The Romance of Words Part 23

(Florio.)

_Umber_ is Fr. _terre d'ombre_, shadow earth--

"I'll put myself in poor and mean attire, And with a kind of _umber_ smirch my face."

(_As You Like It_, i. 3.)

_Ballad_, originally a dancing song, Prov. _ballada_, is a doublet of _ballet_, and thus related to _ball_. We find a late Lat. _ballare_, to dance, in Saint Augustine, but the history of this group of words is obscure. The sense development of _carol_ is very like that of ballad.

It is from Old Fr. _carolle_, "a kinde of dance wherein many may dance together; also, a _carroll_, or Christmas song" (Cotgrave). The form _corolla_ is found in Provencal, and _carolle_ in Old French is commonly used, like Ger. _Kranz_, garland, and Lat. _corona_, of a social or festive ring of people. Hence it seems a reasonable conjecture that the origin of the word is Lat. _corolla_, a little garland.

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Many "chapel" people would be shocked to know that _chapel_ means properly the sanctuary in which a saint's relics are deposited. The name was first applied to the chapel in which was preserved the _cape_ or cloak of St Martin of Tours. The doublet _capel_ survives in _Capel Court_, near the Exchange. Ger. _Kapelle_ also means orchestra or military band. _Tocsin_ is literally "touch sign." Fr. _toquer_, to tap, beat, cognate with _touch_, survives in "_tuck_ of drum" and _tucket_--

"Then let the trumpets sound The _tucket_ sonance and the note to mount."

(_Henry V._, iv. 2.)

while _sinet_, the diminutive of Old Fr. _sin_, sign, has given _sennet_, common in the stage directions of Elizabethan plays in a sense very similar to that of _tucket_.

_Junket_ is from Old Fr. _joncade_, "a certaine spoone-meat, made of creame, rose-water, and sugar" (Cotgrave), Ital. _giuncata_, "a kinde of fresh cheese and creame, so called bicause it is brought to market upon rushes; also a _junket_" (Florio). It is thus related to _jonquil_, which comes, through French, from Span. _junquillo_, a diminutive from Lat. _juncus_, rush. The plant is named from its rush-like leaves.

_Ditto_, Italian, lit. "said," and _ditty_, Old Fr. _dite_, are both past participles,[110] from the Latin verbs _dico_ and _dicto_ respectively. The _nave_ of a church is from Fr. _nef_, still occasionally used in poetry in its original sense of ship, Lat. _navis_.

It is thus related to _navy_, Old Fr. _navie_, a derivative of _navis_.

Similarly Ger. _Schiff_ is used in the sense of nave, though the metaphor is variously explained.

The old word _cole_, cabbage, its north country and Scottish equivalent _kail_, Fr. _chou_ (Old Fr. _chol_), and Ger. _Kohl_, are all from Lat.

_caulis_, cabbage; cf. _cauli_flower. We have the Dutch form in _colza_, which comes, through French, from Du. _kool-zaad_, cabbage seed.

_Cabbage_ itself is Fr. _caboche_, a Picard derivative of Lat. _caput_, head. In modern French _caboche_ corresponds to our vulgar "chump." A _goshawk_ is a _goose hawk_, so called from its preying on poultry.

_Merino_ is related to _mayor_, which comes, through French, from Lat.

_maior_, greater. Span. _merino_, Vulgar Lat. _*majorinus_, means both a magistrate and a superintendent of sheep-walks. From the latter meaning comes that of "sheepe driven from the winter pastures to the sommer pastures, or the wooll of those sheepe" (Percyvall). _Portcullis_ is from Old Fr. _porte coulisse_, sliding door. Fr. _coulisse_ is still used of many sliding contrivances, especially in connection with stage scenery, but in the portcullis sense it is replaced by _herse_ (see p.

75), except in the language of heraldry. The masculine form _coulis_ means a clear broth, or _cullis_, as it was called in English up to the 18th century. This suggests _colander_, which, like _portcullis_, belongs to Lat. _colare_, "to streine" (Cooper), whence Fr. _couler_, to flow.

_Solder_, formerly spelt _sowder_ or _sodder_, and still so p.r.o.nounced by the plumber, represents Fr. _soudure_, from the verb _souder_; cf.

_batter_ from Old Fr. _batture_, _fritter_ from Fr. _friture_, and _tenter_ (hooks)[111] from Fr. _tenture_. Fr. _souder_ is from Lat.

_solidare_, to consolidate. Fr. _sou_, formerly _sol_, a halfpenny, comes, like Ital. _soldo_, from Lat. _solidus_, the meaning of which appears also in the Italian participle _soldato_, a soldier, lit. a paid man. This Italian word has pa.s.sed into French and German, displacing the older cognates _soudard_ and _Soldner_, which now have a depreciatory sense. Eng. _soldier_ is of Old French origin. It is represented in medieval Latin by _sol[i]darius_, glossed _sowdeor_ in a vocabulary of the 15th century. As in _solder_, the _l_ has been re-introduced by learned influence, but the vulgar _sodger_ is nearer the original p.r.o.nunciation.

FOOTNOTES:

[102] _I.e._, grotto painting, Ital. _grottesca_, "a kinde of rugged unpolished painters worke, anticke worke" (Florio).

[103] See p. 120. The aristocracy of the horse is still testified to by the use of _sire_ and _dam_ for his parents.

[104] Sometimes this name is for _cheater_, _escheatour_ (p. 84).

[105] Cf. _avoirdupois_, earlier _avers de pois_ (_poids_), goods sold by weight.

[106] It is possible that this is a case of early folk-etymology and that _persona_ is an Etruscan word.

[107] This is the accepted etymology; but it is more probable that _furnieren_ comes from Fr. _vernir_, to varnish.

[108] See _Crowther_, p. 176.

[109] But the early use of the word in the sense of middle-man points to contamination with some other word of different meaning.

[110] But the usual Italian past participle of _dire_ is _detto_.

[111] Hooks used for stretching cloth.

CHAPTER XI

h.o.m.oNYMS

Modern English contains some six or seven hundred pairs or sets of h.o.m.onyms, _i.e._, of words identical in sound and spelling but differing in meaning and origin. The _New English Dictionary_ recognises provisionally nine separate nouns _rack_. The subject is a difficult one to deal with, because one word sometimes develops such apparently different meanings that the original ident.i.ty becomes obscured, and even, as we have seen in the case of _flour_ and _mettle_ (p. 144), a difference of spelling may result. When Denys of Burgundy said to the physician--

"Go to! He was no fool who first called you _leeches_."

(_Cloister and Hearth_, Ch. 26.)

he was unaware that both _leeches_ represent Anglo-Sax. _laece_, healer.

On the other hand, a resemblance of form may bring about a contamination of meaning. The verb to _gloss_, or _gloze_, means simply to explain or translate, from Greco-Lat. _glossa_, tongue; but, under the influence of the unrelated _gloss_, superficial l.u.s.tre, it has acquired the sense of specious interpretation.

That part of a helmet called the _beaver_--

"I saw young Harry, with his _beaver_ on, His cuisses on his thigh, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury."

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

has, of course, no connection with the animal whose fur has been used for some centuries for expensive hats. It comes from Old Fr. _baviere_, a child's bib, now replaced by _bavette_, from _baver_, to s...o...b..r.

It may be noted _en pa.s.sant_ that many of the revived medieval words which sound so picturesque in Scott are of very prosaic origin. Thus the _basnet_--

"My _basnet_ to a prentice cap, Lord Surrey's o'er the Till."

(_Marmion_, vi. 21.)

or close-fitting steel cap worn under the ornamental helmet, is Fr.

_ba.s.sinet_, a little basin. It was also called a _kettle hat_, or _pot_.

Another obsolete name given to a steel cap was a privy _pallet_, from Fr. _palette_, a barber's bowl, a "helmet of Mambrino." To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase "mailed fist," a translation of Ger.

_gepanzerte Faust_. _Panzer_, a cuira.s.s, is etymologically a _pauncher_, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even in the sense of _Panzer_.

Imogen, taking the papers from her bosom, says--

"What is here?

The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus, All turn'd to heresy? Away, away, Corrupters of my faith! You shall no more Be _stomachers_ to my heart."

(_Cymbeline_, iii. 4.)

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Sometimes h.o.m.onyms seem to be due to the lowest type of folk-etymology, the instinct for making an unfamiliar word "look like something" (see p.

128, _n._). To this instinct we owe the nautical _companion_ (p. 165).