the more interesting
correspondences are the following : (A) (= oldest loans)
gladiatores cempan 67 ; dulvis sapa caeren (= ceren) * new
wine ' 57 ; caepa 6ipe, ynnelaec e onion ' 49 (ope also used to
gloss ascalonia ' shallot ' : scolonia cipe 95 ; coagolum cese-
(lyb) ' rennet ' 53 ; ferculum ' a dish of food ' dis6 63 ; also
paneta ( = patina) disd 85 ; ebor ' ivory ' elpend(baan)
(= elephant tusk) 59; nomisma mynit 'coin 9 [MINT] 81,
and numularius miyniteri * moneyer * 81 ; lenticula piose

* PEAS ' 75 ; popig glosses both papaver ' POPPY * 85 and
cucumis * cucumber ' 55 ; perpendiculum pundur ' plumb-
line ' 87 ; promulgarunt (pret. pi.) scribun * decreed '
87 ; bulla sifeil ' seal ' 45 ; appothecctr win(faet) * WTNE-
cask ' 41.

(B) Byden glosses the Latin words doleus ' a large globular
jar ' 35, and cupa * tub, cask ' 53 ; vestibulum caebrtuun
(=ceafortun *hall, court') 105; fellus catte 'CAT* 63;
capsis 6est c CHEST ' 47 ; luteum crohna c yellow ' 75 ;
conchar- musclan s6el e mussel shell ' 55 ; se&n is used for both
Idbarum 73 and vexiUa 105 ; aka teU (= toj/Z ' die '), akator
' gambler ' 39. Finally bis6op appears here, not primarily in the
ecclesiastical sense, but in the plant-name biscopuuyrt ' BISHOP-
wort ' 67, glossing hibiscwm.

* COOKS ' 55 ; quaternio qtuatern (4 on dice) 91 ; porfyrio
feohder * bittern ' 87 ; immunes (== immanes) orceas ' evil

1 Ed. Sweet, Oldest English Texts, B.E,T.S., 83, from MS. o.o.o.cbg., oadiv.

18 HISTORY OF FOKEIGN" WORDS IJST ENGLISH

spirits ' 69 ; locwta lopust e locust ' 75 ; the last two are not
in Spinal or Erfurt.

An English word is added to the Latin loan in cyline * KILN ',
heorde ' hearth ', glossing fornacula 65. Cearricgge, from Lat.
carruca, a four-wheeled travelling-carriage, occurs in all these
three glossaries, but is not recorded elsewhere in Old English.
The Epinal Glossary has fax feetilaa c torch ' 62, which is not
in Corpus.

THE EABLTER VERSE z

Although almost the whole body of pre-Conquest poetry is
extant only in copies dating from the early eleventh century,
yet the originals of some are undoubtedly to be placed at least
as early as the eighth century, Widsith, probably the oldest,
has, apart from tribal names, only two Latin words : wiii-
(burga) * wmE-cities ' (i,e. rejoicing in wine) 20, and casere
* emperor ' 76. The latter word is used very commonly throughout
Old English for the Emperor of the East and the Emperor of
the West. 2 (It is also used once with reference to David : casere
creaftig * mighty emperor *, Psalm 1, Gr.-W., iii, 2, p. 231.)

In Beowulf, the other heroic poems, and the so-called ' elegiac '
poems, the Latin words are still of the popular type adopted
into the spoken language in the two earlier periods. They arc
not very numerous. They are used with no sense of strangeness,
but are perfectly jat home in the language. The following are
the chief ones found in Beowulf, with examples of their context :
ancor : stip on ancrefsest 303 * the ship fast at anchor ' ; camp :
in campe gecrong curribks hyrde 2505 * the guardian of the banner
fell in the fight ' ; toaster ' city ' 768 ; 6apian : matfma herd
grimme geceapod 3012 ' treasure dearly bought ' ; 6Iepaa ; dSofol
(see p. 52) : gegyrwed deqfies cr&ftum and dracanfellum 2888 ' (a
pouch) adorned with devil's skill and with dragon's skins ' : dis6
and ore : him big stodan bunan and orcas, / discos logon and dyre
sweord 3047-8 ' goblets and cups stood beside it, dishes lay there
and precious swords ; (of the treasure in tho dragon's cave) ;
draca, used for the dragon of the poem by the side of the native

1 References are to lines as given in Groin- Wttlcker, Biblfotfak dcr
sacfaidchen Poesie.
8 See B. W, Chambers, Widsith, pp. 102, 212.

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 19

wyrm ; glgant (one of the few late loans in this poem) : gigantas
pa wiSgode wunnon 113 c giants that fought with God ' ; giganta
weorc 1562 ' the work of giants ' (of a sword) ; gimm : heofones
gim glad ofer grundas 2072 ' heaven's jewel glided above the
fields ' ; ndl ; non ; scrifan : Sser abidan sceal . . . miclan
domes, / hu him scir metod scrifan wille 979 * there he must abide
the judgment how the Creator will pass sentence on Trim ; segn :
segn call gylden 2767 * a golden banner ' ; sigle ; street : street
WSBS stanfah 320 ' the road was paved with stones ' ; in com-
position with native words, lagu-strset, mere-stmt e sea highway '
(of the ocean) 239, 514 ; weall : wid d&s recedes weall 326
6 against the wall of the house ' ; ssensessas, windige weallas 572
e the sea headlands, windy cliffs ' ; wic ; win : druncon win
weras 1233 * the men drank wine '. Candel appears in Beowulf
in the phrase roderes candel 1572 c heaven's candle, the sun *,
and it is in such phrases and with this meaning that this word is
always found in Old English verse. Cf. godes condelle ( God's
candle ' (Phoenix 91) ; seo wlitige wuldres candel (Juliana 454)
6 fair candle of glory ' : heofonlic candel (Guthlac 1264) * heavenly
candle '. It is also used in the same sense in compounds : dseg-
condel (Riddle 88/26) ' day-candle ' ; friS-candel (Genesis 2539)
' lamp of peace ; , etc.

The other heroic and * elegiac ' poems have nothing to add to
these except for torr, which occurs in the Ruin : hrofas sind
gehrorene hreorge torras 3 'the roofs are fallen, the towers in
ruin'.

The early Biblical paraphrases Genesis, Exodus, Daniel
have further foreign contributions to make to the vocabulary
of English poetry : selmesse : syle SBlmyssan, wes ecvrmra hko
(Daniel 587) ' give alms, be the protector of the poor ' (A.V.
* by shewing mercy to the poor ') ; cluster : p&t lie up heonon
ute mihte cuman purh pas clustro (Genesis 416) ' that he might
go up hence through these bars ' (from the speech of Satan
in hell) ; culfre : ofer heah ws&ter haswe culfrm (Genesis 1451)
' a grey dove across the towering waves ' (of Noah's dove) ;
earc, in Genesis of Noah's ark, in Daniel of the Ark of the
Covenant ; ele(beam) ' olive-tree ' (Genesis 1473) ; en&el
' angel ' ; esol : onganpa his esolas l&tan (Gen. 2866) * (Abraham)
began to bridle his asses ' (the only occurrence of the word in

20 HISTORY OP FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

O.E. verse) : msessere e priest ', sScerd ' priest ' : bletsian pe
pine sacerdos, soSfsest cyning 9 milde m&sseras (Azarias 148-9)
6 Thy priests bless Thee, just King, Thy gentle ministers ' :
seguiau : he segnade earce innan (Gen. 1365) ' blessed the ark
within ' ; tempi : sunn Dauides getimbrede tempel (Exodus 391)
c the son of David built a temple '. Street is used for the way
across the Red Sea : wegas syndon dryge, haswe herestr&ta
(Exodus 284) e the ways are dry, the tawny highways '. The
tower of Babel is called a stiSlio stanton in Genesis 1700 (' strong
tower of stone '). Segn is used for the pillar of fire in Exodus
(127) ; the word appears elsewhere in the poem in the sense of
6 banner '. If the emendation kon for leor in Exodus 319 is correct,
as seems certain, this passage gives us the first instance of leo
in Old English poetry : h&fdon him to segne . . . bcacen ar&red,
gyldenne leon ' they had raised up a banner a golden lion for
a sign '. Ceaster is used frequently for * city '.

The collection of Riddles preserved in the Exeter Book may
include both eighth and ninth-century poems ; some may bo
even earlier. They contain few Latin words which do not occur
elsewhere in Old English verse, and few which are interesting
in other ways. The following are found in the Riddles only :
byden : bapedan mec in bydene 28/6 * bathed mo in a butt "
(with reference to the making of mead) ; cyrten : ful cyrtenn
ceorles dohter 26/5 ' a churl's beautiful daughter ' ; Hlie : pcah
pe Mie $y beorht on Uostman 41/27 * though the lily bo bright
of blossom'. All those, however, aro to bo found in proso. Line,
pa, and rose appear in the Riddles for the first timo in O.E.
verse ; cf. hildepilas 16/28 ' javelins ' ; ic com stence strengre
micle / ponne ricels oppe rose sy 41/24 * I am in scont far stronger
than is incense or the rose '. Gimm is used in tho senso of * jewel ' :
deora gimmum 84/36 * more precious than jewels '. Earc is used
for a box : ofte mec bikac . . . ides on earce 62/2 * often a woman
shut me (i.e. a helmet) up in a box '.

With the poems of Cynewulf and his school, which may bo
eighth or ninth century, we come to words of a moro distinctly
theological character, besides other new ones. The signed poems
of Cynewulf (Grist, Ekne, Juliana, Fates of the Apostles) have
the following words which, do not occur in the texts already
discussed : apostol : only in the compound apostolhad (Fates

LATIN WORDS BEFOKE THE CONQUEST 21

14) ' apostleship ', with English, suffix : the apostles are referred
to as aepelingas, pegnas ' heroes, thanes ' , and in other such terms ;
calend : on Maias Kalendas (Elene 1229) c in the month of
May ' : care- (ern) : Sa w&s mid clustre carcernes duru / behliden
(JuL 236) c then the prison-door was closed with a bar ' ; (be)-
clysan ( ; martyr : da
Ed. Millet, &E.T.8., 96-^, UO-U. Bef, to page.

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 29

prowunge para haligra martyra 40 'the passion of the holy
martyrs ' ; prowunge is the native word equivalent to
martyrdom ; for martyr the word prowere is often used ; meter-
fers : we . . . awriton, ge meter-fersum ge geradre sprsece 366 e we
have written, both in verse and in prose ' (= et uersibus heroicis
et simplid oratione) ; meterfersum asang and geradre sprsece
gesette 448 (== et uersibus exametris, et prosa composuit) ; meter-
cr&ft = metncse ars 258 ; non : py feordan ww-dsege . . .f&ston
to nones 162 ' the fourth week-day they fasted till noon ' ;
subdiacon : to subdiaeone gehalgad 254 e ordained subdeacon * ;
tabul : gehalgadne tabul on wigbedes gewixle 416 ' a consecrated
table in place of an altar ' (= tabulam altaris uice) ; tra(wc) :
on gelicnesse pses traiscan w&les wundade 154 * wounded in the
manner of the tragic slaughter * (= tragica caede) ; but this
should perhaps be troisc = Trojan, which is the word used in
another, similar, passage (306).

The following may also be noted : ampelle : genom his
ompellan and sumne d&l pses eles sende in pone see 200 * took his
flask and poured some of the oil into the sea ' ; ancor : pa
ongunnon pa scipmen pa oncras upp teon 200 * then the sailors
began to draw up the anchors ' ; crisp : and h&fde crispe loccas
f&gre 390 ' and had pretty curly hair ' ; cruc : pa a&enede se
biscop hine in cruce 372 * the bishop prostrated himself in the
form of a cross ' ; fers : pafers and pa word pe he nsefre gehyrde
344 * the verses and the words which he had never heard ' ;
meregrota : on Sam beop oft gemettan da betstan meregrotan 26
* in these are often found the best pearls ' ; portic : in pa&re
cirican nortfportice 106 c in the north porch of the church * ;
piafost : prafost and ealdormon 232, profost and regolweard 360
(propositus of a monastery); regol: peodscipe regottices
Uifes 226 f the discipline of regular life ' ; se^n, used by the
side of toon to translate uex^tta 9 cf . 144, 146, 184 ; street :
ceastre and torras and str&te and brycge on heora rice geworhte
w&ron 44 * towns and towers and roads and bridges were made
in their country ' (=* stratae).

Bang Alfred's translation of Boethius's Consolation of
Philosophy l (and we include here the verse as well as the prose
version of the Metra) has very few words of Latin origin which
i Ed. Sedgeaeld, Oxford, 1899.

30 HISTOEY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

do not occur in liis other writings. Consul (as in Orosius) has an
explanatory note : pa WBBS sum consul, pset we heretoha hataS
7 ' there was a certain consul, which we call heretoga ' ; culpian
is found in this text and apparently nowhere else in Old English :
past mon scyle culpian to psem pe him gifan scyle 71 e that a man
must cringe to one who may give to him ' ; Iseden has here the
sense of ' Latin ', but lodseden is used also for ' Latin ' (i.e.
( book Latin '), and occasionally in Old English leeden is used for
' language ' in general ; cf . the references to ^Elfric's Heptateuch
below ; must occurs here in the phrase peak pe wel lyste wearmes
mustes 12 ' though you much desire new wine '. The remaining
words of interest in Boethius are a small group of bird and animal
names : cypera : povme eow fon lysteS leax oSSe cyperan 176
' when you wish to catch " lax " or " kipper " ' (i.e. salmon at
two different stages) ; tigris : swiflran ponne ligris . . . strengran
ponne leo 72 e swifter than the tiger, stronger than the lion ' ;
ultor : se ultor sceolde forlsetan $&t he ne slat da lifre Sticces 102
'the vulture is said to have stopped tearing the liver ol S.'
(when it heard the music of Orpheus).

Finally, from the version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies only
two words need be mentioned : inse&l : gyf Sines hlafordes
ssrendgewrit and hys insegel to Se cymS 24 (the first occurrence)
' if thy lord's letter and his seal come to thee ' ; line : be set is }>onne tungolcrseft ; astronomia,
J>set is tungla gang ; geometrica, Tp&t ys eorS-gemet 212 ;
mechanica, Ipsst is weoruld-weorces craeft ; medicina, ]?set is
laece-domes crseft 214 ; musica, J>set ys dreamcrseft 212.

The translation of Gregory's Dialogues by Wserferth, Bishop of
Worcester, is another important prose work of Alfred's time.
Perhaps the most interesting point about the Latin element in
its vocabulary is the variation in the three manuscripts. The
Oxford MS. (BodL Hatton 76) sometimes has a native word
where the Cambridge MS. (C.C.C. S 10) has one of Latin origin
and (more rarely) vice versa. The British Museum MS. (Cott.
Otho C. I) usually has the same word as the Cambridge MS.
(these two MSS. are very close in other respects), but occasionally
agrees with Hatton against Cbg. It has been suggested that
Hatton represents a revision of the version in the other two MSS.

The following are the chief instances :

(A) Latin word in Cbg. :

Cbg.

bydene

bydenu

calicas

candele

carcern

epistolan

militisces (mannes)

spertan (= spyxtan)

B.M.

bydene

bydenu

calicas

candele

carcern

epistoka

militisces (mannes)

spertan

Hatton

ele-treddan 50
kyfa57
scencea 127
leoht(es) 143,
cweartern 107
asrend-gewrite 38
J>egenes 77, 78
wylian 110

32 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

Cbg. B.M. Hatton

tapor tapor weocon 44

tone torre stypele(s) 170, 3

(B) English word in Cbg. :

beode mysan mysan 143

beode beode mysan 143

gebletsodon gesenodon gesenodon 124

god-webbenum god-webbenum psellenum 131

lof-sang lof-sang (beod)-fers 62

(ge)cide (ge)cide ceaste 64

Sometimes Cbg. uses both a loan-word and the corresponding
native word in the same passage : calic (here in the sense of
' lamp ', not ' cup ' as in the list above) : pone tobrocenan calic
p&re serran gesynto eft ageaf 50 * gave back the broken lamp as
whole as before ' ; elsewhere in this chapter glsesen leoht-f&t ;
here the variation depends on the Latin original, which has
calicem in the sentence quoted, but lampas vitrea later in the
passage. Mese : pa [grenan wyrta] to ure mysan bringed 181
' shall bring green vegetables to our table ' ; but beode is used
on the same page.

The word tempi is used in this text with reference to the temple
of God and to that of Apollo. Solor, which usually has the
meaning of ' upper room, solar ' (cf . gestod in pom solore p&s
Mynstres 119 ' stood in the upper room of the monastery J )
once translates palatium : peowode in pam solore p&re Con-
stantinopoliscan byrig 248 * should serve in the palace of the
city of Constantinople '.

The following loan-words appear here for the first time in
English prose, though some have been noted earlier in glossaries :
cancer : gestanden on pa breost mid cwncre pme wunde 278
* afflicted in the breast with cancer ' ; leahtric : pa geseah heo
&ne kahtric 30 ' then she saw a lettuce ' ; cycene : pa awwrpon
hie pdBt . . .inpa cycenan 123 ' they threw it into the kitchen ' ;
cymbala : pa stod pser semmnga sum man mid anum apan * . .
and skh cymbalan 62 ' all at once there stood there a man with
an ape and struck cymbals ' ; cemes : butan his Jcemese 68
' without Ms shirt ' ; dalmatica : man alegde ofer pa b&re . . .

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 33

his dalmat^can 329 e they laid his dalmatic over the bier ' ;
dihtian : him to gehet his writers and him dihtode 193 c he
summoned his scribe and dictated to fri ' ; fenester : o<$ pset
hit becom upp to pam fenestrum 220 ' until it came up to the
windows ' ; matta : pset hine man alegde in his cytan on pa
meattan 125 ' that he should be laid on the mat in his cell ' ;
maeslere : ga to Abundium pam mseslere 228 ' go to A. the
sacristan ' (= vade ad Acontium mansionarium) ; serin : forlet
pa scrine his feoh-gestreones 52 * left his treasure-chest ' ;
milit(isc) : pa w&ron militisce men farende 194 c there were
soldiers travelling ' (= milites) ; spyrte : twa spyrtanfulle metes
203 ' two baskets full of food ' ; traht : in pam godspeUes trahtum
pe ic self awrat 283 ' in the commentary on the Gospel, which
I wrote myself ' ; trahtian, here * to discuss ' : ongunnon trahtian,
hwssSer hi mihton . . . pset unm&te stanckf onweg aleodian 213
' they began to discuss whether they could remove the huge rock '.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1 the first part of which was
compiled during King Alfred's reign, does not give us many words
of special interest until the eleventh century. The following
words from the ninth and tenth centuries, not very common in
Old English generally, may be mentioned :

Ninth Century : cometa (evidently a foreign word here) :
se steorra pe mon on bodxden hset cometa, same man cwepap on
Englisc pset hit feaxede steorra sie 892 ' the star which is called
c cometa ' in Latin, while in English men say that it is the star
with hair ' ; crisma : his crism-lising wses &t Wepmor 878 c the
putting off of his baptismal robe was at Wedmore ' ; cumpseder
(recorded here only) : JEpered his cump&der 894 * JE]?ered his
godfather ' ; domne : pa was domne Leo pape on Rome 853
' then was lord Leo pope at Home ' ; legat : past seo abbot beo
gehealden for legat of Rome 675 ' that the abbot should be
recognized as papal legate ' ; scol : py ikan geare forborn
Ongolcynnes scolu 816 * in the same year the English school
(at Rome) was burnt down ' ; senop : her wses gefiitfullic senop
3Bt Cealchype 785 ' in this year there was a disputatious synod at
Chelsea '. Tenth Century : mynetere : and an myneter in Stan-
ford 963 c and one maker of coins at Stamford ' ; Pentecosten :

1 Ed. Hummer, Two Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Parallel. Ref. to year of
Chronicle*

34 HISTOKY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

Pentecostenes dseg 973 ' the day of Pentecost ' ; portic : binnan
GLeawcestre on pam east portice sancte Petres cyrcean 918 * at
Gloucester in the east porch of St. Peter's church ' ; sanct
(usually used attributively) : he is nu defter deade heofonhc
sanct 979 * he is now after death a heavenly saint ? ; cleric :
draf ut pa clerca of pe biscoprice 963 e drove out the clergy from
the bishopric '.

THE OLD ENGLISH GOSPEL VERSIONS

Of the Old English translations of the four Gospels x the oldest
is the interlinear Northumbrian version in the Latin Liudisfarne
Gospels, added to the Latin in the middle of the tenth century.
A little later in date is the interlinear gloss in the Rushworth
Manuscript, in which the Gospel of St. Matthew is in a Midland
dialect, while those of St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John are in
a southern Northumbrian dialect, and are largely dependent on
the Lindisfarue gloss. The late West Saxon version is from about
1050, but may be considered here with the others. Taking
St. Matthew first, we find that each of the versions has its own
peculiarities. In Lindisfarne alone of the translations are the
following words (though some are found elsewhere in Old
English) : cealcian ' to whitewash ' : lyrgennum oferkiudwn
vel uta gec&kad sepulchres xxiii, 27 (= painted or whitewashed
on the outside), Rush, and LWS. Gospels (be)hwitum ; ceulas
' baskets ' xv, 37 where Rush, has sperta, LWSG. wilian ; cilic :
in cilic and in asca xi, 21 ' in sackcloth and ashes ', where Rush,
has in wite (= in torment), and LWSG, on h&ran (~ in hair-
cloth) ; cuopel, apparently from Mod. Lat. caupulus : in lytlum
stipe vel cuopk viii, 23 (= in nauivula), where the others use
stip ; cursuinbor, where the others have recels, the usual native
word for incense, ii, 11 ; mil (here equivalent to Lat, milk
6 thousand *, rather than c mile ') : suachua dec genedes mile
str&dena v, 41 * whosoever shall compel theo to go a thousand
paces ', where Rush, has pusend steppan, and LWSG, pusend
stapa ; n6n : to huil nones xxvii, 45 ' at aoontido ', Rush, and
LWSG. nigopan tid ' niath hour * ; plnian : 9u cuome hider m

1 Ed. Skent, The Gospel according to St. Matthew, etc. Eef. to chapter and
verse.

LATIN WOEDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 35

tid to pinienne usih viii, 29 * art thou come hither to torment
us before the time ', where Rush, has tinterga and LWSG.
preagenne, all in the sense of ' torment ' ; plsece : in huommum
Sara plsscena vel wordum vi, 5 ' in the corners of the streets '
(the word word is used for a street in a town or for the hall or
atrium of a house), where Rush, has worSana, LWSG. str&ta ;
port e gate ' : inngeonges Serh nearuo port vel dure velgaet vii, 13
c enter ye in at the strait gate ', the others having only geat ;
seternes-(da3#) : to sunnadssg vel to seternes-dseg xii, 8 (= sabbati),
where the others have reste-, raeste- dseg ; camell : hraegl of
camella herum ii, 4 e a garment of the hair of camels \ Rush,
and LWSG. using olfend (see below) ; trahtian : Sset is getrahtet,
mi& us god i, 23 ' which is, being interpreted, God with us ',
for the gereht of the others. In Mt. viii, 5 Lindisfarne has centur
for ' centurion ', but explains it, paet is TmndraSes monna hlaferd
c lord of a hundred men', and has also the phrase fern dldormenn
v, 8, where Rush, has centuno ; in both passages LWSG. has
Tiundredes ealdor.

Lind. and Rush, agree against LWSG. in having Gaelic (LWSG.
drinc) in Mt. x, 42. Rush, has the following forms where different
words occur in Lind. and LWSG. : diner : pa gepingadun wiS
psem wyrhtum be dinere Mt. xx, 2 ' they agreed with the workmen
for a penny ', Lind. of pening, LWSG. &nne penig ; discipul :
discipuli vel his p&gnas Mt. v, 1 Lind. Seignas> LWSG. kornung-
cmhtas ; pipere : piperas Mt. ix, 23, Lind. beameras, LWSG.
hwistleras ; sperta : Mt. xv, 37 and xvi, 10, for which Lind. has
ceulas and monda, and LWSG. witian ; sffer : unsyfernisse Mt.
xxiii, 27, Lind. undsenae, LWSG. fylpe ; torcul : gedaelf in
&%m torcul Mt. xxi, 33 * digged a wine-press in it ', Lind. win-
trog 9 LWSG. win-wringan ; synagoge : Iserende in heora
synagogum vel somnungum Mt. iv, 23 'teaching in their
synagogues or congregations ', the others (ge)somnungum ; tseppel-
(bred) : ne purh eordse for Son pi hio isfot-scamel (the word used
by Lind. and LWSG.) vel t&ppel-bred his fota v, 35 ' nor by the
earth for it is his footstool '.

The considerably later Late West-Saxon Gospels have the
following individual forms : altare Mt. v, 24, the others
wigbed, weofud ; coocel ' tares ' Mt. xiii, 25, Lind. wynnwng
vel sifpe, Rush, weod ; farm : 6*&sfann ys on his hand Mt. iu, 12,

36 HISTOEY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

Lind. omits, Rush, windiu scofel (buifann in Lind. Lu. iii, 17) ;
milite : fa milite geworhton pyrnenne coronan Mt. xxvii, 27
6 the soldiers made a crown of thorns ' (cf . Vercelli Homilies,
below) ; munt : "he astah on pone munt Mt. v, 1 ' he went up into
the mountain ', Lind. mor, Rush, dun ; pytt : higfeallap begen
on senne pytt Mt. xv, 14 ' both shall fall into the ditch ', others
seap, but Rush, has pytt as an alternative to seap in xii, 11,

For the remaining three gospels we must content ourselves
with giving lists of words (with one reference to each) which
occur in Lindisfarne and not in LWSG., and vice versa. (Rush,
may be assumed to have the same word as Lind. except where
otherwise stated.)

1. Lindisfarne :

assald c ass ' Lu. xiii, 15.

camell ' camel ' Mk. i, 6.

casering, a coin, Lu, xv, 8.

cawl ' basket ' Mk. vi, 43.

celmert-(monn) < hired man ' Mk. i, 20, etc*

corona c crown ' J. xix, 2.

cunele ' thyme *, Lu. xi, 42.

cyrfel c coat ' Mk. vi, 9.

discipul c disciple ' Lu. vi, 40.

lopestre c locust ' Mk. i, 6.

magistre ' master ' Lu. vi, 40.

pic ' pinnacle * Lu. iv, 9.

pis(lic) ' heavy ' Mk. xiv, 40.

plsetse ' street ' Mk. vi, 56.

plett * sheepfold ' J. x, 1.

purble e purple ' J. xix, 5.

regol-(weard) * ruler, nobleman ' J. iv, 46.

segne < net ' J. xxi, 8 (Rush. nett).

stole ' robe ' Mk. xii, 38.

ton * tower ' Mk. xii, 1.

trahtian * interpret ' J. i, 41.

turtur ' turtle-dove ? Lu. ii, 4.

2. Late West-Saxon Gospels :
altare * altar ' Lu. xi, 51.
alewe c aloe ' J. xix, 39*

LATEST WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 37

box c box ' J. xix, 39.

byden * pot, measure ' J. ii, 6.

candel-(stsef) c candlestick ' Mk. iv, 21.

calc ' sandal J Mk. vi, 9.

cocc ' cock ' J. xiii, 38.

cypa * basket ' Lu. ix, 17.

castel c village * Mk. vi, 6.

dihtan * to order ' J. xviii, 14.

flasce ' bottle ' Mk. xiv, 13.

mangung e merchandise ' J. ii, 16.

mese ' table ' Mk. vii, 28, etc.

minte c mint ' Lu. xi, 42.

munt ' mountain ' Mk. iii, 13.

nard c spikenard ' Mk. xiv, 3.

offmng e sacrifice ' Mk. ix, 49.

olfend ' camel ' Mk. i, 6.

paradis ' paradise ' Lu. xxiii, 43.

purpur ' purple ' J. xix, 2.

ssetern-(d8eg) ( Saturday, Sabbath * Lu. xxiii, 54.

serin * coffer ' J. xii, 6.

seam ' wallet ' Lu. xxii, 35.

sicol e sickle ' Mk. iv, 29.

spynge ' sponge ' Mk. xv, 36.

titul ' title ' Mk. xv, 26 (not in Rush.)

toll-(scamol) ' treasury ' Mk. xii, 41.

turtle ' turtle-dove ' Lu. ii, 4.

These lists are the same in length, but differ in that the first
tias a fair proportion of words which occur nowhere in Old English
except in the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels. Casering,
translating drachma, is found in the Rushworth version of
3t. Matthew as well as in the three gospels referred to in the
ists ; the word is recorded also in the fragment of Old High
jrerman epic poetry known as the Hildebrandslied, in the form
iheisuring. For drachma LWSG. has the native word scilhng.
Oelmert-monn 1 * hired servant ', represented in LWSG. by
\yra, hyremonn, yrSUng, is apparently from a Vulgar Latin
:orm *collmbertus of Lat. coM&rtus ' fellow-freedman '. Plsetee,

1 See Jordan, Eigentttrnlichkeiten des angli&chen Wortechatzea, p. 82.

38 HISTOKY OP FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

plaece, from a Romance form of Lat. platea, occurs in Lind.,
Rush., and also in another northern document, the Durham
Ritual. Pktt ' sheepfold ' (LWSG. sceapa-falde) seems to be from
Lat. p lecta ' hurdle ' . Purple, with dissimilation of r to I, takes the
place of the usual O.E. purpur ; cf. the alternative forms turtur
and turtle ; the latter is, however, fairly common.

A few of the correspondencies between Latin loan-words and
native words are worth noting. For altare of LWSG., the other
Gospels have wigbed, weofud, and this word is retained in the
twelfth-century Hatton MS. of the Gospels, though this usually
follows the LWSG. The word b&zere, bsepzere ' baptist ' corre-
sponds to the native fullwihtere> which appears in LWSG.,
though this also has lezera. For box, in sealf-box (Mk. xiv, 3)
'box of ointment', LWSG. has st&nne-fset. For candel-staef
'candelabrum' Lind. has kht-isern (light-iron). For lilie in
sceawiap pa hlian hu hi wexap Mk. xii, 27, Lind. has simply
wyrta ' flowers '. LWSG. uses gssrstapan, usually ' grasshoppers 9
for the Latin locustas, Lind. lopestro Mk. i, 6. Munt occurs in
all the versions, but though it is the usual word in LWSG.,
Lind. more often has mor. For the * learned ' word osanna
Mk. xi, 10 Lind. uses the native exclamation Id h&L The word
pistic (with Gmc. suffix, from Lat. pens-us) c heavy ' occurs in
Mk. xiv, 40, ego hiora p^sl^co ' their eyes were heavy ' ; this
is in Lind. ; LWSG. has gehefegode (P.P.). Where LWSG.
has sicol * sickle ', Lind. has np-feern * reaping-tool '. For ton
in Lind. Mk. xii, 1, LWSG. has stypel (cf. Gregory's Dialogues,
above). Leorning-cniht is the usual word in LWSG. for
c disciple '. For the learned paradis in LWSG., Lind. has nercsna-*
wong, a Germanic word whose etymology remains a puzzle.
For the Latin supra pinnam templi Lu. iv, 9, Lind. has ofer
horn-pic temples, LWSG. ofer p&s temples hricg. For seam
(V.Lat. sauma) in Lind. (Lu. xxii, 35) buta seame and met-bMUg
' without purse and scrip ', LWSG. has seod * pocket, purso '.
Apostol is used in all the versions, but LWSG. has menddraca
' messenger ' at least once (J. xiii, 16). The native word for
corona (Lind. J. xix, 2, corona of pornum ' crown of thorns J )
is cyw-helm (LWSG.) or, as Lind. gives as an alternative, sig-beg
' circlet of victory '. Cocc replaces the Gmo, hona in J, xiii, 38.
The foreign mangung for negotiatio is found ia LWSG. ; Lind*

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 39

has the earlier and commoner loan-word ceping. Finally we note
that Lind. and Rush, use the form caelc for ' cup ' (Lat. cake-em),
and LWSG. calix, the latter indicating a re-borrowing from Latin
at a later date.

LATE TENTH CENTURY

The tenth-century glosses in MS. Harley 3376 give a few new
words, chiefly of a learned type : cassan (pi.) glosses casses,
retia 200 ; casul appears as the equivalent of byrrum 196 ; cetel
of caldaria 197 ; ciper-(s6aZ/) ' henna ointment ' for ciprum
205 ; circul for oirculus 204 ; platung(um) for brateolis, laminis
196 ; tunne for cantarus 198. Cocere * cook ' (with Gmc. suffix
-ere ; cf. coc, already referred to) appears in the compound
cocor-panne, for frixorium 243. Scriptor, in the compound tid-
scriptor for chronographius 204, is perhaps purely Latin. English
equivalents given for the loan-word sicul (glossing falx) are
wingeard-seax, nfter (' vineyard-knife, reaper ').

The Blickling Homilies * of the late tenth century have no new
introductions, except perhaps ISur (mid lawere gebeagod 187
* crowned with laurel ') and spicS^ unless the latter is to be
considered a foreign word : ele and nardus and spica, seo is brunes
Tieowes and godes stences 73 e oil and nard and spikenard, which is
of a dark colour and has a good perfume '. The following uses
should be noted : binn : arweorpian we Crist on hnne asetene 11
' let us honour Christ laid in a manger ' ; cantic : on hire cantice
gefeonde . . . sang and pus cw&p 5 * rejoicing in her song, sang
and said thus '. Grigant is used for Goliath : Tie pone gigant
ofwearp 31 ' he overthrew the giant '. Discipul is the regular
word for ' disciple '.

The form orgel, as distinct from organe, appears in a tenth-
century gloss in the Blickling MS., in which the Homilies are
also found : organo orgeldreame 150 c the sound of a musical
instrument '.

The Vercelli HomiUes^ probably of the late tenth century, give
us the word evangeliste : s&gd ocfer euuangelwte, p%t ... 12
' another evangelist says that . . .', perhaps not to be regarded as

* Ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., 58.

8 Ed. Ftfrster, Bibliotheh der age. Proaa, xii (first half). Eef. to page.

40 HISTOEY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

an English word. Syiet(licnesse) (with a double Gmc. suffix)
is used in the sense of e sincerity ' (59). Milite appears several
times for ' soldiers ' : wseron pa rmkte pass ge-refan men 34
* the soldiers were men of the reeve's ' ; an adjectival form of this
word (mUitisc) has already appeared in Wserferth's translation of
Gregory's Dialogues, and mUite occurs again in the eleventh
century St. Matthew (see above).

THE WORKS OF

JSlfric, abbot of Eynsham, is the most notable writer of the
late tenth and early eleventh century. Trained in the school of
^Ej>elwold at Winchester, he represents a fine product of the
monastic revival of the late tenth century. His works are varied,
including science and grammar as well as sermons and other
religious writings.

The homilies, 1 being of a popular character, contain few unusual
Latin words, and some words of a learned type are explained :
he is cwedenprotomartyr,pset is se forma cy&ere (Catholic Homilies,
50) ' he is called protomartyr, that is the first witness ' ; betwux
dracum and aspidum and eallum wyrmcynne 486 * among dragons
and asps and all kinds of serpents ' ; and even discipuli, p&t
s^nd korning-cnihtas 26 * disciples, that is learners '. Cr6da must
have been a familiar word, and this is used without comment,
or without explicit comment : pone gekafan pe on Sam credan
stent 274 ' the faith which is to be found in the Creed ". jSElfric
uses the form pistol rather than the more learned epistol :
Hieronimus se halga sacerd awrat &nne pistol 436 * Jeremy the
holy priest wrote a letter '. Arc is, however, a learned form, of
more recent introduction than earc : God bekac hi bynnan pam
arce 22 ' God shut them into the ark '. The word regol is used in
the compound regol-st^cca in its original sense of * carpenter's
rule ' 362. Cranic ' chronicle ' appears throe times in JSlfric
(e.g. swa swa Hieronimus s%de sydSan on his cranice Horn, on
St. John xvi * as Jeremy afterwards said in his chronicle '),
but is found otherwise only in a late gloss (Napier, Anecdota
(honiensia vii, 24 : oranic-writere chronographorum).

1 Ed. Thorpe, Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Rof. to page.

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 41

^Elfric's Saints' Lives x have much the same type of vocabulary
as the Homilies, but with more words for household and other
ordinary objects. Altare is used by the side of weofed. Caric
occurs in this text only : genam aenne lytelne taenel mid coricum
gefyttedne 44 (pt. 3) ' he took a little basket filled with figs '.
Carte is found several times for ' a paper, a deed ' : awrat on
anre cartan 82 ' wrote on a piece of paper '. Cristalle occurs in
an wurdlic weorc . . . of glitniendum cristallan 132 * a fine piece of
work of shining crystal '. Pant : to geleafan bnngan and on f ante
fulhan 85 ' bring to the faith and baptize in the font '. Mechanist
(with Gmc. suffix) is found here alone : an wurdlic weorc on
mechanise geweorc 132 e constructed by mechanical craft '.
Mynecen is common throughout : modor ofer manega mynecena
94 e mother over many nuns '. Sanct is used fairly often (= se
Jialga) : pa mynstermenn noldon . . . pone sanct under/on 136
(pt. 3) ' the monks would not receive the holy man ' ; so also
is aspendan : aspende . . . ma ponne twa hund punda 132 ' spent
more than two hundred pounds '. Talent : pone onfangenan
talent fram his hlaforde (pt. 3) * the talent received from his
master '. Note also the following : buteruc c leather bottle ' :
nan win buton on anum gewealdenan butruce 164 * no wine except
in a little bottle ' ; cuppe, a late borrowing compared with cupp
and copp : ne mage ge samod drincon wes drihtnes calic and SSBS
deofles cuppan 378 ' you cannot drink the Lord's chalice and the
devil's cup " ; cycene : eode him to kicenan . . . and began to
etanne 264 e went to the kitchen and began to eat ' ; foca c a
cake baked on the hearth * : geseali pser licgan &nne snaw-hwitne
focan 394 ' saw lying there a snow-white loaf ' ; lenticul : feawa
lenticula, mid wxtere ofgotene 44 (pt. 3) * a few lentils soaked in
water ' (cf . knticula, p%t syndon pysan 48 * lentils, that is, peas ') :
m6r : pah&cfenan . . . midmorberiumgebyldonpaylpas,fordanpe
mor-berian him is metta leofost 104 (pt. 3) ' the heathen encourage
the elephants with mulberries, because mulberries are their
favourite food' (JSlfric always uses yip rather than ylpend,
cf . yip is orm%te deor, mare ponne sum has 104 (pt. 3) ' the elephant
is a huge beast, bigger than some houses ') ; myn&t-faen) :
man awende mynet-isena on his dagum 516 'the coinage was
changed in bis day ' ; 6rel : gegl&ngde me mid orle of golde
i Ed. Skeat, EJBJ.T.S., 76, 82, 94, 114.

42 HISTOKY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

awefen 172 * adorned me with a veil woven of gold ' ; post :
pdBt Tins wearp forburnon "buton pam anum poste 140 (pt. 3) * the
house was burned except for the one post ' ; tabula : on anum
kadenum tabulan ealle mid stafon agrofon 508 e on a leaden tablet
engraved with letters '.

JElfric's translation of the Heptateuch* his Preface to Genesis,
and his short treatise On the Old and New Testament, contain
a number of Biblical words, among which it is sometimes hard
to distinguish real loans from merely ad hoc usages of foreign
words. Among the latter we may class names of foreign plants,
etc., such as cucumeres, stacten, though some seem to be used as
English words : coriandre : sivilce coriandran saed 310 f like
coriander seed ' ; lactuca : Seorfe hlafas mid fare lactucan pe
onfelda wyxt 243 * unleavened bread with the lettuce that grows
in the field ' ; polente : polentan faes ylcan geares 384 e parched
corn of the same year ' ; por-(Zeac) and enne-(Zeac) e leek ' and
' onion ' 309. Lsefel translates Latin scyphum : and nim minne
sylfrena l&fel 193 ' and take my silver cup ' ; ore is used for
crater 272 ; (e)arc is Noah's ark, but the arcafoederis is usually
serin. Organe occurs in reference to Jubal, pe waesf seder hearpcra
and psere pe organon macodon 94 ' who was the father of harpers
and those who made music ' ; another manuscript has f seder
hearpera and organystra* For * Sabbath ' ^Elfric uses S&ternesd&g.
Leden means both c speech ' and * Latin ? (see also p. 30) :
swilce edischenna, fat is on Leden coturnix 253 * also quails, that
is in Latin cotuinix '. Fals (a noun) means ' fraud ' : lim tyTid
ure hlaford us swa miceksfalses ? 193 ' why does our Lord accuse
us of so great a fraud ? ' Further we have in the essay on the
Testaments : titelian : twa lee . . . man getitekde him 557 * two
books were ascribed to him ' ; and the foreign plural seraphin :
pa twa seraphin softlice getacnodon . . . 1161 ' the two seraphs
betokened . . .' And finally we observe that fers is used in the
Preface to Genesis in the sense of a * vorse ' in the Bible : on
psore bee on pamforman ferse 56 e in the first verse of the book '.

.aSlfric's Hexameron* besides telling the story of the Creation,
has some comments on natural history. Thus we have paid and
tigris, though hardly as English words : Sa swiftan tigrcs and

1 Ed. Crawford, E.E.T.S., 160.

* Ed. Crawford, BibUoihek der age. Prow, ac.

LATIN WORDS BEFOKE THE CONQUEST 43

da syllican pardes 275 * swift tigers and strange leopards ', as well
as yip (e.g. da ylpas beod swa mycele swylce odre muntas 289
* the elephants are as big as mountains '). Paradis varies between
English and Latin inflexions : to Sam upplican Paradise 512 ' to
Paradise above ', but God hi da gebrohte binnan Paradisum, S&t
we hatad on Englisc Neorxnawang 427 * God brought them into
Paradise, which we call in English Neorxnawang '.

EASTERN THEMES

Still more names of plants and other things of Eastern origin
are to be found in two prose pieces in MS. Cotton Vitellius
A XV, the Wonders of the East and the (spurious) Letter of
Alexander to Aristotle* probably of the late tenth century. The
first has laur (also in the BhcUing Homilies) : on pisse stowe beod
treowcynn pa beod lamrn-beame 61 e in this place there are kinds
of trees which are laurel-trees ' ; ostre : se n%nine operne mete
ne pige buton sse-ostrum 63 * who eat no other food but sea-
oysters ' ; pipor ; on pam landum bid pipores gemhtsumms 53
e in those countries is plenty of pepper '.

Alexander's letter has the following Latin words, which seem
to be used as English, besides some obviously regarded as foreign :
canna : fen and cannon and hread-waeteru 30 * fen and reeds
and reedy marshes ' ; eolumne : par wseron gyldene columnan
swide micle 6 ' there were very large golden columns ' ; besides
seam : pridde healf pusend mula de pa seamas wsegon 13 ' 2,500
mules which carried the baggage ' ; epistol : da sealde he me
gewrit and senne epistolan 28 * then he gave me a writing and
a letter ' ; also the animals leo, olfend, elpend, mul The following
retain Latin inflexions : baLzamum, cristallum, smaragdus,
cypressus, eclypsis, tigris, pardus, scorpiones, unio, carbunculis.

LATBB VBRSEI

The Old English verse Psalter contains a good many Latin

words which occur nowhere else in the verse, and some of them

nowhere in the prose. Among the less frequent may be mentioned

aspide, basilisca (pu miht . . . basiUscan tredan 90/13 c you may

* Ed. Rypins, EJE.T.S., 161.

44 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

tread upon the adder '), ceder, coc (swylce hi on cocer-pannan cocas
gehyrstan 101/3 ' as though, cooks roasted them in a pan '),
sallettan (singaS Mm and sattetaft 104/2 ' sing and play upon the
harp ').

The word pandher occurs in a fragment of a bestiary ; tsefl
and teosol in the Gnomic Verses of the Exeter Book, the former
apparently used here attributively : tsefies monnes, jbonne he
teoselum weorped 185 ' the gamester when he throws dice '.
But for the most part the new words of the later verse are simply
those of prose, and add nothing to the poetic vocabulary as
such. This is particularly true of the technical Menologium,
perhaps of the late tenth century, which uses such words as
bises ' leap-year } (Lat. lissextus], kalend, circul * zodiac ' ;
it has also all the Latin names of the months, but these (as in
the Martyrologium of an earlier date) are still in their Latin forms
and cannot claim to be naturalized.

ELEVENTH CENTURY PBOSE

The collection of homilies edited under the title of Wulfstans
Homilwn x are certainly not all by this writer, who was a slightly
later contemporary of JSlfric, and Archbishop of York. Possibly
the first five sermons in the collection are his. It will be seen
that only two of the few interesting Latin words in these homilies
come in this group : Crisma : Sonne se sacerd smyred mid pam
halgan erisman breost and sculdru v, 35, * when the priest anoints
breast and shoulders with the holy oil ' ; crkmale : mid pom
crismak . . . man tacnaS psene cristenan cynehelm v, 36, ' by the
chxisom the Christian crown is signified ' ; fals : p&t an mynet
gange ofer eaUe pas peode buton &kon false L 272 ' that one coinage
should be used throughout this people without any fraud ' ;
idol : ne aenig man idola weor&je sefre x, 71 * that no man should
ever worship idols ' ; letanie : ga man mid reliquium ut and mid
ktanian xxxv, 170 'let there be a procession with relics and
litanies ' ; orgel : hwwr ys heora prass and orgol ? xxx, 148
* where is their splendour and pride ? ? ; pinsian : hu swiSe man
pinsaS pa sawle on domes d&g xlvi, 239 * how severely the soul
will be judged on the day of doom ' ; pipe : hearpe and pipe
1 Ed. Napier, Wulfstans Homihen. Ref. to homily and page*

LATIN WOKDS BEFOKE THE CONQUEST 45

and mistlic ghwgamen vi, 46 harp and pipe and joyous music
of many kinds ' ; rabbian : ac Iset pone deofol Antecrist rabbian
and wedan xiii, 84 c but let tlie devil Antechrist rage and rave '.

The prose dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus x has little of
interest, but the word ynce occurs in it an early loan from Lat.
uncia in the sense of ' inch ' : [Adam] wses vi and ex ynca lang
180 e Adam was 116 inches long '. It is to be found earlier in the
Laws of Ethelbert and of Alfred. Examples of yntse e ounce ',
a later loan from undo,, have already been given.

The prose Life of St. Guthlac 2 has the word ceren e new wine ',
otherwise recorded only in glossaries, and in the LeechbooJcs
(dealt with later) : M^d pam cerenum ps&re godspellican swetnysse
72 * with the new wine of the sweetness of the Gospel '. We
may note also the use of fers : sona swa lie p&tfyrmestefers sang
p&s sealmes 44 * as soon as he has sung the first verse of the
psalm ' ; ymen : da hsefde he his sealmes geleornod and canticas
and ymnas 18 * then he had learnt his psalms and canticles and
hymns '.

An English version of Defensor's Liber Samtillarum? a com-
pilation consisting of extracts from the Bible and the writings
of the Fathers of the Church, has a few interesting forms :
meegester (as well as the later magister) : hefe m&gster-domes 120
* the weight of responsibility ' ; nys korning-cniht ofer magister
fullfremed 204 e the disciple is not raised above his master ' ; plum
' down ' : plum-fepera hnescnysse 144 ' the softness of down ' ;
sacc : do& eow saccas pa na ealdian 156 ' make for yourselves
purses which do not grow old ' ; seam : seam assan 190 * the
burden of an ass ' ; seolc : on seoke and on did clapum 87 ' in
silk and in swaddling-clothes '.

The interlinear version of the Benedictine Rule in MS. Cott.
Tiberius A III 4 has not very many Latin, words ; most of them
are in the more technical parts, especially those dealing with
the divine offices. The following should be noted : antemn 38 ;
Capitol (= lectio) 44 ; cufl : genoh US munece twa tunican and
twa cuflan habban 92 * it is enough for a monk to have two habits
and two cowls ' ; grf : sev, gr&f, nssdl 93 ' knife, style, needle *

1 Ed. Kemble, for the JEUGrio Society, jfrom MS. Cotton ViteUius A r^.
* Kd. Goodwin (1848), from MS. Cott. Vesp. D xxi.
Ed. Rhodes, E.B.T.S. 93, from MS. Royal 7 C iv.
4 Ed. Logeman, E.E.T.S. 90.

46 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

(in a list of a monk's requirements) ; reps : mid heora repsum 39
6 with their responses ' (=responsorns) ; scamol : of or r&dinc-
scamolSS ' on the reading-stool ' ; scyrtan : sum Sine of rsedingum
is to sayrtanne 42 * some part of the lesson is to be curtailed ' ;
socc : soccas and hosan 92 'shoes and hose' (== pedules et
caligas ').

Byrhtferp's Manual 1 claims attention as a technical treatise
on astronomy, mathematics, prosody, and other matters. In
many instances he uses actual Latin forms without any English
equivalent ; he says himself : me ys neod pset ic menge pset Lyden
amang pissum Englisce ' I am compelled to mix Latin with the
English '. Very frequent loan-words are circul ' zodiac ', cleric
6 clerk ', cyrten * perfect, exact } , scrutnian * examine *, trahtoian

* explain '. The following words are rare in Old English :
cyrriol : pa seSelan munecas psere tide lof mid Jcyrriole . . .
gewurdiad 126 ' the good monks honour the praise of that houx
with the Kyrie Eleison ' ; declinan : pa naman and pa binaman
and heora declinunga 94 'the nouns and pronouns and their
declensions ? ; epact : pisra epacta gerynu apinsiun 36 c ponder
the mysteries of these epacts ' ; termen : panne byd mycel
gedwyld on pam Easterlicne termene 72 * then there will be much
error in the date of Easter '.

Then, finally, there are three books on medicine, the Leech
Book, the Herbarium Apuleii, and the Medidna de Quadru-
pedibus? All depend on Latin originals, and their chief value
lies in the large number of plant-names which they record. Some
of these occur fairly often in Old English, others are to be found
in glossaries, others in these medical works alone. Among the
rarer names we find (a) in the Leech Book : cuneglfesse * hound's
tongue ' 110 ; safine ' savia ' 100 ; nefte ' catmint ' 62 ; alewe
' aloe ' 60 ; aprotane * southernwood ' 60 ; slare^e c salvia
sclarea ' 58 ; saluie ' sage ' 50 ; celepenie * celandine ' 26 ;
bfite ' beetroot ' 18 ; rude * rue ' 18 ; (6) from the Herbarium :
ancdgdal ' almond ' 104 ; berbena ' verbena * 170 ; dracentse

* dragon-wort ' 106 ; elehtre ' lupin ' 148 ; organe ' marjoram '
216; petersilie * parsley' 240. From the Medwina de
Quadrupedibus we get croh * saffron ' 348.

1 Ed. Crawford, E.&T.S., 177.

8 Ed. Cockayne, Leeohdoms, Wortowming and Stwaroft. Bolls Seriea*

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 47

Besides these there are many words, some of which are of
Latin, origin, referring to the preparing of prescriptions, such as
names of vessels and instruments ; ampulle, cetel, ceac, cuculere,
etc., besides trifulian ' to pound up ', trimessa ' drachm ',
plaster, etc.

The eleventh century glosses, 1 which contain a vast amount of
matter, give no opportunity of seeing words in actual use, but
they include a number of words which are rare or not recorded
elsewhere. A gloss to the Latin text of ^Elfric's Colloquy (a Latin
dialogue designed for teaching purposes) supplies the following :
capitol : primam missam capitolm&ssan 101 ; claustor : in
daustrum to daustre 103 ; cutter : cultro cultre 90 ; lamprede :
murenas lampredan 94 ; mangere : mercator mangere 96 ;
ostre : ostreas ostran 94 ; plne-(iwncfe) ; tormculi pine-
wwwlan 94 ; cocc e cockle ' : neptigalli ssecoccas 94.

The Cleopatra Gloss (in MS. Cott. Cleop. A III) is probably of
the early eleventh century. It contains some hundreds of words,
with a good proportion of foreign loan-words. The following
will give some idea of the variety : amel ' vessel for holy water ' :
amulas amelas 348 ; ampulle : legithum [= lecythum]
ampellan, ekf&t ; calu * bald ' : caluus calo 276 ; campion
' to fight ' : agonizans campiende 341 ; catt : muriceps cat
445 ; cempa : anthktarum cempena 345 ; centaur : centaun
psss centaures 374 ; cemes ' shirt ' : camisa cemes 362 ; cietel :
caldana citel 363 ; 6eren : carene cerenes, humgteares 370 ;
codd- (&ppel) ' quince ' : malum tidonium, sine malum cotonium,
id est codseppel 411 ; cuclere : codear cudwe 281 ; draca :
Leuiathan se draca 489 ; fifele : fibukfifele 403 ; gleedene :
gladiolum glsedene 416 ; laefel : aquemaniU l&uel 350 ; leo :
leunculi konhwel/pes 434 ; m5re : pastinaca weal[h]more
271 ; munt : alpes munt iofes (= Jovis) 355 ; not e note ' :
notariorum not-writera 451 ; ore ' devil ' : orcus ore, pyrs,
heldeofol 459 ; palent : ad palatinas to ft&m pakntlicum 342 ;
paper : papirus paper 523 ; plum : plumnus plum-treow
269 ; segn ' standard ' : aquik segn 275 ; tapor : papint>s
taper 267 ; taefl : akat&fl 267.

From the Royal Okss (in MS. 1829, Eoyal Library, Brussels) :
calcatrippe : heraoka cakatrippe 298 ; cerfille : Irassica

1 Wright- Wtilcker, Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vooabulartea, voL i.

48 HISTORY OF FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

wudu-cerfille 296 (also glosses pastinaca 299) ; delfin : pina
delfin, mere-swin 293 ; glsedene : scilla et gladiola gladene 301 ;
lufestice : lubestica lufestice 301 ; punt : trabana, caudex
punt 287 ; rsedic : raphanus ancre, pset is rdedic 300.

Finally there is the so-called Vocabulary of JSlfric, probably
having no connexion with him, or perhaps based on a glossary
of his but with very many additions. This is a classified glossary,
divided into animals, plants, parts of the body, weapons, and so
forth. The highest proportion of Latin words comes in the Nomina
Vasorum, where out of fifty-nine entries twenty-six are Latin,
or Latin-English hybrids ; in addition, several are of unknown
origin. Here are some selections from the glossary : balsminte :
sisimbrium balsminte 136 ; box : pixis bixen box ' a box of
box-wood ' 124 ; canne ' cup ' : crater, uel canna canne 122 ;
casere : imperatrix, uel Augusta caseres vnf 155 ; 6ipp c plough-
share ' : dentale oipp 106 ; corn ' cornel ' : cornus corn-
treow 138 ; cost * costmary ' : costus cost 133 ; cyrten :
uenusto ic cyrtenlsece ' I beautify ' 178 ; magdala : amigdala
magdala-treow 139 ; malwe ' mallow ' : malua malwe 139 ;
mora]? : carenwn morap 128 ; munt : oreades munt-telfen
189 ' mountain elves ' ; neepte : nepita n&pte 133 ; persoc :
persicarius persoc-treow 138 ; pervince : uinca peruinete
136 ; pilstre : pikrpilstre 141 ; pisle * warm room ' : scrip-
toriumpiste, fer-lms 186 ; port : castellum wic uel lytel port
140 ; post : basis post 164 ; pumic : pumeoopumic-stan 148 ;
reps : responsorium reps 129 ; side, seolc : bombyx sid-wyrm
uel seok-wyrm 121 ; solsece : solsequium uel heliotropium
solsece uel sigel-hwerfe 133 ; suftlSre : subtalares swyftleares
125 ; sutere : sutrina domus sutera hus 186 ; suderige :
satmon suderige 137 ; tolnere : telonearius totnere uel
tottere 171.

THE ANGLO-SAXON CHBONIOLE IK THE ELEVENTH CENTORY

This account of Latin loan-words in Old English may fittingly
be concluded with some notes on the vocabulary of the Chronicle *
in the eleventh century, since this text more than any other in
Old English seems to look forward into tho Middle English

1 For the earlier port of tho Chronicle soo above, p. 33.

LATIN WORDS BEFORE THE CONQUEST 49

period. It is with, this text, too, that the account of the French
loan-words will begin, since the history of French words in English
is not limited to post-Conquest days. And here, also, as will be
seen later, are to be found the majority of Scandinavian loan-
words recorded before the Conquest. Many of the ecclesiastical
terms common in other prose of the period occur in the Chronicle,
e.g. ancor-($etl), &lmes(ful), calic, candel-mxsse, clerec 9 crisma
(seforkt his crisman and his Tirade . , . andfeng to his spere 1056,

* he left the chrisom and the rood and took the spear '), offrian,
prouost (pa cusan pa munecas to abbot Brand prouost 1066 fi the
monks chose Brand the provost to be abbot '), regul, etc. In
addition to these the following appear : Advent : Osmund
biscop of Searbyrig innon Aduent foroferde E 1099 * Osmund,
Bishop of Salisbury, died during Advent ' ; cantel-cap (= cantere
+ cap, and elsewhere canterc&ppe) ' priest's cope ' : cantelcapas
and reafas E 1070 ' copes and vestments ' ; capellan : pser
Bannulf his capellane psst biscoprice on Dunholme geaf E 1099

* gave Ranulf his chaplain the bishopric of Durham ' ; capitula
in the sense of * ecclesiastical chapter ' : pe abbot eode ^nto
capitulan E 1083 * the abbot went into the chapter ' ; chor,
in the sense of ' choir ' (part of church) : pa Frandsce men
breecen pone chor E 1083 ' the French destroyed the choir ' ;
decanus : se pe wses decamis set Cristes cyrcan D 1020 * who was
Dean of Christ Church ' ; grad : swa past Set Hod com of Sam
weofode uppon pam gradan E 1083 ' so that the blood came from
the a


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