The Romance of Words Part 22

(Cotgrave). _Glamour_ and _gramarye_ were both revived by Scott--

"A moment then the volume spread, And one short spell therein he read; It had much of _glamour_ might."

(_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, iii. 9.)

"And how he sought her castle high, That morn, by help of _gramarye_."

(_Ibid._, v. 27.)

For the change of _r_ to _l_ we have the parallel of _flounce_ for older _frounce_ (p. 60). _Quire_ is the same word as _quair_, in the "King's _Quair_" _i.e._ book. Its Mid. English form is _quayer_, Old Fr.

_quaer_, _caer_ (_cahier_), Vulgar Lat. _*quaternum_, for _quaternio_, "a _quier_ with foure sheetes" (Cooper).

[Page Heading: EASTERN DOUBLETS]

Oriental words have sometimes come into the language by very diverse routes. _Sirup_, or _syrup_, _sherbet_, and (_rum_)-_shrub_ are of identical origin, ultimately Arabic. _Sirup_, which comes through Spanish and French, was once used, like _treacle_ (p. 75), of medicinal compounds--

"Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy _syrups_ of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday."

(_Oth.e.l.lo_, iii. 3.)

_Sherbet_ and _shrub_ are directly borrowed through the medium of travellers--

"'I smoke on _srub_ and water, myself,' said Mr Omer."

(_David Copperfield_, Ch. 30.)

_Sepoy_, used of Indian soldiers in the English service, is the same as _spahi_, the French name for the Algerian cavalry. Both come ultimately from a Persian adjective meaning "military," and the French form was at one time used also in English in speaking of Oriental soldiery--

"The Janizaries and _Spahies_ came in a tumultuary manner to the Seraglio."

(HOWELL, _Familiar Letters_, 1623.)

_Tulip_ is from Fr. _tulipe_, formerly _tulipan_, "the delicate flower called a _tulipa_, _tulipie_, or Dalmatian cap" (Cotgrave). It is a doublet of _turban_. The German _Tulpe_ was also earlier _Tulipan_.

The humblest of medieval coins was the _maravedi_, which came from Spain at an early date, though not early enough for Robin Hood to have said to Isaac of York--

"I will strip thee of every _maravedi_ thou hast in the world."

(_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 33.)

The name is due to the Moorish dynasty of the _Almaravides_ or _Marabouts_. This Arabic name, which means hermit, was given also to a kind of stork, the _marabout_, on account of the solitary and sober habits which have earned in India for a somewhat similar bird the name _adjutant_ (p. 34).

_Cipher_ and _zero_ do not look like doublets, but both of them come from the same Arabic word. The medieval Lat. _zephyrum_ connects the two forms. _Crimson_ and _carmine_, both of them ultimately from Old Spanish, are not quite doublets, but both belong to _kermes_, the cochineal insect, of Arabic origin.

The relationship between _cipher_ and _zero_ is perhaps better disguised than that between _furnish_ and _veneer_, though this is by no means obvious. _Veneer_, spelt _fineer_ by Smollett, is Ger. _fournieren_, borrowed from Fr. _fournir_[107] and specialised in meaning. Ebers'

_German Dict._ (1796) has _furnieren_, "to inlay with several sorts of wood, to _veneer_."

The doublets selected for discussion among the hundreds which exist in the language reveal many etymological relationships which would hardly be suspected at first sight. Many other words might be quoted which are almost doublets. Thus _sergeant_, Fr. _sergent_, Lat. _serviens_, _servient-_, is almost a doublet of _servant_, the present participle of Fr. _servir_. The fabric called _drill_ or _drilling_ is from Ger.

_Drillich_, "tick, linnen-cloth woven of _three_ threads" (Ludwig). This is an adaptation of Lat. _trilix_, _trilic-_, which, through Fr.

_treillis_, has given Eng. _trellis_. We may compare the older _twill_, of Anglo-Saxon origin, cognate with Ger. _Zwilch_ or _Zwillich_, "linnen woven with a _double_ thread" (Ludwig). _Robe_, from French, is cognate with _rob_, and with Ger. _Raub_, booty, the conqueror decking himself in the spoils of the conquered. _Musk_ is a doublet of _meg_ in _nutmeg_, Fr. _noix muscade_. In Mid. English we find _note-mugge_, and Cotgrave has the diminutive _muguette_, "a nutmeg"; _cf._ modern Fr.

_muguet_, the lily of the valley. Fr. _diner_ and _dejeuner_ both represent Vulgar Lat. _*dis-junare_, to break fast, from _jejunus_, fasting. The difference of form is due to the shifting of the accent in the Latin conjugation, e.g., _dis-junare_ gives Old Fr. _disner_ (_diner_), while _dis-junat_ gives Old Fr. _desjune_ (_dejeune_).

[Page Heading: BANJO--SAMITE]

_Admiral_, earlier _amiral_, comes through French from the Arab. _amir_, an emir. Its Old French forms are numerous, and the one which has survived in English may be taken as an abbreviation of Arab. _amir al bahr_ emir on the sea. Greco-Lat. _pandura_, a stringed instrument, has produced an extraordinary number of corruptions, among which some philologists rank _mandoline_. Eng. _bandore_, now obsolete, was once a fairly common word, and from it, or from some cognate Romance form, comes the negro corruption _banjo_--

"'What is this, mamma? it is not a guitar, is it?' 'No, my dear, it is called a _banjore_; it is an African instrument, of which the negroes are particularly fond.'"

(MISS EDGEWORTH, _Belinda_, Ch. 18.)

Florio has _pandora_, _pandura_, "a musical instrument with three strings, a kit, a croude,[108] a rebecke." _Kit_, used by d.i.c.kens--

"He had a little fiddle, which at school we used to call a _kit_, under his left arm."

(_Bleak House_, Ch. 14.)

seems to be a clipped form from Old French dialect _quiterne_, for _guiterne_, Greco-Lat. _cithara_. Cotgrave explains _mandore_ as a "_kitt_, small gitterne." The doublet _guitar_ is from Spanish.

The two pretty words _dimity_ and _samite_--

"An arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white _samite_, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword."

(TENNYSON, _Morte d'Arthur_, l. 29.)

are both connected with Gk. ?t??, thread. _Dimity_ is the plural, _dimiti_, of Ital. _dimito_, "a kind of course cotton or flanell"

(Florio), from Greco-Lat. _dimitus_, double thread (cf. _twill_, p.

148). _Samite_, Old Fr. _samit_, whence Ger. _Samt_, velvet, is in medieval Latin _hexamitus_, six-thread; this is Byzantine Gk. ????t??, whence also Old Slavonic _aksamitu_. The Italian form is _sciamito_, "a kind of sleave, feret, or filosello silke" (Florio). The word _feret_ used here by Florio is from Ital. _fioretto_, little flower. It was also called _floret_ silk. Florio explains the plural _fioretti_ as "a kind of course silke called _f[l]oret_ or _ferret_ silke," and Cotgrave has _fleuret_, "course silke, _floret_ silke." This doublet of _floweret_ is not obsolete in the sense of tape--

"'Twas so fram'd and express'd no tribunal could shake it, And firm as red wax and black _ferret_ could make it."

(INGOLDSBY, _The Housewarming_.)

_Parish_ and _diocese_ are closely related, _parish_, Fr. _paroisse_, representing Greco-Lat. _par-oikia_ (?????, a house), and _diocese_ coming through Old French from Greco-Lat. _di-oikesis_. _Skirt_ is the Scandinavian doublet of _shirt_ from Vulgar Lat. _ex-curtus_, which has also given us _short_. The form without the prefix appears in Fr.

_court_, Ger. _kurz_, and the English diminutive _kirtle_--

"What stuff wilt have a _kirtle_ of?"

(2 _Henry IV._, ii. 4.)

These are all very early loan words.

[Page Heading: BROKER--WALNUT]

A new drawing-room game for amateur philologists would be to trace relationships between words which have no apparent connection. In discussing, a few years ago, a lurid book on the "Mysteries of Modern London," _Punch_ remarked that the existence of a _villa_ seemed to be proof presumptive of that of a _villain_. This is etymologically true.

An Old French _vilain_, "a villaine, slave, bondman, servile tenant"

(Cotgrave), was a peasant attached to his lord's _ville_ or domain, Lat.

_villa_. For the degeneration in meaning we may compare Eng. _boor_ and _churl_ (p. 84), and Fr. _manant_, a clodhopper, lit. a dweller (see _manor_, p. 9). A _butcher_, Fr. _boucher_, must originally have dealt in goat's flesh, Fr. _bouc_, goat; _cf._ Ital. _beccaio_, butcher, and _becco_, goat. Hence _butcher_ and _buck_ are related. The extension of meaning of _broker_, an Anglo-Norman form of _brocheur_, shows the importance of the wine trade in the Middle Ages. A _broker_ was at first[109] one who "broached" casks with a _broche_, which means in modern French both brooch and spit. The essential part of a _brooch_ is the pin or spike.

When Kent says that Cornwall and Regan--

"Summon'd up their _meiny_, straight took horse."

(_Lear_, ii. 4.)

he is using a common Mid. English and Tudor word which comes, through Old Fr. _maisniee_, from Vulgar Lat. _*mansionata_, a houseful. A _menial_ is a member of such a body. An Italian cognate is _masnadiere_, "a ruffler, a swashbuckler, a swaggerer, a high way theefe, a hackster"

(Florio). Those inclined to moralise may see in these words a proof that the arrogance of the great man's flunkey was curbed in England earlier than in Italy. Old Fr. _maisniee_ is now replaced by _menage_, Vulgar Lat. _*mansionatic.u.m_. A derivative of this word is _menagerie_, first applied to the collection of household animals, but now to a "wild beast show."

A _bonfire_ was formerly a _bone-fire_. We find _bane-fire_, "ignis ossium," in a Latin dictionary of 1483, and Cooper explains _pyra_ by "_bone-fire_, wherein men's bodyes were burned." Apparently the word is due to the practice of burning the dead after a victory. Hexham has _bone-fire_, "een _been-vier_, dat is, als men victorie brandt."

_Walnut_ is related to _Wal_es, Corn_wall_, the _Wall_oons, _Wall_achia and Sir William _Wall_ace. It means "foreign" nut. This very wide spread _wal_ is supposed to represent the Celtic tribal name _Volcae_. It was applied by the English to the Celts, and by the Germans to the French and Italians, especially the latter, whence the earlier Ger. _welsche Nuss_, for _Walnuss_. The German Swiss use it of the French Swiss, hence the canton _Wallis_ or _Valais_. The Old French name for the _walnut_ is _noix gauge_, Lat. _Gallica_. The relation of _umbrella_ to _umber_ is pretty obvious. The former is Italian--

"A little shadow, a little round thing that women bare in their hands to shadow them. Also a broad brimd hat to keepe off heate and rayne. Also a kinde of round thing like a round skreene that gentlemen use in Italie in time of sommer or when it is very hote, to keepe the sunne from them when they are riding by the way."