The Romance of Words Part 12

"Certain it was that s.h.a.gram _reisted_, and I ken Martin thinks he saw something."

(_Monastery_, Ch. 4.)

Dryden even uses _restive_ in the sense of sluggish--

"So James the drowsy genius wakes Of Britain, long entranced in charms, _Restive_, and slumbering on its arms."

(_Threnodia Augustalis._)

_Reasty_, used of meat that has "stood" too long, is the same word (cf.

_testy_, Old Fr. _testif_, heady), and _rusty_ bacon is probably folk-etymology for _reasty_ bacon--

"And then came haltyng Jone, And brought a gambone Of bakon that was _reasty_."

(SKELTON, _Elynour Rummyng_.)

_Sterling_ has an obscure history. It is from Old Fr. _esterlin_, a coin which etymologists of an earlier age connected with the _Easterlings_, or Hanse merchants, who formed one of the great mercantile communities of the Middle Ages; and perhaps some such a.s.sociation is responsible for the meaning that _sterling_ has acquired; but chronology shows this traditional etymology to be impossible. We find _unus sterlingus_ in a medieval Latin doc.u.ment of 1184, and the Old Fr. _esterlin_ occurs in Wace's _Roman de Rou_ (Romaunt of Rollo the Sea King), which was written before 1175. Hence it is conjectured that the original coin was named from the _star_ which appears on some Norman pennies.

When Horatio says--

"It is a nipping and an _eager_ air."

(_Hamlet_, i. 4.)

we are reminded that _eager_ is identical with the second part of vin-_egar_, Fr. _aigre_, sour, Lat. _acer_, keen. It seems hardly possible to explain the modern sense of _nice_, which in the course of its history has traversed nearly the whole diatonic scale between "rotten" and "ripping." In Mid. English and Old French it means foolish.

Cotgrave explains it by "lither, lazie, sloathful, idle; faint, slack; dull, simple," and Shakespeare uses it in a great variety of meanings.

It is supposed to come from Lat. _nescius_, ignorant. The transition from _fond_, foolish, which survives in "_fond_ hopes," to _fond_, loving, is easy. French _fou_ is used in exactly the same way. _Cf._ also to _dote_ on, _i.e._, to be foolish about. _Puny_ is Fr. _puine_, from _puis ne_, later born, junior, whence the _puisne_ justices. Milton uses it of a minor--

"He must appear in print like a _puny_ with his guardian."

(_Areopagitica._)

_Petty_, Fr. _pet.i.t_, was similarly used for a small boy.

In some cases a complimentary adjective loses its true meaning and takes on a contemptuous or ironic sense. None of us care to be called _bland_, and to describe a man as _worthy_ is to apologise for his existence. We may compare Fr. _bonhomme_, which now means generally an old fool, and _bonne femme_, good-wife, goody. _Dapper_, the Dutch for brave (_cf._ Ger. _tapfer_), and _pert_, Mid. Eng. _apert_, representing in meaning Lat. _expertus_, have changed much since Milton wrote of--

"The _pert_ fairies and the _dapper_ elves."

(_Comus_, l. 118.)

_Pert_ seems in fact to have acquired the meaning of its opposite _malapert_, though the older sense of brisk, sprightly, survives in dialect--

"He looks spry and _peart_ for once."

(Phillpotts, _American Prisoner_, Ch. 3.)

_Smug_, cognate with Ger. _schmuck_, trim, elegant, beautiful, has its original sense in Shakespeare--

"And here the _smug_ and silver Trent shall run In a new channel, fair and evenly."

(1 _Henry IV._, iii. 1.)

The degeneration of an adjective is sometimes due to its employment for euphemistic purposes. The favourite subst.i.tute for _fat_ is _stout_, properly strong,[57] dauntless, etc., cognate with Ger. _stolz_, proud.

Precisely the same euphemism appears in French, e.g., "une dame un peu _forte_." _Ugly_ is replaced in English by _plain_, and in American by _homely_--

"She is not so handsome as these, maybe, but her _homeliness_ is not actually alarming."

(MAX ADELER, _Mr Skinner's Night in the Underworld_.)

In the case of this word, as in many others, the American use preserves a meaning which was once common in English. Kersey's _Dictionary_ (1720) explains _homely_ as "ugly, disagreeable, course (coa.r.s.e), mean."

[Page Heading: INFLUENCE OF a.s.sOCIATION]

Change of meaning may be brought about by a.s.sociation. A _miniature_ is a small portrait, and we even use the word as an adjective meaning small, on a reduced scale. But the true sense of _miniature_ is something painted in _minium_, red lead. Florio explains _miniatura_ as "a limning (see p. 63), a painting with vermilion." Such paintings were usually small, hence the later meaning. The word was first applied to the ornamental red initial capitals in ma.n.u.scripts. _Vignette_ still means technically in French an interlaced vine-pattern on a frontispiece.[58] Cotgrave has _vignettes_, "vignets; branches, or branch-like borders, or flourishes in painting, or ingravery."

The degeneration in the meaning of a noun may be partly due to frequent a.s.sociation with disparaging adjectives. Thus _hussy_, _i.e._ housewife, _quean_,[59] woman, _wench_, child, have absorbed such adjectives as impudent, idle, light, saucy, etc. Shakespeare uses _quean_ only three times, and these three include "cozening _quean_" (_Merry Wives_, iv. 2) and "scolding _quean_" (_All's Well_, ii. 2). With _wench_, still used without any disparaging sense by country folk, we may compare Fr.

_garce_, la.s.s, and Ger. _Dirne_, maid-servant, both of which are now insulting epithets, but, in the older language, could be applied to Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary respectively. _Garce_ was replaced by _fille_, which has acquired in its turn a meaning so offensive that it has now given way to _jeune fille_. _Minx_, earlier _minkes_, is probably the Low Ger. _minsk_, Ger. _Mensch_, lit. human, but used also in the sense of "wench." For the consonantal change cf. _hunks_, Dan.

_hundsk_, stingy, lit. doggish. These examples show that the indignant "Who are you calling a _woman_?" is, philologically, in all likelihood a case of intelligent antic.i.p.ation.

[Page Heading: BUXOM--PLUCK]

Adjectives are affected in their turn by being regularly coupled with certain nouns. A _buxom_ help-mate was once obedient, the word being cognate with Ger. _biegsam_, flexible, yielding--

"The place where thou and Death Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the _buxom_ air."

(_Paradise Lost_, ii. 840.)

An obedient nature is "_buxom_, blithe and debonair," qualities which affect the physique and result in heartiness of aspect and a comely plumpness. An _arch_ damsel is etymologically akin to an _arch_bishop, both descending from the Greek prefix ????, from ????, a beginning, first cause. Shakespeare uses _arch_ as a noun--

"The n.o.ble duke my master, My worthy _arch_ and patron comes to-night."

(_Lear_, ii. 1.)

Occurring chiefly in such phrases as _arch_ enemy, _arch_ heretic, _arch_ hypocrite, _arch_ rogue, it acquired a depreciatory sense, which has now become so weakened that _archness_ is not altogether an unpleasing attribute. We may compare the cognate German prefix _Erz_.

Ludwig has, as successive entries, _Ertz-dieb_, "an arch-thief, an arrant thief," and _Ertz-engel_, "an arch-angel." The meaning of _arrant_ is almost entirely due to a.s.sociation with "thief." It means lit. wandering, vagabond, so that the _arrant_ thief is nearly related to the knight _errant_, and to the Justices in _eyre_, Old Fr. _eire_, Lat. _iter_, a way, journey. Fr. _errer_, to wander, stray, is compounded of Vulgar Lat. _iterare_, to journey, and Lat. _errare_, to stray, and it would be difficult to calculate how much of each enters into the composition of _le Juif errant_.

As I have suggested above, a.s.sociation accounts to some extent for changes of meaning, but the process is in reality more complex, and usually a number of factors are working together or in opposition to each other. A low word may gradually acquire right of citizenship. "That article blackguardly called _pluck_" (Scott) is now much respected. It is the same word as _pluck_, the heart, liver, and lungs of an animal--

"During the Crimean war, _plucky_, signifying courageous, seemed likely to become a favourite term in Mayfair, even among the ladies."

(HOTTEN'S _Slang Dictionary_, 1864.)

Having become respectable, it is now replaced in sporting circles by the more emphatic _guts_, which reproduces the original metaphor. A word may die out in its general sense, surviving only in some special meaning.

Thus the poetic _sward_, scarcely used except with "green," meant originally the skin or crust of anything. It is cognate with Ger.

_Schwarte_, "the _sward_, or rind, of a thing" (Ludwig), which now means especially bacon-rind. Related words may meet with very different fates in kindred languages. Eng. _knight_ is cognate with Ger. _Knecht_, servant, which had, in Mid. High German, a wide range of meanings, including "warrior, hero." There is no more complimentary epithet than _knightly_, while Ger. _knechtisch_ means servile. The degeneration of words like _boor_,[60] _churl_, farmer, is a familiar phenomenon (cf.

_villain_, p. 150). The same thing has happened to _blackguard_, the modern meaning of which bears hardly on a humble but useful cla.s.s. The name _black guard_ was given collectively to the kitchen detachment of a great man's retinue. The _scavenger_ has also come down in the world, rather an unusual phenomenon in the case of official t.i.tles. The medieval _scavager_[61] was an important official who seems to have been originally a kind of inspector of customs. He was called in Anglo-French _scawageour_, from the noun _scawage_, showing. The Old French dialect verb _escauwer_ is of Germanic origin and cognate with Eng. _show_ and Ger. _schauen_, to look. The _cheater_, now usually _cheat_, probably deserved his fate. The _escheators_ looked after _escheats_, _i.e._, estates or property that lapsed and were forfeited. The origin of the word is Old Fr. _escheoir_ (_echoir_), to fall due, Vulgar Lat. _ex *cadere_ for _cadere_. Their reputation was unsavoury, and _cheat_ has already its present meaning in Shakespeare. He also plays on the double meaning--

"I will be _cheater_ to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me."

(_Merry Wives_, i. 3.)

[Page Heading: CHEAT--BELCHER]

_Beldam_ implies "hag" as early as Shakespeare, but he also uses it in its proper sense of "grandmother," _e.g._, Hotspur refers to "old _beldam_ earth" and "our _grandam_ earth" in the same speech (1 _Henry IV._, iii. 1), and Milton speaks of "_beldam_ nature"--

"Then sing of secret things that came to pa.s.s When _Beldam_ Nature in her cradle was."

(_Vacation Exercise_, l. 46.)

It is of course from _belle-dame_, used in Mid. English for grandmother, as _belsire_ was for grandfather. Hence it is a doublet of _belladonna_.

The masculine _belsire_ survives as a family name, _Belcher_[62]; and to Jim Belcher, most gentlemanly of prize-fighters, we owe the _belcher_ handkerchief, which had large white spots with a dark blue dot in the centre of each on a medium blue ground. It was also known to the "fancy"

as a "bird's-eye wipe."