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ENGLISH WORDS 
AN 
ELEMENTARY STUDY OF DERIVATIONS 
BY 
CHARLES F. JOHNSON 
PROFESSOR OF BNGUSH LXTBRATURB, TRINITY 
COLLEGE^ HARTFORD 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
1899 
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KD a)5"7M^ 
HARVARD 
UNIVES^^^'TY] 
LI CRa.W 
Copyright. 189I1 by Harper & Brothers. 
AU figkU rutrted, 
flARVARO UNIVERSITY 
lltlAlY OF THE GRADUATE SCHUOl 
OF EDUCATION 
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PREFACE. 
This book is written primarily for use as a text- 
book in high-schools and colleges. Its object is 
to call attention to the literary values of words as 
far as can be done in a brief examination of deriva- 
tions. It is hoped, therefore, that it may not be 
without interest for that large class who, though 
in no sense specialists, take an interest in the his- 
tory of words, and that some young men may be 
prompted by it to take up the study of our lan- 
guage seriously. 
My acknowledgments are due to Messrs. G. P. 
Putnam's Sons for permission to insert the tables 
of Latin and English derivatives from Professor 
Marsh's lectures, and to the Open Court Publish- 
ing Company of Chicago for permission to make 
some extracts from Max Miiller's latest lectures. 
To my colleague. Dr. Samuel Hart, I am in- 
debted for many valuable suggestions. 
Professor Sk^at has been relied on as an au- 
thority in etymology. 
Trinity Coi.|.bgb, Hartford,/^ 19, 189?, 
C F. J. 
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CONTENTS. 
CHAP. PAGB 
I. THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE I 
II. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1 3 
III. NATURB AND PROOF OF LINGUISTIC RELATION- 
SHIP 23 
IV. SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS ... 36 
V. ENGUSH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC . . 46 
VI. CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES 56 
VII. ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF THE LATIN ELE- 
MENT 68 
VIII. LITERARY CHARACTER OF THE LATIN DERIV- 
ATIVES 81 
IX. MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS ... 96 
X. METHOD OF THE WORD-FORMING INSTINCT . II 3 
XI. GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT . 1 29 
XII. ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS I40 
XIIL ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS . . . . 155 
XIV. GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES I70 
XV. SURNAMES I94 
XVI. WORDS OF THE PROFESSIONS AND TRADES . 2X6 
ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION . . 244 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 249 
INDEX OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS EXPLAINED 252 
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ENGLISH WORDS. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 
We find ourselves in possession of a very com- 
plicated and delicate instrument which we are 
constantly using even when we are asleep. It is 
called language, and the first fifteen or twenty 
years of our lives are spent in learning to use it 
in a very feeble and imperfect way. If any edu- 
cational process goes on during the rest of our 
lives, its result is shown principally in increased 
readiness and dexterity in the use of language. 
Language, indeed, is so closely related to char- 
acter that, setting moral distinctions aside, the 
manner of using it is what chiefly distinguishes one 
man from another, and the power of acquiring it 
is what distinguishes a man from a beast. We 
naturally use the word " dumb " as a synonym for 
stupid, and when we say "dumb beast" we in- 
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2 ENGLISH WORDS. 
stinctively refer to our belief that the power of 
speech implies what we call reason. Homer calls 
the human race "articulately-speaking" or " 'word- 
dividing ' mortals." The later Greek philosophers, 
with a sense that the two things were closely re- 
lated, used the word logos for both speech and 
reason. 
In the proposition that the manner of express- 
ing thought in words or language is the criterion of 
intellectual character, we must be careful to note 
that the term " words or language " has an extend- 
ed meaning, for deaf and dumb men who cannot 
use or hear vocal sounds at all are as certainly 
intellectual beings as are the readiest and most 
fluent talkers. When we say that the language- 
power is the mark of a man, we do not mean the 
power of vocal utterance, but the power of at- 
taching any note or mark to an idea in the mind, 
whether that note be a sound, or a gesture, or a 
scratch on paper. In that broad sense deaf and 
dumb people use language as truly as do talkers. 
Even those unfortunates who are deaf, dumb, and 
blind can, after infinite pains, be given a language 
through the sense of touch. The fact that until 
this is done their minds remain absolutely isolat- 
ed and powerless to form an idea, is a proof of 
the intimate connection between thought and the 
means of expressing it. Until Dr. Howe gave the 
girl Laura Dewey Bridgman an equivalent for a 
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 3 
word, she dwelt in blackness and remoteness, sub- 
stantially without the power of thought. This may 
give us some idea of the immense importance of 
vocal words, since even an imperfect substitute 
for them can produce the difference between ra- 
tionality and apparent idiocy. 
Again, the second proposition contained in the 
first paragraph, that the power of language is the 
criterion of human beings as distinguished from 
brutes, implies another restriction of the usual 
meaning of the phrase, " the power of language." 
For beasts possess a certain kind of language- 
power in great perfectipn. Their calls of affection 
or warning to their young, and their notes of de- 
fiance, or rage, or pain, are very emphatic and ex- 
pressive, and are readily understood even by men. 
* But the call of the mother -bird, 6r the growl of 
a dog, is not language in the scientific sense. 
These sounds all express emotion, or are the phys- 
ical counterparts of certain feelings. They are of 
the same character as interjections, like " Oh," or 
" Pshaw," are not in essential nature different from 
a sigh or a groan, and are no more like real lan- 
guage than is the creaking of machinery for lack 
of oil. It is words as the sign of thought, not 
words as the outcome of feeling, that is meant 
when we say, " No beast has the power of lan- 
guage." Professor Whitney says {Study of Lan- 
guage^ Lect. xii.) : " The essential characteristic of 
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4 ENGLISH WORDS. 
our speech is that it is arbitrary and conventional ; 
that of animals, on the other hand, is natural and 
instinctive ; the former is, therefore, capable of 
indefinite growth, change, and development ; the 
latter is unwarying, and cannot transcend its orig- 
inal narrow limits." 
The language which is the mark of humanity 
consists of vocal sounds, or their equivalent, at- 
tached to mental concepts. Some philosophers 
hold that without the power of forming the sound, 
or some equivalent, physical, correlated sign, that 
we could not even form the concept. However 
this may be, whether it is true that "without 
thought no language is possible," or "without 
language no thought is possible," it is certain that 
without language there could be no communica- 
tion of thought, and, consequently, no civilization * 
and no individual development. The question 
whether language or thought is the primary power 
is at best a metaphysical one. The two powers 
are certainly necessary to each other, and there is 
a quality in one or both which distinguishes man 
from the beasts. Whether we regard this quality 
as a radical or an acquired one will depend on our 
fundamental philosophical notions. To the writer 
it seems a radical quality. It may be instanced 
that the power of making vocal sounds, and of at- 
taching them to certain concepts, appears in in- 
fants with the first ray of consciousness, and that 
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 5 
the growth of the power is commensurate with 
the growth of consciousness. Furthermore, men 
have been talking to horses and dogs for at least 
eight thousand years, but neither of those races 
has made the slightest progress towards acquiring 
a language. Man, therefore, may be defined as 
the animal who had originally the power of de- 
veloping a language, or as the animal who has 
developed a language. 
Since language is so closely connected with 
human thought, even if not absolutely necessary 
to it, we can readily see how important the study 
of words may become. We cannot get hold of a 
new thought without learning some new words, or 
at least adding something to the notions grouped 
about the word we already know, and so enrich- 
ing and rounding out our instinctive knowledge. 
On the other hand, to learn something about a 
word — a thought- implement — ought to enlarge 
our thought- power by making us more familiar 
with the implement. 
From another point of view, the study of words 
has a different and perhaps a greater value. It 
increases our power of enjoyment and our sense 
of relation to our fellows. The beauty of imag- 
inative literature depends to a great degree on the 
associations called up by particular words. The 
use of a word rich in associations in such a man- 
ner as to bring out those associations constitutes 
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6 ENGLISH WORDS. 
poetic form far more than does rh)rme, or the rh)rth- 
mical arrangement of accent. These associations 
— the intimate and poetic meaning of the word — 
depend to some degree on the history and origin of 
the word. If the study of words increases, though 
slightly, our capacity for artistic enjoyment, or even 
for rational intellectual enjoyment, no further ar- 
gument for its importance is needed. Indeed, all 
others may be overlooked. 
From the intimate relations between language 
and thought, from the fact that language is a so- 
cial product, and the further fact that ruling ideas 
and methods change from one generation to anoth- 
er, it is evident that language must change also. 
Entirely new meanings are given to words in the 
course of time, and sometimes new words are 
coined which after a while come into general use. 
Again, many discoveries of new processes or in- 
ventions of new devices are made in physical 
science, for which new words must be found.* 
That very delicate characteristic, the flavor or lit- 
erary value of words, changes from century to cen- 
tury, even if the meanings do not change. Some 
words lose caste, others are promoted into good 
* The vocabulary of the modern science of Zoology is 
said by the author of the Introduction to the Century 
Dictionary to reach the enormous total of 100,000 words, 
60,000 of which are in use in books at present. Probably 
not more than two hundred of them are in general use. 
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 7 
society. Language is therefore in a contipual 
state of change from the action of several forces. 
Old words are dropping out and coming under the 
class marked " obsolete " in our dictionaries. New 
words are appearing, and, most important of all,* 
new meanings, sometimes fuller, sometimes more 
restricted, are slowly attaching themselves to the 
old words which are retained. If the language 
were not written, the words of one generation 
would not only convey entirely different ideas to 
the next, but they would hardly be intelligible to 
it, for pronunciation changes even more rapidly 
than meanings. If any body of men is isolated, 
their speech soon becomes a dialect, and before 
many years possibly a new language. It is thus 
that French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Provencal 
grew out of the old Roman speech, as it displaced 
the languages of the conquered countries. There- 
fore it is usual to say that language is an evolu- 
tion — ^that is, a product whose growth is predeter- 
mined and regulated by certain laws. 
But language is an evolution in a restricted 
sense, since it follows the evolution of a nation — 
or its growth in civilization — at a distance, and 
may borrow much more or much less from some 
♦ Compare, for instance, the words ' ' freedom," ' anarchy," 
"king," *' righteousness," " people," "nature," as held now 
and in the seventeenth century. 
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8 ENGLISH WORDS. 
foreign language than the people themselves take 
from any other nation. It is not an evolution as 
a plant is which grows from a definite seed and 
goes through certain stages of change till it 
reaches maturity and then dies, because, if for 
no other reason, its environment, the thought of 
the people which moulds it, is itself an evolution 
of a very complicated kind. The language of a 
civilized nation undoubtedly changes continually, 
both in pronunciation and in texture, according 
to certain laws, but it does not necessarily expand 
as the civilization of the people grows broader 
and fuller. Our language, for instance, has ac- 
cumulated a great many words during the past 
three hundred years — ^many more, indeed, than it 
has lost , but it is not a more perfected instru- 
ment than it was three hundred years ago, when 
Shakspeare began writing his comedies and King 
James's version of the Bible was made, although 
it responds to a wider range of thought When 
we use the word, evolution, as applied to the 
growth of a language, we must remember that we 
use it in a very restricted and metaphorical sense. 
The importance of a study of words is illustrated 
by the fact that so many mistakes arise from 
the careless use of this very useful word, " evolu- 
tion." For instance, the successive stages through 
which a language passes are not necessarily stages 
of development towards a definite and determined 
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. 9 
end, as the use of the word " evolution " in this 
connection would imply. 
The study of a language falls into two main 
branches : the examination of the material, and of 
the way in which the material is put together. 
The material is words, and they may be consid- 
ered with reference to their meanings, or to their 
derivations, or to both. The body of laws which 
govern the grouping and modifications of words 
is called grammar. The two branches constitute 
philology, or the scientific examination of the 
structure and material of a language as it is at 
present, and as it was in its earlier stages. When 
the words and grammar of more than one lan- 
guage are carefully examined, with a view of dis- 
covering resemblances or distinctions and bring- 
ing them under general laws, if any can be found, 
the study is called comparative philology, or — es- 
pecially if the treatment is broad, and language in 
general rather than some one language in partic- 
ular is the subject-matter — linguistics. There is 
also another branch of the general science of 
language, and that is phonetics, or the examina- 
tion of vocal sounds, the mechanism which pro- 
duces them, and the laws and customs which 
govern the changes in the pronunciation of words 
in different nations and in different centuries. 
It has thrown a flood of light on the manner in 
which words grow, but it is an extremely difficult 
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lO ENGLISH WORDS. 
Study, and is the basis of the modern " science 
of language." This book will deal simply with 
the immediate derivations of a few groups oi 
English words. Its object is literary, not phil- 
ological, and it presupposes only the knowledge 
of Latin that students entering college usually 
possess. 
When it is said that the object of this book is 
literary, reference is had to the fact that by know- 
ing something of the derivation and history of 
English words we come to hold them in a fuller 
and richer sense, and to have a certain number 
of associations with them which enables us to 
use them more accurately and more picturesque- 
ly. A feeling for words, such as Charles Lamb 
and Emerson, among others, possessed, is of 
course a natural gift But all men possess at 
least the rudiments of that discriminative sense 
in words, and it is a sense remarkably responsive 
to cultivation. The true way to strengthen it is 
to read good literature, and to note the peculiar 
and delicate use of words by literary artists. The 
study of derivations is only an aid to this exer- 
cise. If we know the derivation and history of a 
word we appreciate it more fully, just as we know 
a man better when we have known him in his 
youth than if we had first met him in middle age. 
Thus, when we learn that " precipitate " means to 
throw one's self headforemost, and that it comes 
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THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE. II 
from prcR caputs the word acquires a life that it 
had not before. " Dilapidated " is a strong word, 
but how much more graphic it becomes when we 
remember that it comes not from di lapsus (fallen 
down), but from dis and lapis ^ and is based on the 
idea of a building where the stones have fallen 
down in ruin — " not one stone left upon another." 
We know that it is from lapis (a stone), from 
the d in the word. In the same way the deriva- 
tions of many words throw light on their mean- 
ings, and are frequently very suggestive of new 
uses. All great writers have used words with an 
unconscious sense of the various accretions of 
meaning they have received from time to time. 
The scientific study of language is perhaps the 
greatest and most fruitful of all the modern lines 
of investigation. It has secured a great body of 
facts, and has thrown a flood of light on the his- 
torical development of humanity. But only spe- 
cialists have the time for this, whereas any one 
can^ with the aid of a modern dictionary, examine 
the history of a large number of words of his own 
language, and gain some power of using them in 
new relations. And all persons should do at least 
as much as this, since words are the tools of all, 
and not the special property of the philologist. 
Before considering the subject of derivations, 
it will be well, however, to make a brief classifi- 
cation of the European languages, that we may 
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12 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the better understand the position and genesis of 
our own. 
On the question of the origin and growth of language, 
students are advised to read Max MttUer's two series of 
lectures, entitled The Science of Language^ and his later 
book, Language and Thought Professor Whitney's ad- 
mirable treatise, Language and the Study of Language^ as 
well as his shorter book in the International Science Series, 
Life and Growth of Language^ should also be read. The 
most recent German views can be found in the Introduction 
to the Study of the History of Language , by Strong, Loge- 
man, and Wheeler. 
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CHAPTER 11. 
THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
The English language is one of an extensive 
group or stock of languages spoken by the peo- 
ples in Europe and Asia, who have had the great- 
est part in the development of civilization. This 
is called the Indo - Europ>ean, or Aryan, stock — 
Indo-European referring to the territories in which 
the languages of the stock have been spoken, and 
Aryan to the original race or tribe from which all 
or nearly all of those speaking the languages so 
related are supposed to be descended. By Ger- 
mans it is usually called the Indo-Germanic stock. 
These languages are not all related to each other, 
or to the primitive language, in the same de- 
gree, and those which are the most closely related 
to each other are gathered into sub-groups or 
branches. No part of the original language has 
survived, nor is it known where the speakers of 
the original language lived, nor how long ago they 
lived. The deduction from the nature of the 
words that are common to all or nearly all the 
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languages of the stock would point to a locality 
where barley was raised and where certain trees 
grow and certain animals could live. It has been 
usual to refer to the high ground of Central Asia 
as the home of the original Aryans, or the Proto- 
Aryan tribe. Other philologists maintain that 
they came originally from the fertile plain north- 
ward of the Black Sea in Europe, and others, even, 
that the Scandinavian peninsula has the best 
claims to be regarded as the seat of our prehis- 
toric, ancestral race. That there was an original 
race there can be little doubt, for there certainly 
was once an original tongue, and some few facts 
about its mode of life can be discovered, but 
the determination of its abode after the lapse 
of so many centuries is probably impossible. At 
all events, very wide boundaries must be assigned. 
It is quite possible, too, that the climate of the 
Old World may have changed materially since the 
day of the ancient Aryans, so that the evidence 
drawn from the names of the trees and plants 
and animals known to them may not point to any 
definite locality.* 
* As the original language must have developed before 
political institutions made large empires possible, we may 
assume that the area in which it was spoken was limited. 
It is not asserted that all, or even a considerable part, of 
those now speaking Aryan languages are physical descend- 
ants of the Proto-Aryan tribe. Race is one thing, and lan- 
guage quite another. Some races perpetuate their language ; 
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RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 5 
The branches of this great stock known since 
historic times are as follows : 
I. The Indian. — This contains the various dia- 
lects of Hindustanee. The principal literary r^ 
resentative of this group is the Sanskrit, which as 
a spoken language died out some three centuries 
before the Christian era. It is the speech of the 
oldest Aryan civilization, and is a very copious 
and graphic language, and knowledge of it forms 
part of the education of learned Hindoos even 
now. Probably as a whole it resembles most close- 
ly the tongue of the primitive Aryans, although, 
of course, the language of a highly intellectual and 
thoughtful people, like that which wrote in San- 
skrit, is far more developed than the speech of their 
nomadic and semi -barbarous progenitors could 
possibly have been. The modem representatives 
of Sanskrit are the Hindustanee and other dia- 
lects of Northern India. 
II. The Iranian. — This covers the languages 
of Persia — old Persian and modern Persian. The 
Indian and Iranian branches of the Aryan stock 
constitute the south-eastern or Asiatic division. 
The five other branches constitute the north- west- 
em or European division. Its modern represent- 
ative is the language now spoken in Persia. 
others seem to hold it very loosely. In the amalgamation 
of races the better-developed language survives in a modified 
form. 
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l6 ENGLISH WORDS. 
III. The Hellenic. — This includes Greek, 
ancient and modern, the most finished, exact, and 
copious of the Aryan languages. Modern Greek 
is 'sometimes called Romaic. As a literary and 
national language, Greek has enjoyed a longer life 
by far than any other Aryan tongue. 
IV. The Slavonic, or Slavo-Lettic. — This 
includes Russian, Bulgarian, Servian, etc. Rus- 
sian, the leading language of this branch, is spoken 
by many millions of people, and is developing a 
fine literature. The race is the youngest to enter 
the community of civilized peoples, and the lan- 
guage is said to be marked by vigor and melody. 
V. The Celtic. — The languages of this branch 
are rapidly becoming extinct. The Celts are of 
very great antiquity, and once occupied France 
and the British Isles. They were divided into 
two groups, the Kymri or Cymric and the Gaels, 
The tongue of the Cymri is represented by Welsh, 
Cornish, and Armorican, or Breton, spoken by the 
peasants of Brittany. Cornish became extinct 
in the last generation. The Welsh possess a 
copious imaginative literature, but although their 
blood has entered largely into that of our peo- 
ple, their language seems to have affected Eng- 
lish but slightly. Gadhelic, the second division 
of the Celtic branch, is represented by Irish, the 
native language of Ireland; Erse, the language 
of the Highlands of Scotland ; and Manx, the lan- 
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RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 1 7 
guage of the Isle of Man. The Celtic tongues, 
all of which are dying out gradually, and being 
replaced by French and English, are probably 
among the oldest representatives of the great Ar- 
yan stock in colloquial use in Europe, unless that 
distinction be given to the modern representatives 
of the Italic. Greek is considered to be a younger 
oflEshoot from the parent stock than Latin. 
VI. The Italic. — The Latin is, of course, the 
most important of the languages of this branch, 
which comprised many tongues spoken in ancient 
Italy. It is perhaps more closely related to Greek 
than to the Celtic or Teutonic. It is the source 
of several important modem languages, called as 
a group the Romance languages. They are the 
Italian, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, 
and the Provencal. The Proven9al, once spoken 
in Southern France and Northern Italy, developed 
a highly-cultivated lyrical literature in the twelfth 
century, but sank to the level of a peasant's /d5/i;« 
after the political supremacy of Northern France 
was assured. Of late, successful efforts have been 
made to revive it. The influence of classical 
Latin on all of the modern European languages 
has been very great, since for many centuries it 
was the language of diplomacy, philosophy, and 
religion. More than one -half of our English 
words — though not the more important part — 
are derived from the Latin, either directly or in- 
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1 8 ENGLISH WORDS. 
directly, through French or some other Romance 
tongue. 
VII. The Teutonic. — This branch includes 
English, Dutch, German, Danish, etc. The Italic 
languages are spoken by about one hundred mill- 
ions of people, and the Teutonic by not far from 
twice that number. They have spread very rap- 
idly in the past five centuries. The Teutonic 
branch is divided into four groups : 
1. Old Gothic, — ^This was the tongue of the first 
of the Teutonic tribes that attained historic im- 
portance. They lived in Moesia, on the Danube. 
A translation of the Bible was made into this lan- 
guage in the fourth century by Ulfilas, a mission- 
ary from Constantinople. The Gospels are still 
extant, and constitute the oldest writing in any 
Teutonic tongue. The language is extinct, al- 
though branches of the Goths were once the rul- 
ers of Europe. 
2. The Norse, or Scandinavian, represented at 
present by Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and the 
dialects spoken in Norway, which are slight modi- 
fications of Danish, bearing somewhat the same 
relation to it that Scotch does to English. 
3. The High Germanic. — This is so-called be- 
cause it covers the languages spoken by the Teu- 
tonic tribes of Upper Germany, 1. e,, the country 
up the rivers or farthest from the sea. Old High 
German dates back to the eleventh century, and 
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RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 19. 
includes the language of the Franks, the conquer- 
ors of Gaul, and of the Suabians. Modern High 
German is what we all know as German, and dates 
from the printing of Luther's Bible. 
4. The Low Germanic group, so-called because 
it was originally spoken by the Teutonic tribes 
living in Northern Germany. The ancient tongues 
of this group are Friesic, Netherlandish, Old Sax- 
on, and Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. The Friesic 
is still spoken on the coast of Schleswig-Holstein. 
Dutch, or Hollandish, is the modern representa- 
tive of Netherlandish, and Platt-Deutsch, or Low 
German — which must by no means be considered 
a dialect of German, since it is very much more 
closely related to English and Hollandish than it 
is to German — is the modem representative of 
old Saxon. It is a popular idiom, though some 
modem novels have been printed in it, and is quite 
extensively spoken. The fourth member of this 
group is English, which is a thoroughly Teutonic 
language in spirit and descent, though it has taken 
up so large a Latin element into its vocabulary. 
Its grammar is a broken-down Anglo-Saxon gram- 
mar, and its articulations are made by Teutonic 
particles. It has been enriched, not diluted, by 
words of foreign origin. It is now spoken and 
read by a larger body of people than is any other 
language, for Chinese is separated into a large 
number of dialects, many of which are not intel- 
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20 ENGLISH WORDS. 
ligible except to the dwellers in limited districts, 
and the Mandarin, or Court language, is under- 
stood only by the educated classes. 
As philological science advances, under the 
guidance of modem phonetics, judgments as to 
the closeness of relationship between various lan- 
guages become modified. Classifications slightly 
differing from the above have been suggested. 
One of the latest is found in Brugmann's Com- 
parative Grammar (1888). He makes one more 
main branch, the Albanian, the language of An- 
cient Ill)rria, the words of which have been de- 
tached by patient study from the mass of intrusive 
Turkish, Slavonic, and Greek terms which have 
overwhelmed the modern spoken Albanian. 
The Armenian, instead of being ranked under 
the Iranian branch, is made an independent mem- 
ber, and Indian and Iranian are grouped together 
to form the Aryan branch. 
The Gallic is recognized as a member of the 
Celtic branch, though all that is known of it is a 
few words quoted by Latin authors and a few 
proper names, mostly on coins. 
The most important modification is in the ar- 
rangement of the Teutonic tongues. These Brug- 
mann divides into Gothic, Norse, and West Ger- 
manic. Gothic and Norse (or Scandinavian) are 
considered to be closely related, and the modern 
representatives of the latter — Icelandic, Norwe- 
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RELATIONSHIP OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 
gian, Swedish, and Danish — were practically a 
single language down to the Viking period (a.d. 
800-1000). These are also called East Germanic, 
as opposed to the West Germanic tongues — 
English, Dutch, Low Cxerman, and High German. 
The Aryan languages are the only ones spoken 
in Europe, if we except one or two representatives 
of the Turanian stock, as Turkish, the Magyar 
(still spoken in parts of Hungary), the Finnish and 
Lapp of Northern Russia, and the fragmentary rep- 
resentatives of the Semitic speech scattered over 
Western Europe. To one Semitic race — the Jews 
— ^we owe our religion, and to another — the Arabs 
of Spain — ^we owe our rudimentary conceptions of 
science. From the latter we have received quite 
a number of words, arithmetical, astronomical, and 
the like, but our speech is widely removed from 
theirs. There is, however, in the Pyrenees in 
Spain and France an interesting survival of a peo- 
ple probably even older than the Proto- Aryans. 
This is the Basques, a small community still ad- 
hering to its original speech, which has no affinity 
to any of the other tongues of Europe. They 
represent a little fragment of a prehistoric race 
stranded in a country which has been overrun by 
Celts, Semitic Phoenicians and Moors, Italians, 
and Teutonic Goths and Vandals. They are like 
the isolated vegetable life of a mountain that has 
survived geologic changes which have transformed 
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22 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the figure of a continent and left the stunted 
shrubs and mosses of the earlier era unaffected, 
but restricted to a limited territory where the 
newer forms could find no foothold. Linguistic- 
ally and ethnologically, these Basques are entitled 
to look down upon Spaniards and Portuguese as 
recent arrivals, and to consider themselves as the 
pure-blooded, ancient race. Their language, into 
which a large number of Spanish vocables has 
been taken, is said to have little fitness for literary 
use. Ethnologically, they are called Iberians. 
They call themselves Euscaldunac, and their lan- 
guage Euscara, They number 500,000, and retain 
very many ancient customs and race characteris- 
tics. The inhabitants of the south-western part of 
France also show distinct traces of this ancient 
blood, notably in Navarre, though the language 
has long been abandoned. The geographical 
term Biscay is derived from Basque, 
The question of the original home of the Proto-Aryans 
must always remain unsettled for want of evidence, and for 
the same reason will always be a favorite subject of discus- 
sion among philologists. Students are recommended to read 
Taylor's The Origin of the Aryans ^ and the papers brought 
out by its publication. Also the Prehistoric Antiquities oj 
the Aryan Peoples (Schrader and Jevons). 
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CHAPTER III. 
NAITJRE AND PROOF OF LINGUISTIC RELATION- 
SHIP. 
The relationship of the Indo-European lan- 
guages spoken of in the foregoing chapter is a 
relationship of structure and of material both. 
We shall consider only the relationship of mate- 
rial — that is, of words. But we must remember 
that merely finding a word, or even a number of 
words, in one language naturalized in another is 
no evidence of a common origin of the two lan- 
guages. Words may of course be borrowed from 
any other language at any time. These are fre- 
quently retained and become fully naturalized. 
This is especially likely to be the case when the 
borrowing people does not previously possess or 
know the thing to which the word is applied. If 
the telephone and the steam-engine are introduced 
into China, the Chinese will probably adopt the 
words we have invented for names of the parts 
of the apparatus. But the words for the most 
evident natural bodies and phenomena, and for 
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24 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the fundamental human relations, and for all com- 
mon operations, cannot well be intrusive words. 
Sun, moon, water, man, son, daughter, sky, stars, 
tree, as well as the verbs to kill, to eat, to strike, 
to dig, to weave, and many others are very evi- 
dently primitive words, as are also the numerals 
from one to ten ; and when we find that the Ger- 
man words sohn^ vater, mutter, tochter, stem, essen^ 
gehen are very similar to our words for the same 
things, we say confidently, either German is a 
sort of English, or English is a sort of German, 
or they are both changed forms of the same 
original language. This last is evidently much 
the most likely supposition, for both languages 
are subject to change. It has been proved to be 
true by a variety of arguments. One of the sim- 
plest is, that when words appear under altered 
forms in different members of the same family of 
languages, the diversity of form is subject to a 
definite rule. The sounds of the two languages 
are connected by a law. The differences are not 
hap -hazard, but are regulated. A certain ten- 
dency of pronunciation has worked in one lan- 
guage and another tendency in the other. This 
consideration enables us vastly to increase the 
number of words which are evidently related in 
each language, and to say that the differences 
are accounted for as not original, but as growths. 
The resemblances must be accounted for, and 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 
25 
they point to a common origin ; and to show that 
the differences also point to a common origin of 
the two languages in question is one of the great 
triumphs of modem philology — the scientific treat- 
ment of the words of the Aryan languages. The 
readiest and simplest illustration of this is to be 
found in the consonantal reciprocity in cognate 
tongues, which is expressed in what is known as 
" Grimm's Law," named after its discoverer, the 
German philologist, Jacob Grimm. The following 
statement is taken from Earle's Philology of the 
English Tongue: 
"We suppose the reader is familiar with the 
twofold division of the mute consonants into lip, 
tooth, and throat consonants in one direction, 
and into thin, medial, and aspirate consonants 
on the other. If not, he should learn this little 
table by heart before he proceeds a step further. 
Learn it by rote both ways, both horizontally and 
vertically : 
Lip 
(Labial). 
Tooth 
(Dental). 
Throat 
(Guttural). 
Thin 
Medial 
Aspirate 
P 
b 
f 
t 
d 
th 
C = k 
g 
h (Saxon) 
Thin 
Medial 
Aspirate 
By means of this classification of the mutes,* 
* Besides the mute consonants we have the trilled / and 
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26 ENGLISH WORDS. 
we are able to show traces of a law of transition 
having existed between English and the classical 
languages. We find instances of words, for ex- 
ample, which begin with a thin consonant in 
Greek or Latin or both, and the same word is 
found in English or its cognate dialects beginning 
with an aspirate. Thus, if the Latin or Greek 
word begins with/, the English word begins with 
/>, e.g., irvp and Jire; wpo, wpGtTOQ^ primus andjirsf. 
Compare with the Saxon words /ruma,/rem, the 
modem preposition from — which is of the same 
root and original sense — with /or, /are, /orth; 
7rJ)\oc, pulius, "witYi foal, filly ; pellisvn^/ell; vvl, 
pugnus, with^/; variip^ pater, '^ih/ather; irivrs 
vfith five; wovg^pes, with foot ; piscis \A^fish, etc. 
"If the classical word begins with an aspi- 
rate, the English word begins with a medial : 
e.g,, the Greek 0, or Latin /, is found respon- 
sive to the English b. Thus, ^jyyoc, /agus, and 
beech; <pvu)^ /u (perfect stem of sum), and be; 
<f>paTpia, /rater, and brother ; (pipnj, foro, and bear. 
The Greek by the same rule responds to the 
English d, as in dnp and deer; OvyaTrjp and daugh- 
ter; dvpa and door, 
" If the Greek or Latin has the medial, the Eng- 
r, the sibilants j» z^ and x = ks^ and the nasals if, m, and ng. 
The last are also labial mutes — that is, the sound is stopped 
by the lips. Grimm's Law refers, however, only to the 
consonants contained in the table. 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 27 
lish should have the thin ; that is to say, a classic 
^ or // should correspond to our English /. So 
it does in daicpv and fear; Suo, duo, and two ; ^cko, 
decern, and ten; li\na^ domus, and timbran (the 
Saxon word for building) ; Uvlpov^ Spvc, and tree ; 
dingua, archaic Latin for lingua and tongue. These 
and all such illustrations may be summarized for 
convenience' sake in the following mnemonic 
formula : 
T A M 
% m % 
In this the letters of the Latin word tam placed 
over the Gothic letters of the German word 9lmt 
are intended to bracket together the initial letters 
of thins, medials, and aspirates, so as to repre- 
sent the order of transition. 
" In the use of this scheme, we will suppose the 
student to be inquiring after the Greek and Latin 
analogues to the English word kind. The word 
begins with a tenuis or thin consonant, and thus 
directs us to the letter / in the Gothic word Ami, 
Over this / we find in the Latin word an m, and 
by this we are taught that the medial of k, which 
is g (see Table), will be the corresponding initial 
in Greek and Latin. Thus we are directed to 
yev and gigno as the analogues of kin and kind. 
The same process will lead from knee to ydw and 
genu, from ken and know, to yiyi/w(7*:fci."* 
* Skeat formulates the law of phonetic change more con- 
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28 ENGLISH WORDS. 
In other words, a Latin thin consonant changes 
into an aspirate in the corresponding English 
word, a Latin aspirate into an English medial, 
and a Latin medial into an English thin, and the 
reverse is of course true in all these cases, the 
labial, dental, and guttural quality remaining un- 
changed. A familiar example of a corresponding 
phenomenon is that a Cxerman or Frenchman in- 
variably changes the English th into a d, saying 
de for the, 
"These examples will satisfy the reader that 
here we have traces of a regular law, and that 
our language is of one and the same strain with 
the Greek and Latin — that is to say, that it be- 
longs to the great Aryan or Indo-European family. 
" A succession of small divergences which run 
upon stated lines of variation — lines having a 
determinate relation to one another, and consti- 
tuting an orbit in which the transitional move- 
ment revolves : this is a phenomenon worthy of 
our contemplation. It is the simplest conception 
of a fact which in other shapes will meet us again, 
namely, that the beauty of philology springs out 
of that variety in unity which makes all nature 
beautiful and all study of nature profoundly at- 
tractive." 
cisely and comprehensively. I give Earle's statement be- 
cause it is more graphic, and seems to me more likely to 
impress on the young reader the breadth of the relation. 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 29 
" It would be easy to discover a great number 
of examples which lie outside of the above anal- 
ogy. One important cause of unconformability 
is the introduction of foreign words. This ap- 
plies to all Teutonic words beginning with /, 
which are foreigners* and not subject to Grimm's 
Law. There is also a certain amount of acci- 
dental disturbance. Casualties happen to words 
as to all mortal products, and in the course of 
time their forms become defaced. The German 
language offers many examples of this. If I 
wanted to understand the consonantal analogies 
which exist between English and the German, I 
should prefer as a general rule to go to the oldest 
form of German, because a conventional orthog- 
raphy, among other causes, has in German led to 
a disfigurement of many of the forms." 
Furthermore, it is only in the early stages of a 
language that words are spelled as they are pro- 
nounced, and Grimm's Law is applied to letters. 
The spelling changes much more slowly than the 
pronunciation. In fact, after printing becomes 
general, it is very difficult to change the spelling 
of words. Thus there have been many changes 
* That is to say, * * foreigners " in the sense of not conform- 
ing to Grimm's Law. At least ninety-five per cent, of our 
words beginning with p are derived from Latin or Greek, 
but a few, e. g. , pith, paddock (a toad), pad (in footpad), 
path, pant, pebble, prick, pride, plough, pod, purr, etc. , are 
of undoubted Teutonic lineage. 
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30 ENGLISH WORDS. 
in the pronunciation of English during the past 
century, but the changes in spelling have been 
comparatively unimportant, and have not fol- 
lowed the changes in sound. We have dropped 
^the k^ for instance, in words ending in kk^ like 
music and mathemaiics^ derived from the Greek, 
although the pronunciation of the final syllable 
has not varied. Fortunately, consonants remain 
comparatively fixed, but many words containing 
the vowel sound represented by ea^ like sea and 
tea^ have changed from the a sound to the e sound 
as represented in he^ but the spelling remains and 
will always remain the same.* 
Thus, changes may be going on in the pronun- 
ciation of a language of which philology has no 
record.! It is very doubtful if we could under- 
* The Irish still retain the early sound of ea^ and call 
tea^ tay; sea^ say^ etc. In this and in many other peculiar- 
ities of what we call brogue^ their pronunciation of English 
is much nearer to that of educated Englishmen of the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries than is ours. Pope makes 
Ua rhyme to away, and to say : 
" Mxise o*er some book, or trifle o*er the tea, 
Or with soft musick charm dull care away.*' 
Again, 
"Here, thou great Anna! whom three realms obey. 
Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea." 
Still earlier, Surrey makes praise rhyme to peas^ heat to 
great, zxA peace to days. We have saved this old sound in 
great and break. The French words from which please, 
fieason, treason, and ease are derived, all have the d sound. 
f The decay of the trilled r in many parts of our coun- 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 3I 
stand English as spoken by Francis Bacon and his 
contemporaries. Fortunately, the great charac- 
teristics of English were formed long before that 
date, and therefore stand embalmed in the print- 
ed language. If spelling varied as rapidly as pro- 
nunciation does, philologists would be very much 
at sea. The origin of some modern words would 
have been entirely obscured. 
The effect of the discovery of the wide relation- 
ship of the Aryan languages has undoubtedly 
been very great. For a relationship of language 
implies, though it does not prove, a relationship 
of blood. Max Miiller says that the name Indo- 
European " marked not only a new epoch in the 
study of language, it ushered in a new period in 
the history of the world." In fact, he seems to 
think that the linguistic bond, evidenced by con- 
sonants, vowels, and accents, proves an intellect- 
ual fraternity far stronger than any merely gene- 
alogical relationship. Blood may be thicker than 
water, but it does not follow that language is a 
tie stronger than blood. The strength of the 
" Panslavic idea," for instance, is based on a feel- 
ing of blood relationship, and German national- 
try, and the New England tendency to change final aw into 
awr^ making law and saw into lawr and sawr^ is another 
instance of phonetic change. The misplacement of the h 
in England is still more remarkable. No matter how care- 
ful an Englishman is to avoid it, he sometimes falls into it 
if sufficiently excited. 
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32 ENGLISH WORDS. 
ity rests on the conception of race, not language. 
It will be beit, however, to allow this eminent 
philologist and entertaining writer to speak for 
himself. Max Miiller says : 
" When the Hindus learned for the first time 
that their ancient language, the Sanskrit, was 
closely connected with Greek and Latin, and with 
that uncouth jargon spoken by their rulers, they 
began to feel a pride in their language and their 
descent, and they ceased to look upon the pale- 
skinned strangers from the North as strange 
creatures from another, whether a better or a 
worse, world. They felt what we feel when later 
in life we meet with a man whom we had quite 
forgotten. But as soon as he tells us that he 
was at the same school with ourselves, as soon as 
he can remind us of our common masters, or re- 
peat some of the slang terms of our common 
childhood and youth, he becomes a school-fellow, 
a fellow, a man whom we seem to know, though 
we do not even recollect his name. Neither the 
English nor the Hindus recollected their having 
been at the same school together thousands of 
years ago, but the mere fact of their using the 
same slang words, such as mdtar and mother, 
such as bhrdtar and brother, such as staras and 
stars, was sufficient to convince them that most 
likely they had been in the same scrapes and 
had been flogged by the same masters. It was 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 33 
not SO much that either the one or the other par- 
ty felt very much raised in their ovm eyes by this 
discovery, as that a feeling sprang up between 
them that, after all, they might be chips of the 
same block. I could give you ever so many 
proofs in support of this assertion, at all events 
on the part of the Hindus, and likewise from the 
speeches of some of the most enlightened rulers 
of India. But as I might seem to be a not alto- 
gether unprejudiced witness in such a matter, I 
prefer to quote the words of an eminent Ameri- 
can scholar, Mr. Horatio Hale: *When the peo- 
ple of Hindustan in the last century,* he writes, 
* came under the British power, they were regard- 
ed as a debased and alien race. Their complex- 
ion reminded their conquerors of Africa. Their 
divinities were hideous monsters. Their social 
system was anti-human and detestable. Suttee, 
Thuggee, Juggernaut, all sorts of cruel and shock- 
ing abominations, seemed to characterize and de- 
grade them. The proudest Indian prince was, 
in the sight and ordinary speech of the rawest 
white subaltern, only a " nigger." This univer- 
sal contempt was retorted with a hatred as uni- 
versal, and threatening in the future most disas- 
trous consequences to the British rule. Then 
came an unexpected and wonderful discovery. 
European philologists, studying the language of 
the conquered race, discovered that the classic 
3 
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34 ENGLISH WORDS. 
mothertongue of Northern Hindustan was the 
elder sister of the Greek, the Latin, the German, 
and the Celtic languages. At the same time a 
splendid literature was unearthed, which filled 
the scholars of Europ>e with astonishment and 
delight The despised Asiatics became not only 
the blood-relations, but the teachers and exem- 
plars of their conquerors. The revolution of 
feeling on both sides was immense. Mutual es- 
teem and confidence, to a large extent, took the 
place of revulsion and distrust. Even in the 
mutiny which occurred while the change was yet 
in progress, a very large proportion of the native 
princes and people refused to take part in the 
outbreak. Since that time good-will has steadily 
grown with the fellowship of common studies and 
aims. It may freely be affirmed, at this day, that 
the discovery of the Sanskrit language and literature 
has been of more value to England in the retention 
and increase of her Indian Empire than an army of 
a hundred thousand men,^ 
" This is but one out of many lessons which the 
Science of Language has taught us. We have 
become familiarized with many of these lessons, 
and are apt to forget that not more than fifty 
years ago they were scouted as absurd by the 
majority of classical scholars, while they have 
proved to be the discovery of a new world, or, if 
you like, the recovery of an old world.*' 
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NATURE OF LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP. 35 
It may be doubted whether the practical hu- 
manizing effect of the conclusions of philology is 
quite as great in overcoming race prejudice as the 
above quotation would lead us to infer. Their 
power in broadening the minds of men of educa- 
tion is certainly very great. They should be wel- 
comed and valued as truth without any reference 
to political bearing. Imperial policy with regard 
to Turkish alliances or to the government of Hin- 
dustan will hardly be influenced by linguistic gen- 
eralizations. But any sense of the antiquity of 
our Aryan relationships ought to give us a fuller 
s)nnpathy with the other civilizations of our stock, 
and a sounder foundation for our respect for those 
of our own Germanic branch. 
The mutations of vocal utterance in groups of men 
whereby first dialects, and finally distinct languages, are 
formed, are subject to a number of laws which modern phi- 
lolc^ is seeking to disentangle. The article on pronuncia- 
tion in the International Dictionary is as accessible an ex- 
planation of the mechanism of human speech as can be 
mentioned. It contains an admirable, systematic discussion 
of the action of the vocal organs in forming the sounds of 
the English language, and opens a branch of the subject to 
which this book does nothing more than refer. 
An Introduction to Phonetics^ by Laura Soames, is an ex- 
cellent analysis of the vocal sounds of English, French, and 
German. 
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CHAPTER IV. 
SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 
Various theories have been advanced to ex- 
plain the origin of language. None of them is 
altogether convincing, although some are sus- 
tained by very ingenious and original arguments. 
If the origin of language was definitely settled, the 
origin of the human race would be also settled, 
and after that the origin of life on this planet 
would present little mystery. It is much more 
satisfactory to confine ourselves to historic time, 
or to the period during which we have written 
documents, which, indeed, offers a sufficient field 
for the generalizer and for the accumulator of 
facts. 
Our English of to-day is the speech of a Low- 
(Jermanic people, so greatly modified by change 
as to be substantially a new language compared 
with its form in the tenth century, and further 
modified by the naturalization of a very great 
number of words of a foreign tongue. During the 
past nine or ten centuries there has never been a 
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SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 37 
period when a generation of Englishmen could 
not understand the language of their grandchil- 
dren, though possibly when the change was most 
rapid the men of one century might have regard- 
ed the men of the next as speakers of a foreign 
tongue if they could have heard them talk. At 
the same time, English is an entirely distinct lan- 
guage from Anglo-Saxon. A very rapid review of 
its stages of growth will enable us to understand 
better the character of modern English. 
The island of Britain was at the date of the 
Christian era inhabited by Celts, representing 
both of the great Celtic families : the Cymri and 
the Gaels, the Cymric tribes occupying the south- 
em half. It was invaded by Julius Caesar 55 b.c, 
and subsequently made a Roman province, the 
work of subjugation extending from a.d. 42 to 
the close of the first Christian century. The 
northern part of the island, now Scotland, was 
never entirely conquered, and savage tribes of 
Celts — possibly of a still older race — maintained 
their independence there. When the Roman Em- 
pire began to break up, the legions were recalled, 
and Britain was abandoned early in the fifth cen- 
tury. The Roman invasion left no radical traces 
on the language of the inhabitants, beyond a 
few geographical names generally compounded 
of caster^ a camp^ which will be noticed here- 
after. It is evident that Britain was never Latin- 
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38 ENGLISH WORDS. 
ized in the thorough manner that Gaul and Spain 
were. 
Previous to the withdrawal of the Romans, it is 
highly probable that members of the energetic Low 
German tribes, who occupied what is now Hol- 
land, Schleswig-Holstein, and North Germany on 
the Baltic, had settled on the eastern shore. At 
all events, a Roman officer, having command of a 
number of galleys, was styled " Count of the Sax- 
on Shore,"* and his jurisdiction extended from the 
Thames as far north as the Saxons would be like- 
ly to land. His duty must have been to look after 
those already in Britain, or to keep others of the 
active marauders out. The Jutes especially were 
dreaded as fierce and bold pirates as much as the 
Northmen were later. But as soon as the military 
power was withdrawn, the inhabitants of South 
Britain were exposed to incursions from their 
savage kindred of the North, and from the Low 
Germans across the Channel and the North Sea. 
According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, Hengist 
and Horsa came over in 449 with a body of Jutes 
— either by invitation of the Britons or of their 
own motion — and founded the kingdom of Kent. 
In 477 -^lla landed near Chichester, and founded 
the kingdom of the South Saxons, or Sussex. 
During the sixth century the Angles, a closely- 
* See A. J. Church's story, so named, for an excellent 
romantico-historic picture of this time. 
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SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 39 
related tribe, founded kingdoms in the north, the 
largest of which was Northumbria. The seven 
kingdoms, Kent, Essex, Sussex, Wessex, North* 
umbria, Mercia (the marchy or frontier, or marked- 
(T^place), and East Anglia — including the modern 
Norfolk and Suffolk (the North and South people) 
— are sometimes referred to as the Heptarchy. 
These invasions of course imply the conquest and 
subjugation or removal of the Britons, and were 
followed by bloody wars between the settlements 
until Wessex and Mercia, under Alfred, attained a 
precarious overlordship. There is some evidence 
that the word Angle was regarded as a generic 
name. At all events, the country as a whole came 
to be called Angle-land. It may be, however, that 
the Angles were so far superior in numbers that 
their specific name was given to the entire coun- 
try conquered by them and the Saxons. 
It must be borne in mind that at that time Eng- 
land was a wild country, large portions of it be* 
ing covered by unbroken forests and impassable 
swamps. The settlements were made up the val- 
leys of the rivers or along the old Roman roads. 
Thus the division into independent kingdoms, as 
they were called, is accounted for. The Celts were 
driven into inaccessible places towards the west, 
and occupied Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, and 
Strathclyde. They were called generically Welsh 
— /. e,y foreigners (Anglo-Saxon., welisc, foreign). 
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40 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Cornwall means West Wales; and Cumberland, 
the land of the Kumroi, or Cymri. Many of the 
Celts were no doubt reduced to slavery, especially 
in the large cities like London, or remained in a 
semi-servile condition ; certainly their blood has 
gone to make up the modern Englishman, although 
their speech has affected his speech but little. 
The Low Germans were hardly settled in their 
new country when they were themselves subjected 
to invasion. Their third cousins, the Danes, or 
Northmen, were as enterprising pirates as the Sax- 
ons had been. They landed in their open boats 
on the coast of Yorkshire and East Anglia, and 
burned and plundered in their turn. They also 
made permanent settlements, and their king, Ca- 
nute, became overlord of England. This historic 
fact is mentioned because the Danish or Norse 
language has slightly influenced English. It seems 
probable that at that time the Danes and Anglians 
could understand one another's language imper- 
fectly. At all events, there was no difficulty, at a 
later date, in the reception of certain Danish forms 
into the nascent tongue. It must be borne in 
mind also that the language of the different dis- 
tricts of England was different, and that there was 
a southern, northern, and midland dialect, each of 
which has left its mark on the agricultural speech 
of the district where it was originally spoken, 
the midland dialect being the foundation of the 
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SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 41 
English we speak. Dialects, if isolated, grow into 
languages, but in a country under a central gov- 
ernment one dialect assumes supremacy as the 
language of the governing class and of educated 
people, and the other dialects are relegated to pro- 
vincial obscurity. Thus Scotland, having been 
an independent kingdom, there is a marked differ- 
ence between the speech of Scotchmen and Eng- 
lishmen, whereas the dialect of Norfolk or Dorset 
is confined to the lower classes. Particular events 
having given the supremacy to the Saxons, and 
London having been the capital, the dialect of 
the Saxons is the foundation of modern English 
as spoken by all educated people. 
In 1066, England, which had become pretty well 
consolidated, was invaded by the Duke of Nor- 
mandy with a large army of men speaking Norman 
French. He became King of England, and his 
officers became the local feudal lords of the coun- 
try. For a period the Anglo-Saxon tongue lost 
its position as the language of the governing class 
and of culture. The Christian priests, except in 
remote country places, used very generally either 
Latin or French, and one or the other was the lan- 
guage of law and of literature.* The native lan- 
* The fact that Englishmen obstinately continued to speak 
English for two hundred years, so that even those descend- 
ants of the Normans who habitually usgd French were 
finally compelled to acquire at least a speaking knowledge 
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42 ENGLISH WORDS. 
guage was of course spoken by the body of the 
people, but, being under no acknowledged head- 
ship, began to change rapidly. Inflections were 
dropped, and the language approached rapidly its 
present simple grammatical structure. During 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the course of 
political events conspired ; first, to relieve the An- 
glo-Saxon from the restraints which a conventional 
literary standard imposes on a language ; second, 
to bring it back under the yoke after a period of 
linguistic freedom, and to make it under its new 
form a strictly national language ; third, to rein- 
force its vocabulary with a multitude of French 
words. These events were the Conquest, as above 
mentioned, and the inheritance of a large terri- 
tory, in addition to Normandy, which the kings 
of England acquired in France, and then the loss 
of these Continental possessions, particularly the 
loss of Normandy, by King John in 1204, after 
which French civilization ceased to be paramount 
of English, is evident from the following quotation from 
a poem of the fourteenth century : 
" Latyn also y trowe can nane, 
Bot tho that hath tut of schole tane ; 
Some can Frensch and no Latyne, 
That useth hath Court and dwelt thereinnc;. 
And some can of Latyn aparty, 
That can Frensch full febylly : 
And som untherstondith Englisch 
That nother can Latyn ne Frensch, 
Bot lerde and lewde, old and yong, 
AUe untherstondith Englisch tong?* 
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SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 43 
in England, English nationality reappeared, and 
the English language took definite shape and as- 
sumed the outlines of its present form. Chaucer, 
who died in 1400, is not only the first writer who 
is intelligible to us, but the first whom we recog- 
nize as distinctly of our own kin in spirit and 
manner and speech. 
From 1060 to 1360 is a long period in the evo- 
lution of a language, and to understand the de- 
tails of the great movement is more than any one 
not a specialist can hope to do. The changes 
during this period were so great that we can fairly 
say that they constitute, not the development of 
Anglo-Saxon, but the birth of a new tongue. The 
old speech furnished the skeleton — but even the 
skeleton was modified — and the most important 
words, so that the more excited and earnest a 
man is, the more he tends to use Saxon forms. It 
furnished also what, for want of a better term, we 
may call the genius or spirit of the language. 
This is rather an indefinite expression, but we 
cannot help feeling that our language is in essen- 
tials and manner of growth a Teutonic language, 
though vastly richer than any other Teutonic 
tongue, and certainly as far superior in scope and 
power to Anglo-Saxon as English civilization is to 
the old Saxon civilization. Of the great number 
of French words which form part of our language, 
many are long words expressive of abstractions. 
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44 ENGLISH WORDS. 
and are held in reserve for special service. But, 
as we shall see hereafter, there are many short 
French derivatives which form part of our every- 
day working vocabulary. English is more than a 
Teutonic tongue into which there has been an in- 
fusion of foreign words — it is English. Its char- 
acteristic is force. It has its own rhythm quite 
different from that of Anglo-Saxon. The rh)rthm, 
or natural music, is a distinctive mark of a lan- 
guage and probably closely related to the national 
character of the people who speak it. There is 
none more varied and vigorous and modem than 
that of English. It is evident to any one that a 
truth stated in one language has an entirely differ- 
ent effect if translated into another. This is 
owing to the great power of form. Language is a 
form, and as Professor Marsh has pointed out, it 
has the power of reacting even on him who uses it. 
One who habitually thinks in French will in time 
acquire a French coloring to his mind. The im- 
portance of knowing something about our lan- 
guage, and of endeavoring to use it in a way 
conformable to its true character, is very great, 
because it has this formative power. The use of 
affected language is not only a sign but a cause 
of mental affectation. I would not go so far as 
to say that this malady can be cured .by the 
study of the derivation of words, but at least 
such study is one means of increasing our re- 
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SOURCKS OF MODERN ENGLISH WORDS. 45 
spect for our most valuable inheritance — our 
mother- tongue. 
We will now examine briefly some groups of 
words based on derivations, and also some groups 
based on the use of various social and industrial 
classes. The small and comparatively unimpor- 
tant group derived from Celtic words will claim 
our attention first, because, with the exception of 
a still smaller group called "Latin of the first 
period," it constitutes the oldest addition to the 
Anglo-Saxon vocabulary from any non -Teutonic 
source. 
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CHAPTER V, 
ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC. 
Philologists differ greatly in their estimates of 
the number of words in English derived from the 
Celtic tongues. The reasons for this general lack 
of agreement are : First ; Celtic and Anglo-Saxon 
are both Aryan languages, and when a word is 
found in one of these languages resembling a word 
of the same general meaning in the other, the re- 
semblance may be due to the fact that both are 
descendants from the same word in the Proto- 
Aryan tongue. Second; the word in question 
may have been transferred twice, first from the 
Saxon into the Celtic, and then in its disguised 
form readopted into Anglo-Saxon, so that what 
seems a Celtic derivative may from another point 
of view prove to be a genuine ancestral English 
word. Third; the paucity of Celtic documents 
during the period when some interchange of 
words might have taken place, renders it difficult, 
by reason of lack of evidence, to decide questions 
of origin. 
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ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC. 47 
As a matter of course, the two races were bit- 
terly hostile, and had little friendly intercourse 
with each other. The Britons hated the Saxons 
as invaders, and the Saxons despised the Britons 
as a conquered and inferior people; nor are these 
racial feelings entirely eradicated on either side 
at the present day. But the displacement of the 
Britons by the Saxons and Angles was a slow 
process, extending over at least two centuries, 
and some intercourse must have taken place in 
the intervals of war. Indeed, in one instance a 
body of Britons acted as the allies of one tribe of 
the Angles in their quarrel with another. 
Before saying anything about the few words 
which we have undoubtedly borrowed from the 
Cymric or the Gaelic branches of the Celtic 
tongue, it will be as well to notice that every 
spoken language embraces minor divisions or 
subvarieties. Thus Max M iiller distinguishes four 
kinds of English. He says : 
" There is one. kind of English which is spoken 
in Parliament, in the pulpit, and in the courts of 
law, which may be called the public^ the ordinary 
and recognized English. 
"The colloquial English, as used by educated 
people, differs but slightly from this Parliamentary 
English, though it admits greater freedom of con- 
struction and a more familiar phraseology. 
"The literary English, again, requires still 
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48 ENGLISH WORDS. 
greater grammatical accuracy, and admits a num- 
ber of uncommon, poetical, and even antiquated 
expressions which would seem strange in ordinary 
conversation. 
" The dialectic English is by no means extinct. 
The peasants in every part of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, though they understand a ser- 
mon and read their newspaper, both of which are 
written in ordinary English, continue to speak 
their own language among themselves, a language 
full of ancient and curious expressions, which 
often throw much light on the history of classical 
English. These dialects have of late been most 
carefully examined, and this is a branch of study 
in which everybody, if only he has a well-trained 
ear, is able to render most valuable assistance. 
"Lastly, in discussing special subjects we are 
driven to use a large number of technical^ foreigfi^ 
and even slang expressions, many of which are 
quite foreign to the ordinary speaker." 
It is evident that there are many subdivisions 
under each of the above heads. The ordinary 
English is much the same all over the country at 
any one period, but differs greatly in different 
generations. Lord Ashburton's communication 
and Mr. Webster's reply are made up of about 
the same class of words, but a State paper or a 
sermon of the seventeenth century contains many 
expressions which we now recognize as antiquated. 
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ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC. 49 
The colloquial English changes much more rapidly, 
and varies, not only in successive generations, but 
in different parts of the country. In particular it 
differs widely in this country and England to-day, 
and should so differ, since in each it has its own 
principles of growth. Colloquial English reflects 
national character, and if national character is 
individual, it, too, must be individual. If national 
character is imitative and second-hand, then im- 
ported phrases and words will mark colloquial 
expression. 
Literary English changes much more slowly, 
and does not, or at least should not, vary in differ- 
ent localities, for a writer must have at least some 
acquaintance with the entire vocabulary of his 
period, and must read the literature of his time 
wherever it is produced. It is true that each 
school is apt to run to a particular set of words, 
and a master like Tennyson or Browning some- 
times introduces a number of new words and 
phrases which speedily become the literary fash- 
ion. Writers of power are still more likely to res- 
cue from oblivion some stray archaisms. But the 
literary language is the standard, and is held by 
conservative influences much more than it is dis- 
turbed by innovating forces. The laws of liter- 
ary art are always the same, though the ideas 
which literature must present are progressive. 
Dialects have a strange persistence when once 
4 
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50 ENGLISH WORDS. 
established. The very essence of a dialect is, 
however, that it differs from other dialects. Thus 
we have Yorkshire, Dorset, Norfolk, Scotch, and 
Irish, each with its own racy, antique flavor. 
Imperfect English, as spoken by Germans and 
Frenchmen, is not entitled to be regarded as a 
dialect, nor are we willing to recognize technical 
English as a variety, although the nomenclatur3 
of botany and chemistry is unintelligible to those 
who have not made a special study of it. Tech- 
nical English is simply ordinary English applied 
to special subject-matter. 
Colloquial English and dialectic English are full 
of what we call slang expressions, started by the 
whims of individuals. If these are needed or "fill 
a known want " — to use a slang expression — they 
are sometimes retained, and, after a time, admitted 
into the ordinary English and even into literary 
English when they have proved their value. This 
was the case with mob and /»«, which are less 
than a century old, and doubtless will be the 
case with that very useful word, crank. To the 
philologist a word is interesting as a specimen, 
and slang, even low slang, may have a scien- 
tific value. Dialectic survivals, as in our New 
England speech, may illustrate a law or prove an 
ancient usage. It is not the dignity of a word 
that measures its worth as an illustration. 
Returning to the consideration of the words 
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ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC 5 1 
we have borrowed from the Celtic tongues, we 
must notice that most of them are of low origin 
and belong to colloquial or ordinary English. 
None of them express abstract ideas. The fol- 
lowing were taken into old French from the Celtic, 
for French is not entirely of Latin origin, but 
contains some words taken from the Celtic 
tongues of old Gaul, and some from the Frank- 
ish, the language of the Teutonic conquerors of 
France. From the French some of these passed 
into English. The list is not a long one (about 
seventy words), and contains, among others, bill- 
iards^ brisket^ car, carry, carpenter, quay, bobbin, 
cloak, baggage, gravel, varlet, valet, vctssal, piece. 
Some of these words are not found in modem 
French, as brisket, cloak, carry, which are obsolete 
in France, though carrilre, for career, or the path 
along which one is carried to success or failure 
has been retained. Carpenter meant originally 
a maker of cars or wagons, and was taken into 
low Latin as carpentarius, 3. wood-worker, thence 
into French, thence into English after the Con- 
quest Baggage is cognate with our English bag, 
and illustrates the point before alluded to, that 
an old English word and a Celtic word may 
be much alike, since both are of Aryan origin. 
Baggage is undoubtedly French from Celtic. We 
should not have the well-known phrase "bag and 
baggage " were both words from the same tongue. 
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52 ENGLISH WORDS. 
The words basket^ brag, bog, druid, cabin, flan- 
nel, bump, dagger, peak (found also in French), 
glen, and some fifty others are of Celtic origin, 
but came into English at an early date. 
The words bard, brogue, brogan, clan, fun, collie, 
cosey, plaid, shamrock, banshee, and whiskey are 
from the Celtic tongues of Ireland, Scotland, or 
Wales, but they are of comparatively recent ap- 
pearance in English. Brogue means a stout, 
coarse shoe, but has taken up the meaning of 
dialectic pronunciation. Milton uses clan, and 
Goldsmith /««. Plaid is in Johnson^ s Dictionary; 
it is undoubtedly Gaelic, and is cognate with 
\,2X\xipellis (a skin) and the English fell. Spenser 
uses the word shamrock, but introduces it as an 
Irish word. Sir Walter Scott is responsible for 
the introduction of a number of Scotch words. 
Of course many names of the great geographical 
divisions — ^lakes, rivers, mountains — are of Celtic 
origin, and so are many surnames. These will 
be noticed hereafter. The names of the indig- 
enous weeds and flowers of England are seme- 
times Celtic, like cockeL Both of these points 
testify to the antiquity of the Celtic occupation. 
The names of many of the simplest kitchen 
utensils and materials are of Celtic origin, as: 
spider, pie, bucket, bung, curd, crock, crockery, griddle, 
gruel, mop, kettle, kale, mug, noggin, posset, puddingy 
slab — in the sense of viscous, "make the gruel 
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ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC. 53 
thick and slab " — skillet^ pan^ and many others 
of similar character. 
The presence of this marked Celtic element in 
kitchen nomenclature suggests that Celtic cap- 
tives were held as household slaves by the Saxon 
conquerors, and that these preserved and handed 
down a number of their native words in familiar 
daily use. This inference is strengthened by the 
fact that the name which the Saxons gave the 
English Britons — Welschy or strangers — ^was the 
same word they used for slave, weal meaning 
male slave, and wylen meaning female slave. 
Again, the slang of the lowest class in Lon- 
don, the vernacular of the Artful Dodger and 
Charley Bates in Oliver Twist, contains a num- 
ber of peculiar expressions, some of which are no 
doubt of ancient Celtic origin. Thus, in that 
argot a magistrate is a " beak," from the Celtic 
beach; " twig" is from tuig, to understand ; " cove " 
from coave, a courteous person ; " hook it " is from 
thugad, begone ; '* masher," from meas, elegant ; 
"brick," from brigh, a courageous person; "cut 
your stick," from cuit as teach, leave the house. 
To " kick the bucket," to "make your lucky," and 
to "cheese it"t have, very likely, origins of the same 
* Fatty though taken into English from the Welsh, may 
have been taken by the Welsh from the Ij^Xia. patina. 
f Query : Why is a constable called a cop in the same 
slang ? It can hardly be because he serves a capias. 
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54 ENGLISH WORDS. 
character — that is, they may be Celtic phrases 
assimilated in pronunciation to English words 
with which they have no connection in meaning. 
" Cheese it " is conjectured to be from French 
cesser (to cease), which seems an unlikely source 
for a slang phrase, as " cease " is a dignified, book- 
ish sort of a word to fall so low. " Cheese," in 
the expression "that's the cheese," is probably 
Gypsy, from the word meaning " thing " in the 
Romany dialect. 
The presence of this singular element in low 
London slang affords at least a presumption that 
when the Saxons took possession of London,* 
then an important Celtic city, a certain number of 
Celts of the lowest class were unable to remove, 
and so perpetuated a few remnants of their lan- 
guage in the lowest stratum of society. How- 
ever, it must be admitted that this lowest class 
of thieves and beggars in the cities of the Middle 
Ages was of such an anomalous character that 
it is dangerous to draw any inferences from such 
fragments of its speech as may have come down to 
us. Again, slang is so lawless in its changes, and 
is so rarely recorded, that slang dictionaries are 
full of conjectures. All of the above derivations 
♦ The theory that London was entirely abandoned by 
the Celts is hardly tenable ; but even if it were, the Saxons 
in occupying the deserted city would bring Celtic slaves 
with them. 
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ENGLISH WORDS DERIVED FROM CELTIC. 55 
are disputed. Still, there seems to be enough of 
the Celtic element to support the presumption, 
though perhaps not very strongly. 
Other English words of probable Celtic origin 
are babe^ bad, bald, bludgeon, boast, clock, coax, cob, 
crag, creche, drudge, gown, hctssock, lad, lass, rcuket, 
(a noise — a tennis racket is Arabic), flimsy. For 
a full list Skeafs Etymological Dictionary, p. 757, 
may be consulted. The list is not very long, 
nor does it embrace many important words. 
For some reason Celts never hold their mother- 
tongue as tenaciously as do Teutons. Both 
Welsh and Irish seem likely to become extinct 
as spoken languages in the next century. The 
Celtic blood is widely diffused, and contributes 
valuable elements to the English character, but 
our linguistic debt to the race is slight. It is 
painful to reflect that these ancient tongues, repre- 
senting the speech of one of the oldest branches 
of the Aryan stock, must disappear and leave no 
modem representatives; but such seems to be 
their destiny. 
For a thorough modem examination of this question see 
Skeafs English Etymology, chap, xxii* 
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CHAPTER VI. 
CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 
We will now take up the Latin and Romance 
element in our vocabulary. This is very much 
the most important element, constituting as it 
does over one-half of our dictionary words and a 
large proportion of those in actual use. It is as 
early an element as the Celtic, for Saxon took up 
some Latin words even before the invasion of 
Britain. A large number of Romance words came 
into the language from the French, and a few from 
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Later the theo- 
logical dissensions of the seventeenth century 
brought about the introduction of a good many 
Latin words directly from the Latin tongue. By 
far the greater number came from thcvFrench or 
Norman-French during the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, the formative period of the language, 
and contributed largely to the character of the 
new tongue. Sometimes the same Latin word 
was adopted into English twice, and took two 
meanings, classic and romantic. Thus, pine and 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 57 
punish are both from the Latin pxna^ the latter 
through the French punir^ being by two or three 
hundred years the younger English word. Com- 
pare also chalice and calix^ cadmce and chance^ re- 
gal and royal. 
Again, there are in our language words that 
have, to quote Professor Meiklejohn, " made their 
appearances — once through Latin, once through 
Norman - French, and once through ordinary 
French." These seem to live quietly side by 
side in our language, and no one asks by what 
claim they are here. They are useful ; that is 
enough. Examples of such triplets are legale loy- 
al, and leal — leal used in Scotland, where it has a 
settled abode in the phrase " the land of the leal " 
—fidelity, faithfulness, znd fealty. Faithfulness has 
two English suffixes on a Latin word. 
The Latin words in our language have been 
classified in various ways, the common method 
being by dates and periods. Of the classifica- 
tions by periods that given by Professor Meikle- 
john is perhaps as satisfactory as any other. He 
makes four periods. 
Latin of the First Period. — This covers 
Latin words left in Britain by the Romans, and 
strictly numbers but six words: centra, strata, 
colonic, fossa, portus, and vallum. These words 
appear only in geographical names. The word 
cctstra has been colored by the usage of the local- 
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53 ENGLISH WORDS. 
ity where it was applied. Thus, in the north it 
is sounded hard, as in Lancaster, Doncaster, Tad- 
caster. In the Midland counties it takes the 
softer form, cester^ as in Leicester, Towcester, and 
in the extreme west and south it takes the still 
softer form of Chester^ as in Chester, Manchester, 
Winchester, and others. The first syllable in 
these words is the Celtic name of the locality or 
river by which the camp was distinguished. 
Strata has also taken different forms in different 
parts of England, but has always been a prefix. 
One of the first things the Romans did was to 
drive a strongly- built military road from Rich- 
borough, near Dover, northward to the River Dee, 
where they formed a permanent camp, Castra 
Stativa, which is still called Chester. This road 
was called the " street," and by the Saxons " Wat- 
ling Street" The word strata, in the forms of 
straty strad, stret, and streat, is a part of the mod- 
ern names of many towns, all of which are on 
this or some other great Roman road. Thus, we 
have Stratford -on- Avon, Stratton, Stradbroke, 
Stretton, Stretford, and Streatham, the other syl- 
lables in these cases being Saxon. Colonia we 
find in Colne, Lincoln, and others ; fossa in Foss- 
way, Fossbrooke, and Fossbridge •, partus in Ports- 
mouth and Bridgeport, and vallum in the words 
wall, bailey and bailiff. The Normans called the 
two courts in front of their castles the inner 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 59 
and outer baileys^ and the officer in charge of 
them, the bailiff* Mile, pine, pose, port, wick (a 
village), and wine probably entered the English 
language before a.d. 500, and therefore belong 
to this class in one sense. 
Latin Element of the Second Period. — In 
the year 596 Pope Gregory the Great sent over 
to Kent a missionary called Augustine with forty 
monks. They were received by the King of 
Kent, allowed to settle in Canterbury, and to 
build a small cathedral there. This mission and 
the churches that grew out of it brought into old 
English a number of words from the Latin, most 
of which have survived in a different form. 
Among them are : postol, from apostolus (a person 
sent) ; biscop, from episcopus (an overseer) ; calc^ 
from calix (a cup) •, clerc, from dericus (an ordained 
member of the Church) ; munic, from monachus (a 
solitary person) •, preost, icom presbyter (an elder) ; 
aelmesse, from eleemosune (alms) ;t regol, from reg- 
ula (a rule). To this period also belongs the in- 
* There is some question about bail^ bailiffs and bail- 
wick. It is not certain that they are derived from vallum 
(an enclosing wall). The root is obscure, though certainly 
Latin, but possibly later than the first period, and through 
the Norman-French law-jargon. 
f Apostle^ bishops clerk^ monk^ priest, and alms come to 
us really from Greek words, but through the Latin. We 
may note, too, that presbyter is not ** priest writ large,'* as 
Milton said, hut priest is presbyter writ small. 
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6o ENGLISH WORDS. 
troduction of the words butter, cheese. Jig, cedar, 
pear, peach, lettuce, lily, pepper, pecLse, camel, lion, 
elephant, oyster, trout, pound, ounce, candle, table, 
marble. We cannot be certain, however, that some 
of these words were not introduced into Anglo- 
Saxon before the migration from the Continent, 
since we have no complete glossary of all the dia- 
lects spoken by the invaders. 
There is one word of this or an earlier period 
that is probably of Greek origin, and that is 
church. It seems to have been introduced very 
early into all the Teutonic tongues. The expla- 
nation usually given for the appearance of this 
word at so early a date is, that Ulphilas, a mis- 
sionary from Constantinople, translated tlie Gos- 
pels for the use of the Moesian Goths, among 
whom he labored in the fourth century, and find- 
ing no equivalent for church in their language, 
transferred the word from the Greek, and so in- 
troduced it was taken up by the other Teutonic 
tribes. This is probably tlie true reason for its 
adoption, unless the Goths and other Teutons, 
who were allies of the Roman Empire and served 
in its legions, had already used the Greek name 
for a building with which they must have been 
familiar, and so Ulphilas found the word ready 
for his purpose. 
Latin of the Third Period. — This is in 
reality French of the variety generally called Nor- 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 6 1 
man-French, which has its own peculiarities both 
in spelling and pronunciation. At the period of 
the Norman Conquest Parisian French did not 
hold its present position of literary supremacy. 
French grew out of the spoken dialects of Latin, 
and the Norman-French, when it came to be writ- 
ten, spelled peupky people; loyal^ leal ; royaume, 
realm ; royal, real, and so on. The Norsemen, to 
whom the valley of the Seine was ceded in 912, 
were, of course, originally Teutons, but when they 
settled in France they learned in course of time 
to speak French of the kind called Norman- 
French. This language was used in the English 
Court before the Norman Conquest, under Ed- 
ward the Confessor, who came to the throne in 
1042. He had been educated at the Norman 
Court, and insisted that the nobles about him 
should speak French. 
William, Duke of Normandy, conquered Eng- 
land pretty thoroughly, and as he was a great 
administrator, covered the country with the feudal 
executive machinery. Thus, Norman-French be- 
came the language of the governmental and eccle- 
siastical world, of the universities, and, conjointly 
with Latin, of literature. The people held fast 
to their own tongue, nor did it cease entirely to 
be written, but it had no central standard, and of 
course began to change rapidly. A series of im- 
portant political events, culminating with the loss 
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62 ENGLISH WORDS. 
of Normandy in 1204, detached England from 
France, drew all the people of England into a 
national organization, and aroused a national 
sentiment. The fact that the two languages were 
both spoken in England for so many years, one 
by the upper class and the other by the body of 
the people, would naturally result in the vernacu- 
lar English taking a number of words from the 
courtly Norman. In 1272 Robert of Gloucester 
wrote a metrical chronicle in English and used a 
large number of French words. All others writ- 
ers of the transition period, Robert of Brun, Laya- 
mon, etc., use French words in varying proportions, 
though Layamon (1155) is almost purely Saxon 
in his vocabulary. The triumph of English may 
be said to be marked by an Act of Parliament, 
passed in 1362 under Edward III., by which it was 
enacted that English should be used in the Law 
Courts. Previous to this the statement or plead- 
ings had been made in English, but the judgment 
entered in Latin. Chaucer was born about 1340 
and died in 1400, and his admirable poems, writ- 
ten in English, contain about the same propor- 
tion of words of French derivation as is used by 
a modern writer, and mark the firm establishment 
of a new language, a language of composite vo- 
cabulary but of Teutonic structure. The English 
accepted no French idioms, or at least very few, 
though they took up many thousand French 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 6$ 
words. Consequently, we are to-day at liberty to 
use as many Latin words as we like, but few Latin 
constructions, if we wish to speak or write English. 
The words brought into the language by the 
Normans are nearly all those connected in any 
way with the governing or more important social 
class. Nearly all the vocabulary of knight-er- 
rantry and feudalism is of French origin. Such 
words are arms, armor, assault, joust, lance, shield, 
greaves, page, mistress, homage, fealty, esquire, her- 
aid. Vassal comes from vassus, a Celtic word 
meaning man, introduced into French. The same 
word gave us also varlet and valet. Scutcheon 
meant originally shield, scutum. Then it came to 
mean heraldic devices painted on the shield. 
The word is used by carpenters in the original 
sense of a shield, to designate the plate of metal 
surroimding the key-hole and shielding the wood 
from injury. The terms connected with archery — 
that is, the radical terms, bow, arrows, bolt, bow- 
string, etc. — are Saxon, though the Normans 
added some technical terms referring to the orna- 
mental details of the art. 
This fact shows that the Saxons were archers 
before the Conquest, or rather bowmen, since 
archer is the Norman word from arc, a bcnv, and 
bowman is pure English. The practice of arch- 
ery was, however, greatly improved under Nor- 
man rule. 
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64 ENGLISH WORDS. 
All the words connected with hunting as a 
sport are Norman, and so are the names of many 
of the game-birds and animals. But a deer^ a 
hart^ and a stag remained Saxon, the word cerf 
never taking root in England. The Saxons were 
too familiar with the deer to give up the name, 
but the word venison^ from venari (to hunt), is 
French. Quarry^ as a place from which to take 
stones for building, is French — the Normans were 
great architects ; but quarry^ a hunting term, is 
from another source, the French quer from cor 
(the heart), which was given to the dogs. Quarry ^ 
in the other signification, is from quadrare (to 
square). 
Nearly all the French words of these classes 
have been relegated to poetry, or have become 
antiquated by the change of methods of war and 
hunting. Arm^ shieldy standard, forest^ are words 
in common use, but some hundreds of others of 
this class are either entirely obsolete or are to be 
found only in the list of literary or poetical words. 
To many of them a tinge of affectation attaches. 
Under no circumstances can we now call a horse 
a courser or charger, though, for that matter, the 
radical English word steed, applied to stud, is 
equally obsolete. Brace, as applied to a couple 
of birds, has held its place very well. It is de- 
rived from the old French brcLce (an arm), from 
which the derived meanings of sustaining or brac- 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 65 
ing up and encircling in the arms, or embracing, 
flow naturally. The meaning of brace, or couple, 
possibly comes from the fact that we have two 
arms, possibly because a pair of birds were tied 
together with a string. In the same way leash (a 
thong to hold dogs) got the signification of three, 
since three dogs were usually tied together.* 
The old romances ascribe the invention of the 
vocabulary of the chase to Sir Tristram, and the 
Morte d^ Arthur says : 
"Mesemeth alle gentylmen that beren old 
armes oughte of ryght to honour Syre Tristram 
for the godly termes that gentylmen have and 
use, and shall to the day of dome, that thereby in 
a manner all men maye discover a gentylman fro 
a yoman, and from a yoman a vylane. For he 
that gentyl is wylle drawe hym unto gentyl tatches, 
and to followe the customes of noble gentylmen." 
The Book of St Albans^ first printed in i486, 
is very full on the subject of the technical terms 
of the chase. These are nearly all Norman words. 
This precision in the use of terms relating to 
hunting is still characteristic of Englishmen, 
♦ Leash once meant a brace and a half (see Shak. , King 
Henry IV. Part I., Act II., Scene iv., line 7) : '* Sirrah, 
I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call 
them all by their Christian names, as — Tom, Dick, and 
Francis." Now it has gone back to the original meaning 
of the thong, and usually binds two dogs together, not three, 
5 
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66 ENGLISH WORDS. 
though SO many of the old words have become 
obsolete. The Normans carried this affectation 
to an excess. Thus, Dame Juliana Berners, the 
reputed author of the Book of St, Albans, tells us 
that in gentle speech it is said that " the hdi^^Ljouk- 
eth, not sleepeth ; she refourmeth her f eders, and 
not picketh her feders ; she rowsith, and not shak- 
eth herselfe ; she mantellyth, and not stretcb)rth, 
when she putteth her legges from her one after 
another, and her wynges follow her legges ; and 
when she hath mantylled her and bryngeth both 
her w)mges togyder over her backe, ye shall say 
your hawkye warbelleth her wynges." Further, 
we are told we must not use names of multitudes 
promiscuously, but we are to say a " cofigregacion 
of people," a " hoost of men," a ''- felyshyppinge of 
yomen," and a ^^bevy of ladyes;" we must speak 
of a ^'herde of dere," "swannys," "crannys," or 
"wrenys," ?L^^sege of nyghtingales," a ^^flyghte of 
doves," a ^^ciaterynge of choughes," a ^^pryde of 
lyons," a ^^sleuthe of beeres," a ^^gagle of geys," 
a ^^ skulke of foxes," a ^^ senile of frerys," a **/^w- 
tificality of prestys," and a** superfluyie of nonnes ;" 
and so of other human and brute assemblages. 
In like manner, in dividing game for the table, 
the animals were not carved, but a "dere was 
broken, a goose reryd, a cYitkYVi frusshed, a coney 
unlaced, a crane dysplayed, a curlew unjoynted, a 
qualle wyngged, sl lamb sholdered, a heron dys- 
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CLASSES OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 67 
numbered^ a peacock dysfygured^^^ etc. A strict 
observance of all these niceties of speech was 
more important as an indication of good breeding, 
or, in the words of Dame Juliana Bemers, as a 
" means of dystynguishing gentylmen from ungen- 
tylmen," than was a rigorous conformity to the 
rules of grammar or even to those of the moral 
law ; nor would it be difficult to find even now 
people who judge others by a similar linguistic 
standard. The slang of " society " seems to be 
as old and as artificial as society itself. 
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CHAPTER VII. 
ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF THE LATIN ELEMENT. 
It will be noticed that a large proportion of 
the artificially-used words mentioned in the last 
chapter are Norman-French. Even now if we set 
ourselves to work in cold blood to force words 
into unnatural uses we draw our material from 
the same class. Most of the fanciful expressions 
which the affected and self-conscious literary fash- 
ion called Euphuism brought into use, come from 
the Latin side of our language. It is difficult to 
be affected in any Teutonic tongue unless, in- 
deed, we affect a plain, unfinished rusticity. As 
we shall see later, a large number of French de- 
rivatives have become thoroughly anglicized, but 
to many others a slight flavor of affectation still 
attaches. We may notice, too, in passing, that a 
certain set of artificial expressions is still the 
shibboleth of fashionable society, just as it was 
in the time of Dame Juliana Bemers. These are 
generally manufactured in London, but the vo- 
cabulary is so limited as greatly to restrict con- 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 69 
versation among those who use it. The society 
vocabulary of the fifteenth century seems to have 
been much less meagre than is that of the last 
quarter of the nineteenth. 
A great body of Norman-French words which 
have been permanently adopted are those apper- 
taining to the legal and ecclesiastical professions 
and to philosophical conceptions. These classes 
of words, especially the second and third, fre- 
quently come direct from the Latin, which re- 
mained till the eighteenth century the language 
of scholars and theologians all over the Christian 
world. Milton wrote his controversial tracts in 
Latin. We will revert to these words under the 
head of words of the trades and professions. 
Nearly all titles of nobility, and of the sacred or- 
ders, of Masonry, etc., are Latin of this period. 
Indeed, the Normans gave us the words titk^ dig- 
nity, noble (from nosco^ nobilis^ known)^ etc. ; also 
the specific titles duke{dw^, marquis, count {conus\ 
peer {par), Marshall, etc. Marquis is the officer 
in charge of the mark or border, and is therefore 
originally a Teutonic word embedded in French. 
Marshal is of the same class. Mereschall meant 
originally in Frankish the man who had charge 
of the horses, and has retained in the French 
word marechal (blacksmith or farrier) another 
branch of its original meaning. But on another 
side it developed to mean in French the leading 
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70 ENGLISH WORDS. 
military officer, as "Z/? Martchal NeyJ* With us 
this second meaning has been arrested, and de- 
notes only one who has charge of a procession, 
or the executive federal court officer. Our word 
martial^ from Mars, the god of war, is from a 
totally different root, and came to us along 
with jovial, saturnine, mercurial, and a number of 
other words and expressions from the ancient 
pseudo-science of astrology. Those who were 
bom when certain planets were in the " ascend- 
ant " were supposed to partake of certain " influ- 
ences." As, however, the Latin contained the 
adjective martialis, it is not absolutely certain that 
the word martial comes to us through the astro- 
logical term. 
There is a well-worn but still interesting quo- 
tation from Ivanhoe which illustrates the relative 
positions of certain Norman and English words, 
and, indirectly, the relations of the two peo- 
ples : 
"*...! advise thee to call off Fangs and 
leave the herd to their destiny, which, whether 
they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or 
of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be 
little else than to be converted into Normans 
before morning, to thy no small ease and com- 
fort' 
" * The swine turned infO Normans to my com- 
fort 1' quoth Gurth. * £jq)ound that to me, Wam- 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 7 1 
ba, for my brain is too dull and my mind too vexed 
to read riddles.' * 
" * Why, how call you these grunting brutes run- 
ning about on their four legs ?' demanded Wamba. 
" * Swine, fool, swine,' said the herd ; * every 
fool knows that.' 
" *And swine is good Saxon,' said the jester; 
*but how call you the sow when she is flayed, 
and drawn, and quartered, and hung by the heels 
like a traitor ?' 
" * Pork,' answered the swineherd. 
" * I am glad every fool knows that too,' said 
Wamba; *and pork^ I think, is good Norman- 
French, and so when the brute lives and is in 
the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her 
Saxon name ; but becomes a Norman and is call- 
ed pork when she is carried to the castle-hall to 
feast among the nobles. What dost thou think of 
that, friend Gurth, ha ?' 
" * It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, 
however it got into thy fool's pate.' 
" * Nay, I can tell you more,' said Wamba, in 
the same tone. * There is old Alderman Ox con- 
tinues to hold his Saxon epithet while he is under 
the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou ; 
* Read^xA fiddles are from the same root, meaning ** to 
interpret." Riddles (something to be explained) was not 
plural. It has, however, lost the final s. Riddle (a large 
seine) is from another Saxon word. 
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72 ENGLISH WORDS. 
but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he 
arrives before the worshipful jaws that are to con- 
sume him. Mynherr Calf, too, becomes Monsieur 
de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when 
he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name 
when he becomes a matter of enjoyment* " 
From the Norman-French came a number of 
general or class names, while the corresponding 
specific names for individual things are mostly 
Saxon. Animal and beast are French, but dog^ 
cat^ weasel^ fox, bee, horse, mare, sheep, etc., are 
Saxon. Again, if the Norman gave ms palace, cas- 
tle, mansion, we have kept the Saxon words house, 
home, and cottage. Against the French word table 
we have the humbler but more hospitable word 
board. Dish, though originally from the Latin 
discus, was naturalized so early as to come into 
the same class with pitcher, mug, jug, and spoon. 
We may conjecture that our Saxon ancestors ate 
with their knives, since fork is Latin ; still they 
must have used forks, though not for the table, 
before the Conquest, since the word is found in 
Saxon and is from furca, not from fourchette,* 
Mr. Spaulding observes : " We use a foreign term 
naturalized when we speak of color, but if we tell 
what that color is, as red, yellow, black, green, or 
* We may make this conjecture with the more confi- 
dence, since we know that forks were not used in England 
for the table till the seventeenth century. 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 73 
brown^ we use an English word. We are Romans 
when we speak in a general way of moving, but 
we are Teutons if we leap or springy or slip or 
slide^ or crawly ox fall, or walk, or run, swim, creep, 
or fly. The more modern particularized colors 
which were not differentiated by our ancestors, 
like mauve, scarlet, crimson, vermilion, carmine, etc., 
come under a different head. Many of them are 
technical trade names, derived from dyes, like 
carmine and crimson, from kermes, cochineal from 
Spanish, through the Arabic." 
The general effect of the Norman-French infu- 
sion of words was to give us a large number of 
synonyms, one of which is of Latin, the other of 
Teutonic extraction, like flower and bloom, stream 
and river, language and speech, pitch and degree, 
wife and spouse, miserable and wretched, etc. Each 
member of these pairs of words has a slightly dif- 
ferent meaning, and goes properly with different 
modifying adjectives and fits different figurative 
usages. For instance, we can speak of a stream 
of talk or of ideas, but a river of either would be 
rather an unpleasant image. We say a high pitch 
and a low pitch, but not low degree, for this has 
a special meaning, and is an antiquated expres- 
sion. Again, we say mother- tongue and fine lan- 
guage, but not mother- language nor fine tongue. 
Language and tongue are based on the same 
verbal metaphor, cause for effect, or instrument 
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74 ENGLISH WORDS. 
for product, since language is from lingua^ tongue ; 
but the two words have now entirely difiEerent 
shades of meaning, some of which are hardly 
distinguishable. Language has reference to the 
words themselves and to the grammatical con- 
struction, tongue to the pronunciation and to 
the specific language. "His tongue bewrayeth 
him." "He used the English tongue." "Bad 
language " has an idiomatic meaning of its own, 
equivalent not to a bad tongue, but to blas- 
phemous words. Speech is almost equivalent to 
spoken language, and can hardly be applied to 
written words. It would be better to say " His 
book was written in the Latin language " instead 
of "in the Latin tongue." We feel that tongue is 
the more archaic and poetic word. English is full 
of these niceties which we learn by usage, and 
many of them grew out of the fact that our vo- 
cabulary is drawn from two great reservoirs, the 
stores in each of which have a slightly different 
character, corresponding to the national spirit 
of the people which originally used them. We 
are not aware of the great number of these idi- 
oms or peculiar usages of words until we read 
English written by a foreigner who has attempted 
to learn the language after maturity or through 
books. 
S)monyms never cover exactly the same ground. 
Thus, some uses of language are equivalent to 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 75 
some uses of tongue, and other uses of tongue 
are exchangeable for some uses of speech. If 
we represent the notions or concepts covered by 
the word language as enclosed in a circle, then 
the circle which represents the word tongue would 
be rather smaller, and would intersect it. The 
space common to the two circles would represent 
those meanings common to the two words. If, 
now, we represent the meanings of the word speech 
by another circle, this must intersect both and 
also cover a portion of the space common to the 
two. It should be the smallest of the three. Only 
the metaphorical or secondary uses of tongue and 
speech are here considered. The primary mean- 
ing of tongue is the organ of speech and taste, 
and for our present purpose we may consider the 
primary meaning of speech to be vocal utterance. 
These meanings are excluded because we are con- 
sidering the words as synonyms. The special 
meanings of speech are but few, like "human 
speech," which is really broader than "human lan- 
guage." In nearly all cases either the word lan- 
guage or the word tongue could be substituted 
for the word speech, though, of course, the reverse 
is not true. The distinctions and likenesses of 
the words may be represented by the circles on 
the next page. 
No two words are exact synon)ans, because 
even if the meanings are almost identical, the lit- 
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76 ENGLISH WORDS. 
erary flavor is differ- 
ent. One of the 
words is always the 
right word for the 
place, though the dif- 
ference is frequently 
so small that it is not 
worth while to con- 
sider it — at least in 
ordinary prose. " De minimis mm curat lex " — and 
it were to " consider too curiously " to attempt to 
discriminate the significations of begin and com- 
mence^ or trustworthy and reliable; but we should 
almost always use begin and trustworthy on account 
of their Saxon force. Nevertheless, there ?ire cases 
where we should prefer to use the word commence, 
" Commenced operations," for instance, seems to 
imply preparation and design more than does 
began operations ; but it is rather a colloquial ex- 
pression at best. When two words substantially 
equivalent are in use, the genius of the language 
assigns them to different duties or drops one of 
them. 
There are a number of expressions consisting 
of two words of the same meaning, one of which 
is English and the other Norman-French. These 
are survivals of the time when Norman words 
were sinking into the English language, and some 
persons understood a Norman term and others 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 77 
an English one. Mr. Earle gives a list of these 
double expressions, some of which are given be- 
low: 
Act and deed. Metes and bounds. 
Aid and abet. Will and testament. 
Bag and baggage. Use and wont. 
Head and chief. Pray and beseech. 
The Prayer-book, revised 1542-1548, and found- 
ed largely on ancient usage, is apparently influ- 
enced by this feeling for a double vocabulary, and 
uses the expressions " acknowledge and confess," 
"assemble and meet together," "dissemble and 
cloak," " humble and lowly." Other instances of 
survivals of the same usage can be found in the 
writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. 
This great gain of material to the vocabulary 
of the English language was accompanied by 
some loss, of the same nature as the gain, and 
by other losses of a more serious character. The 
net result, as seen summed up in the great Chau- 
cer, was of course very great gain. In sympli- 
fying the grammar a number of fine terminations 
were lost. The um of the dative plural, the en^ 
an, era, and ena, the igenne and igendum of the 
Saxons, could not have been other than digni- 
fied and sonorous sounds. We have the admi- 
rable syllable ing for the present participle, but 
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78 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the beautiful termination ende must have been 
less apt to degenerate into a nasal sound. The 
strong suffix dom which we have in kingdom^ wis- 
dom^ Christendom^ etc., might well have been re- 
tained in many other terminals. Heritage is a 
grand word, but it might have divided territory 
with the still stronger Saxon word birthdom. We 
might have appropriated heritage to our material, 
and birthdom to our spiritual inheritance. Of 
course, in symplifying the grammar and passing 
from an inflected to a synthetic language, the ter- 
minals must go, for that was the very essence of 
the change , and if we look regretfully on the loss 
of some words and sounds, we must try to keep 
unharmed every element we have of the old Eng- 
lish tongue. 
Latin of the Fourth Period. — The Norman- 
French words entered the national language — 
that is, the tongue of the people ; but in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries the revival of 
learning and the increased interest in theologi- 
cal and philosophical discussion brought about 
by the Reformation resulted in the introduction 
into the written or literary language of a large 
number of words directly from Latin. Milton, 
and, later. Sir Thomas Browne, never hesitated 
to anglicize a Latin term, and, in consequence, 
many "long tailed words in osity and ation^^ 
crowded into the English language, most of them. 
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ARTIFICIAL CHARACTER OF LATIN ELEMENT. 79 
happily, doomed to a speedy death and entomb- 
ment in our large dictionaries. Thus, words like 
exeruncate — not a bad word, by the way — septen- 
trionality, moribundiousness, strutted in the books 
of the learned for a brief day and then disap- 
peared. Even Dr. Johnson would have called 
these " ink-horn terms," though they were used 
by good writers. 
Words direct from the Latin can readily be 
distinguished from words from Latin through 
French. French nouns come from the accusa- 
tives of Latin nouns, the terminations being much 
disfigured. Frequently, as said before, we have 
received the word through both channels, that 
through the French being the more disguised 
from the fact that it was received into the oral 
language through the ear, while the Latin deriv- 
ative was transplanted bodily to a written page. 
The following is an imperfect list of such dupli- 
cates * 
FROM LATIN. 
DIRECT. THROUGH FRENCH. 
Antecessor. Ancestor. 
Benediction. Benison. 
Cadence. Chance. 
Conception. Conceit. 
Custom. 
Consuetude. , ^ 
Costume. 
Example. Sample. 
Fabric. Forge. 
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8o 
ENGLISH 
WORDS. 
DIRECT. 
THROUGH FRENCH. 
Faction. 
Fashion. 
Fact. 
Feat. 
Fragile. 
Frail. 
History. 
Story. 
Hospital. 
Hotel. 
Particle. 
Parcel. 
Pauper. 
Poor. 
Persecute. 
Pursue. 
Pungent. 
Poignant. 
Quiet. 
Coy. 
Separate. 
Sever. 
Tradition. 
Treason. 
Zealous. 
Jealous. 
Captive. 
Caitiff. 
Radius. 
Ray. 
It will be observed that the words in the second 
column are, on the whole, shorter, and have more 
of the vernacular character than those in the first ; 
and some of them, as, for example, forge^ poor, 
ray, sound like Teutonic words, so firmly have 
they become imbedded in English speech, and so 
entirely have their characteristic Romance ter- 
minations disappeared. This, of coiurse, results 
from the fact that they were spoken words, taken 
from a living language, and not book words, taken 
from the literature of a dead language, and were 
assimilated by the wear and tear of oral speech. 
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CHAPTER VIII. 
LITERARY CHARACTER OF THE LATIN DERIVA- 
TIVES. 
We are frequently counselled to avoid the use 
of Latin derivatives, and are told that the quality 
of earnestness, simplicity, and power belongs to 
the English element of our tongue. This caution 
certainly can apply only to long words with Latin 
terminations. The following is an imperfect list 
of words of Latin root, of one syllable, which have 
been in our language since 1400, and, like the Hu- 
guenots in America, or the Normans in Ireland, 
have become more native than the natives them- 
selves : 
Add, air, art, beast, blame, blanch, boast, boil, 
cape, case, cause, cease, chance, change, charm, 
chaste, cheer, chief, clear, cook, cope, course, 
court, crime, crown, cure, damn, dance, doubt, 
dress, ease, face, faith, fail, false, fume, feast, fierce, 
fool, force, form, fount, gay, grace, grant, grieve, 
guide, guile, haste, haunt, host, hour, join, joy, 
judge, large, mass, meat, moist, name, nurse, pace, 
6 
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82 ENGLISH WORDS. 
pain, paint, pair, pale, pass, peace, plain, please, 
point, pomp, poor, pope, port, pound, pray, preach, 
prude, pounce, prince, prize, prove, pure, purge, 
quaint, quit, rent, robe, rose, rote, route, rude, 
saint, sauce, save, school, serve, siege, sign, sir, 
sort, space, spend, spouse, squire, strait, taste, tent, 
term, turn, vain, vice. 
Here are more than one hundred monosyllables 
of Latin lineage in constant use since Chaucer's 
time, and the nimiber of dissyllables of similar 
character is much greater. There is no reason 
that we should avoid these words, and it would 
be harmful to try to do so. But Latin sentence- 
movement must be avoided at all hazards, and 
the long Latin derivatives must be handled with 
skill and discretion. In the use of words we 
should be independent, but with Saxon proclivi- 
ties. 
Professor Earle says that "A Norman family 
settled in England and edited the English lan- 
guage," which is rather a neat epigram ; but would 
it not be nearer the truth to say that the English 
people edited their own language and Chaucer 
published it? The language grew out of the 
usage of the people who were relieved from any 
literary supervision for nearly three hundred 
years, and it still grows very slowly, in spite of 
literary supervision and criticism. 
One influence which tended to retain archaisms 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 83 
arose from the successive translations of the Bi- 
ble. Wycliffe, in the fourteenth century, trans- 
lated it into middle English. The subsequent 
revisers, Tyndall (1526), Coverdale (1580), and 
the revisers in King James' reign, were each fa- 
miliar with the Bible used before their day, and 
each version was founded on its predecessor. 
Each reviser was desirous to retain archaisms 
that had become associated with the text, and at 
the same time to make the book ^' understanded 
of the people." Thus there was a sort of trans- 
mission in a written book and in the minds of 
the people of phrases and words which might 
otherwise have dropped out of remembrance. 
The Bible has undoubtedly been a conservative 
influence for the English element of our com- 
posite language. Its relations to English speech 
and thought have been very close, and it is and 
has been the storehouse of religious phraseology. 
Professor Marsh says : " Wycliffe must be consid- 
ered as having originated the diction which for 
five centuries has constituted the consecrated dia- 
lect of the English speech, and Tyndall as hav- 
ing given to it that finish and perfection which 
have so admirably adapted it to the expression 
of religious doctrine and sentiment, and to the 
narrative of the remarkable series of historical 
facts which are recorded in the Christian Script- 
ures." 
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Professor Marsh calls attention to the fact that 
the Norman words added greatly to our stock of 
rhymes. He says : " Many of the French words 
which first appear in Chaucer were introduced 
for the sake of the rh)rme, and not infrequently 
taken as they stood in the poems which he trans- 
lated or paraphrased, and there is almost as great 
a preponderance of French rhymes in his own 
original works." " The Squire's Tale " has not 
been traced to any foreign source, and is believed 
to be of Chaucer's own invention ; but of the six 
hundred and twenty-two lines of which that frag- 
ment consists, one hundred and eighty-seven end 
with Romance words, though the proportion of 
Anglo-Saxon words in the poem is more than 
ninety per cent. Puttenham, late in the sixteenth 
century, is severe upon Gower for helping himself 
to French rhymes when English wbuld not serve 
his turn. He says : " For a licentious maker is 
in truth but a bungler, not a Poet. Such men 
were in effect the most part of all your old rimers, 
and specially Gower, who to make up his rime 
would for the most part write his terminal sylla- 
ble with false orthographic, and menie times not 
stickle to put in a plaine French word for an 
English ; and so by your leave do many of our 
common rimers at this day." 
Chaucer concludes the complaint of Mars with 
this lamentation : 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 85 
**And eke to me it is a great penaunce, 
Sith rhyme in English hath such scarcite, 
To follow word by word the curiosite 
Of Graunson, flour of them that make in Fraunce." 
Professor Marsh points out also that double 
rhymes are very frequently made by French words. 
Double rhymes are words which have the same 
terminal unaccented, and a rhyming accented pe- 
nult — like "duty," " beauty;'* ** ringing," "sing- 
ing;" "gladness," sadness." Many of the rhyming 
couplets among the English derivatives of our lan- 
guage are heavy monosyllables, and the double 
rhyming couplets from the same class are inflected 
words, like "chiming," "rhyming," or the antiquat- 
ed forms in eth and est; "lyeth," "trieth ;" "lovest," 
"provest," which last are awkward enough. We 
become rather tired of the double rhymes in ing^ 
and double rhymes made of an unaccented word 
preceded by a rh)aning word have an element 
of the ridiculous, like " write it " and " smite it." 
Therefore, as. double rhymes are very pleasing 
to the ear, and as we have but few graceful and 
effective polysyllabic endings of Saxon etymol- 
ogy, versifiers will generally be forced to seek 
them in the Roman and Romance elements of 
our speech, and thus " the frequency of double 
rhymes tends to increase the proportion of Latin 
words in our poetic dialect." This is unfortunate, 
to say the least, for any artificial pressure on our 
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language must be regarded as likely to be injuri- 
ous ; and Professor Marsh goes on to say that 
our poetic diction might render a great service to 
the language if it could revive some of the Saxon 
inflectional terminals employed so charmingly by 
Chaucer, as, for instance : 
"With hearty will they sworen and assenten^ 
To all this thing ther said not o wight nay ; 
Beseeching him of grace or that they wenten. 
That he would granten hem a certain day." 
" Mrs. Browning's fine poem, the * Cry of the 
Children,' contains one hundred and sixty verses, 
with alternate double and single rhymes, and of 
course there are forty pairs of double rhymes, or 
eighty double-rhymed words. The proportion of 
Romance words in the whole poem is but eight 
per cent., but of the double -rhymed terminals 
thirty per cent, are Romance, so that nearly one- 
fourth of the Romance words introduced into the 
poem are found in the double rhymes, while of the 
eighty single -rhymed terminals seventy are cer- 
tainly Saxon, and of the remaining ten, three or 
four are probably so." 
Tennyson and Browning revived a number of 
archaic words — most of them for the sake of 
their associations — which have permanently en- 
riched poetic diction and through this the literary 
language. Poetry is one root of linguistic growth, 
and the words it introduces to good society or 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 87 
rescues from oblivion, though not numerous, not 
infrequently obtain or resume good standing, and 
are sometimes of great value. 
In general, the Romance element of our lan- 
guage lends itself to special subjects of which the 
nomenclature is Romance, and to all abstract as 
opposed to concrete treatment of a subject. Its 
literary value is quite equal to that of the Saxon 
element, but if wrongly used it can harm literary 
expression, whereas Saxon can never work harm 
even if used to excess. It is the Latin of the 
Fourth Period which is apt to give a scholastic 
and ponderous effect, not the Romance element, for 
that has become a part of our mother-tongue. 
The monosyllables mentioned on page 8i are 
idiomatic, and dissyllables like defeat^ delay, gen- 
tle, story, severe, fortune, honest, humble, intent, 
pity, prayer, promise, study, tyrant, usage, easy, 
monster, and hundreds of others have been used 
so long — they all occur in Chaucer — that they 
have acquired the colloquial quality as fully as 
any Saxon derivatives that could be named. How 
could we do without the words people, party, per- 
fect, office, repent, report, etc., all so firmly im- 
bedded in English speech that they come to our 
lips when needed as readily as any Saxon syn- 
onyms would, if indeed there be Saxon synonyms 
for them all. The particles and little connect- 
ing words, the pronouns, prepositions, and auxil- 
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liary verbs of our language are from the Saxon 
side. We cannot dispense with them, but if any 
color is to be given to style, the Latin as well as 
the Romance element in our tongue must be used. 
Furthermore, if sonorousness is to be attained (a 
quality usually to be eliminated, but not al- 
ways,) we must use the long Latin words in their 
proper places. They give the basis — the heavy 
resonance— the carrying power— needed occasion- 
ally, though rarely. But they should be used in- 
stinctively, not of malice aforethought, and so in- 
deed must all words. A man might as well insist 
on expending his paternal inheritance to the ex- 
clusion of what he had received from his mother, 
as to insist on using Saxon words only. 
Examination will prove that many striking im- 
ages in our literature derive their force from Latin 
and Romance words. Matthew Arnold calls Shel- 
ley " a pale^ uneffectual angel, beating his luminous 
wings in the void,^^ None of these words can be 
changed, because there are associations with near- 
ly all of them. A "wan, weak ghost, flapping his 
bright wings in the emptiness," or any other Sax- 
on paraphrase, is trash. Pale and uneffectual are 
connected in a well-known quotation. Beating, 
applied to wings, is used by Rossetti in another 
beautiful passage, and had been applied to the 
Angel of Death by John Bright in an oratorical 
passage of rare elevation and purity. Luminous 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 89 
has scientific associations as a source of light. 
Void suggests cosmic space through which a divine 
message might be striving in vain to approach us. 
So all these words strengthen each other.* 
When Shakspeare^s characters are to make a 
plain, strong statement (as is pointed out by Pro- 
fessor Corson), they frequently use Saxon mono- 
syllables , but when their emotional and intellect- 
ual natures are wrought up to a stress of passion, 
and they have time to express their feelings, they 
avail themselves of the stores of picturesque and 
sonorous words which come from Latin and French. 
Thus Macbeth, speaking of the blood on his hands, 
says that it would 
"the multitudinous seas incarnadine;'* 
but he has worked up to that tremendous, poly- 
syllabic, exaggerated expression of guilt through 
simpler Saxon words. When he hears that his 
wife is dead, he falls back in his chair with a 
groan, and says : 
*'She should have died hereafter: 
There would have been a time for such a word. 
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
Creeps in its petty pace from day to day, 
To the last syllable of recorded time'* 
♦Examine Shelley's "Adonais"and the "Sensitive Plant," 
and note that the elevated images are usually presented in 
Latin and Romance words. 
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The image called op by the two Romance 
words syllable and recorded is the most sublime in 
literature. No other words would be so powerful. 
No other words would have l^roug^t before us the 
image of the Angel of Eternity announcing the 
close of time, as it arose in the mind of the trans- 
gressor of the moral law. 
But when Macbeth is giving an order or de- 
scribing something he sees — ^though it be an illu- 
sion — his language is Saxon : 
** Go, bid thy mistress^ when my drink is ready 
She strike upon the belL Get thee to bed ! 
Is this a dagger, which I see before me. 
The handle tovrard my hand? Come, let me dutch thee : 
I haVe thee not, and yet I see thee still." 
Antony says of Cleopatra : 
"Age cannot wither her, or custom stale 
Her infinite variety, ^^ 
One of the most intellectually satisfying images 
in the " Sonnets " lies in two Saxon words, but the 
thing imaged is introduced by Romance words. 
Lamenting the degrading and narrowing effect of 
his vocation as a purveyor of public amusement, 
Shakspeare says : 
"Thence comes it that my name receives a brand 
And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer*s hand." 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 9 1 
Many of the great phrases in the " Collects '* ex- 
emplify the dual nature of English. For instance, 
" Pour upon them the continual* dew of thy bless- 
ing." The Romance word has the same quality 
of inevitableness as the Saxon ones, dew and bless- 
ing. Both come from the heart of the language. 
It is unnecessary to multiply examples. 
We may say in conclusion that English is a com- 
posite language; that each element has its own 
value ; that to try to limit ourselves to Saxon re^ 
suits in baldness and sterility — the danger of our 
age; that to overwork the Latin results in in- 
flation and pomposity, and that to translate ade- 
quate Saxon expressions into Latin equivalents, 
as is sometimes done, under the impression that 
we must use a more elevated diction, is in such 
bad taste that no one who reads needs be warned 
against it. Nothing but careful reading of good 
literature and constant practice will give us that 
feeling for words which will enable us — supposing, 
in the first place, that we have something to say — 
to use the two elements of our vocabulary so as 
to get the value of each. 
Still, the examination of etymologies will be 
found to be of considerable benefit in increasing 
our power of appreciating verbal refinements. It 
♦A rule of modern rhetoric would change continual to 
continuous^ thereby spoiling the phrase. 
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is true that many of those who have used words 
with the greatest delicacy and originality have not 
even known that the English language was com- 
pounded of two elements. But in many of our 
writers, whose claim to be considered literary art- 
ists is undisputed, as De Quincey, Lamb, Lowell, 
Thackeray — to go no further — it is evident that 
the knowledge of classical etymology has added 
to their command of words and their power of 
using them in new relations, and of bringing out 
novel and striking shades of meaning. 
In reference to the number of words in our lan- 
guage, and the number derived from each great 
source. Max Miiller says : ^^Skeafs Etymological 
Dictionary of the English Language, which confines 
itself to primary words — that is to say, which 
would explain luck, but not lucky, unlucky, or luck- 
less; multitude, but not multitudinous, etc. — deals 
with no more than 13,500 entries. Of these, 
4000 are of Teutonic origin, 5000 are taken from 
the French, 2700 direct from Latin, 250 from 
Celtic, and the rest (1250) from various sources. 
A language is, after all, not so bewildering a thing 
as it seems to be, when we hear of a dictionary 
of 250,000 words. For all the ordinary purposes 
of life a dictionary of 4000 words would be quite 
sufficient." 
The material of the English language may there- 
fore be taken to be about 13,500 words. The 
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CHAT^ACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 93 
number of entries in our great dictionaries is 
swelled by including all possible compounds, mul- 
titudes of technical scientific words, and all the 
parts of speech except plurals and possessives, 
giving, for instance, under love^ loveless^ lovely^ 
lovingly^ unlovely^ etc., and by including obsolete 
words and spellings, and many temporary and 
slang words manufactured for some special use. 
To put the vocabulary of educated persons at 
4000 words only, would, however, seem rather 
illiberal, although the vocabulary of agricultural 
laborers in England is said not to exceed 600 
words. 
There are a few hybrid words in the language 
made by^giving a Saxon termination to a Latin 
stem, or by compounding elements of any two 
languages into a single word. Some of these are : 
interloper (Latin -Dutch), keelhaul (Dutch -Scan- 
dinavian), tarpaulin (Latin -English), chapman^ 
Christmas^ partake^ pastime^ saltpetre^ bankrupt^ and 
many others of the same double nature. The 
Latin prefix dis and the English prefix mis*^ are 
joined freely to verbs of either root. Out and 
over — English prefixes — can be compounded with 
♦ Mis is, however, also a French prefix, from Latin minus 
— as in mischiefs miscreant^ misalliance. But mis as in mis- 
deed^ is English and connected with miss^ and has a slightly 
different force, Miscarry^ misapply^ misdirect, are hybrid 
words. 
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words from all sources. The termination ness — 
pure English— is given to as many Latin words as 
English, and so is the prefix y2?fr/ but in these 
cases we should rank the word for literary classi- 
fication according to the character of its principal 
parts. Disburden and disbelieve^ for instance, have 
the same Saxon flavor that burden and believe 
have. The same is true of such words as fore- 
castle^ forejudge, forefront They remain French 
in spite of their Saxon prefix. 
We will close the examination of the character 
of the Latin element in English by an extract 
from that delicate artist in words, Emerson. * He 
says (" English Traits ") : 
"The Saxon materialism and narrowness ex- 
alted into the sphere of intellect makes the very 
genius of Shakspeare and Milton. When it 
reaches the pure element it treads the clouds as 
securely as the adamant. Even in its elevations 
materialistic, its poetry is common-sense inspired, 
or iron raised to a white heat. 
"The marriage of the two qualities is in their 
speech. It is a tacit rule of the language to make 
the frame and skeleton of Saxon words, and when 
elevation or ornament is sought, to interweave the 
Roman, but sparingly. Nor is a sentence made of 
Roman words alone without loss of strength. 
The children and laborers use Saxon unmixed. 
The Latin unmixed is abandoned to the colleges 
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CHARACTER OF LATIN DERIVATIVES. 95 
and Parliament. Mixture is a secret of the Eng- 
lish island, and in their dialect the male principle 
is the Saxon, the female the Latin, and they are 
combined in every discourse. A good writer, if he 
has indulged in a Roman roundness, makes haste 
to chasten and nerve his period by English mono- 
syllables." 
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CHAPTER IX. 
MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. 
Judging from the relative numbers in the two 
great word- groups, the one from Teutonic, the 
other from Latin or Romance sources, we should 
conclude that English was a composite Ian* 
guage* But it is not so except in its vocabu- 
lary. It is a language just as the United States 
is a nation — the evolution of a definite form of 
social consciousness* It is a Low- Germanic 
tongue, colored and enriched by an infusion of 
Italic derivatives. On examining the two groups 
we find that the Teutonic group contains : first, 
the words we most frequently use in every- 
day matters; second, the little words we use 
over and over again. Therefore, though we can- 
not think discursively on any subject without 
using words from both sources, we select a word 
from the Teutonic half of our store at least seven 
or eight times as often as we do one from the 
Latin-Romance half. Furthermore, the structure 
of the language is Teutonic, and the most impor- 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS* 97 
tant prefixes and suffixes are Teutonic. Be in 
bemoan and befriend^ for in forbid, mis in mis- 
deed, and the separable prefixes after, in, off, on, 
out, over, under, up, are old English. So, too, are 
the strong suffixes ard — seen in coward, drunk- 
ard, etc. — dom, er, hood, ness, ship, sted, fast, fold, 
ful, ish, and ward. Compare these to the Latin 
prefixes we use, like non, extra, inter, post, pro, 
super, sub, trans, ultra, and to the Latin suffixes 
like age — as in courage, beverage, etc. — ancy, ate, 
ion, tion, ment, able, osity, ory, ation, and the supe- 
rior power and native character of the old En- 
glish syllables are evident. As a rule, they strike 
us as growing more naturally out of the root. 
The Greek suffixes and affixes we use — e,g.,ism, 
asm, ics, ize, ist, impart still more of a foreign, ar- 
tificial character. Lastly, as said before, the nat- 
ural rhythm of the English language, though Teu- 
tonic, is individual, and differs from that of the 
Anglo-Saxon, or of the German. An English 
sentence forced to assume the Latin rhythm 
strikes us at once as bookish and academic. The 
grammatical structure and the order of the words 
is Teutonic, though a few inversions are admiss- 
ible or even pleasing. For all these reasons it is 
evident that English is not a composite or hybrid 
tongue compounded of Anglo-Saxon and Latin, 
but distinctly a Teutonic language, an organic 
growth from a vigorous national life. This point 
7 
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98 ENGLISH WORDS. 
is emphasized at the risk of repetition, because it 
certainly is important that every one who is born 
to the use of a language should correctly appre- 
ciate its native character. 
The Teutonic root of the English language has 
itself two branches, though not of equal impor- 
tance. Before the Norman Conquest, which ini- 
tiated the evolution of our modem tongue, the 
Saxon invaders of England were themselves sub- 
ject to invasion by bands of Northern pirates 
whom they called Danes. These Danes made 
permanent settlements on the eastern coast, ex- 
tended their ravages into the interior, and con- 
solidated their power, till in the century before 
the Norman Conquest their chief, Knut, became 
king or overlord of England. They spoke old 
Norse, or Scandinavian, a language allied to the 
Low- Germanic tongues of the Angles and Sax- 
ons. The aflBinity of their languages, and the 
juxtaposition and partial amalgamation of the 
peoples resulted in the survival in English of a 
number of words of Norse origin. When the 
Norse word and the Anglo-Saxon word for the 
same thing were not alike in sound — or at least 
sufficiently unlike not to be confounded in ordi- 
nary utterance — one would be retained in the Dan- 
ish districts and the other in the Saxon districts. 
By degrees the meanings would be differentiated, 
and in the end the language would possess two 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. 99 
words with slightly different shades of meaning. 
Thus, whole comes from the Anglo-Saxon hal 
(entire), and hale (hearty) comes from the Norse* 
or Scandinavian ^<?/7/ (sound or entire). In many 
cases the sounds were alike but the meanings dif- 
ferent, and the result would be a pair of homo- 
nyms (words of the same sound but of differ- 
ent meanings). TWyx^^fast in the sense of firm, 
is English ; but fast in the sense of rapid, is 
Norse. Fast to refrain from food, is a branch 
meaning of the former word, based on the idea 
that the abstainer is observing a firmly-establish- 
ed rule; \i\3X fast asleep comes from the second 
source, and means the state of sleeping rapidly, by 
rather an odd metaphor. Again, yf^^, to grow 
weary, is English ; but flag^ an ensign, is Norse ; 
aye^ meaning yes, is English; aye^ meaning for- 
ever, is Norse ; bounds secured or fastened, is Eng- 
lish, but bounds in the sense of determined (bound 
to do it), is Norse. The same is true of cow^ 
the animal, and cow^ to dishearten ; of crab^ the 
crustacean, and crab^ the fruit; and of many other 
pairs. 
Many of the Norse derivatives are harsh and 
* Old Norse is generally applied to Old West Norse only 
(Icelandic and Norwegian). Brugmann applies the term 
old Norse to the whole development of the Scandinavian 
languages up to the sixteenth century. — Comparative Gram- 
mar^ § 10. 
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lOO ENGLISH WORDS. 
abrupt in sound, especially those beginning with 
the sk or sh sound. If we strike out skate and 
skipper (from the Dutch), sk in the beginning of a 
word is an almost sure mark of a Norse deriva- 
tive. Words beginning with sc are about evenly 
divided between the English and the Norse groups, 
but the initial sh will be found about three times as 
often on an old English word as on one from the 
Norse.* Among the Norse words with the above 
initial letters are scant, scald (a poet, probably 
from same root as scold), scar (a rock), scatf (to 
hew diagonally), scrip (a bag), scrape, scraggy, 
shoal, shingle, shunt, etc. Many words of Norse 
origin end in g, as drag, dreg, flag, hug, keg, slag, 
smug, rig, stag, and egg. 
There are about six hundred and sixty words 
in our language from the Norse, and three-fourths 
of them are monosyllables. The literary charac- 
ter of these words is about the same as that of 
the great body of those from the Anglo-Saxon. 
They are short and emphatic, often sibilant or 
guttural, and have a close relation to their mean- 
ings. They form a very valuable constituent 
part of our language because they are genuine 
folk-words, and entered it through oral speech, 
and therefore form one of the organic elements, 
and are not intruders like words that enter 
* No Latin words begin with sk, and very few with sc 
or sh. 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. lOI 
through the written language.* Many of them 
refer to maritime matters, and, as a rule, they 
have concrete — as opposed to abstract — mean- 
ings. The vigor of a language depends greatly 
on its wealth in words of concrete meaning, be- 
cause we can always manufacture abstract terms 
from them. Concrete terms are the suggesters 
and feeders of thought. 
The names of many villages in the parts of 
England inhabited by the Danes end in bye or by^ 
or even bee. This syllable is from the Norse 
word for town or home. Thus we find Grimsby, 
Whitby, Netherby, Derby, etc. The laws of these 
towns or settlements were called bye-laws^ a term 
we have retained for special rules. The word bye 
still means home or safe place in many games, 
and it is a Norse survival when children shout 
" Touch my bye first." Traces of Danish occupa- 
tion can also be found in the names of towns 
ending m ford ox forth^ from Norse y^r^ (a bay), 
as in Waterford, Delforth, etc. The subject of 
geographical names will be touched on hereafter. 
We have now run over briefly the sources of 
English words proper — that is, of words which 
came into the language during its formative pe- 
riod, and through the channel of general usage. 
♦ A few words entered English from the Norse through 
the French. Such are abet^ brandish^ bandage^ blemish. 
For a full list see Skeafs Dictionary ^ p. 750. 
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I02 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Several minor groups of words are found in mod- 
em English which have been borrowed from 
other languages. Some of them have come 
through the oral and some through the literary 
language. Some have been borrowed directly, 
and some after having been taken into a third 
language. Of these we will instance only the 
Greek, the Arabic, the Hebrew, and the Dutch 
group. A full review would name also the spo- 
radic words — hardly numerous enough to be 
classified into groups — from the North American 
Indian, the Hindustanee, the Malayan, the Amer- 
ican Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the languages 
of other peoples with whom the aggressive com- 
mercial instinct of the English has brought them 
in contact. These words are fully classified in 
Skeafs Etymological Dictionary^ pp. 757-761. 
An interesting group of words — interesting 
from the historicar stand-point at least — is that 
which has come to us from the Arabic, usually 
from the language spoken by the Saracenic con- 
querors of Spain, commonly known as the Moors. 
Their civilization was marked by intellectual in- 
tensity as well as by artistic feeling. They were 
the mediaeval pioneers in medicine and science, 
and many of the older chemical, astronomical, 
and mathematical terms are taken from their 
tongue. Among these are such words as zenith^ 
nadir ^ and azimuth; the names of fixed stars, as 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. lOJ 
Aldebaran, Antares, Algol, Altair, Betelgeuse, 
Rigel, Fomalhaut, etc. All of these names have 
meanings, and frequently embody a poetic image. 
That these Moors read Greek is shown not 
only by their treatises on Greek philosophy, but 
by the fact that many scientific terms are derived 
by us from them which were first borrowed by 
them from the Greek. Frequently they are com- 
pounded of the Arabic definite article al and 
some Greek term. Alchemy^ for instance, is made 
up of this article and the Greek word meaning 
mingling; alembic^ of the article and the Greek 
word meaning a cup. Algebra^ too, is Arabic, 
and consists of the article and the first word of 
an expression meaning " the putting together and 
comparing," as is done in an equation. Alkali 
is pure Arabic, and means " the ashes," and took 
its meaning from the discovery that the ashes of 
sea-weed possess certain properties due to the 
presence of potash and soda. Kali also gives 
us K as the symbol of potash. Alcohol in Ara- 
bic means " the fine powder," and was supposed 
to be of magical efficacy. The transference 
of meaning to rectified spirit is comparatively 
modern. 
We owe to these Moors also the great gift of 
simple characters for the numerals up to nine, 
and for the decimal notation which fixes values 
for these characters according to position on a 
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scale of ten. How valuable an invention this 
was can be readily determined by learning to add 
or multiply numbers expressed in the clumsy Ro- 
man notation. The words cipher and zero come 
from the same Arabic term, sifr. The old Latin 
treatises on arithmetic wrote it zephyrutn. The 
Italians contracted this into zefiro^ and we short- 
ened it still further into zero. But the French 
contracted the Latin word into cifre^ and from 
them we took the form cipher. The two words 
have different meanings in English now, zero 
meaning nothing, or the starting-point of gradua- 
tion on a scale, and cipher meaning the charac- 
ter. The word meant in Arabic empty or hollow 
before it was applied to the character. 
Other words of Arabic origin which entered the 
English language by a roundabout course through 
some Romance language are naphtha^ rose^ jasper, 
nitre, amulet, mattress, saffron, sultan, sofa, syrup, 
and candy. Admiral is from Emir al bahr, lord 
of the sea. We took this word from the French, 
and at first spelled it ammiral. The Arabic 
group numbers about one hundred words, and 
their derivations are full of suggestions of Ori- 
ental history. Emerson called words "fossil 
poetry," and Trench observes that they are " fos- 
sil history," as well. Admiral carries us back 
to the time when a Moorish sea-captain was lord 
of the Mediterranean Sea, and Gibraltar {Gebel 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. I05 
al Tariky or Tarik's hill) was the landing-place of 
the conqueror of Spain. 
If our Teutonic civilization is greatly indebted 
intellectually to one Semitic civilization, it is still 
more indebted spuritually to another — the Hebrew. 
But as Western civilization has come into contact 
with Hebrew civilization only through a book, 
our language has received very few words from 
the Hebrew. The translation of the Bible neces- 
sitated the transference of a few Hebrew words 
for which no equivalents could be found in Eng- 
lish. These number but thirty, and embrace such 
words as alleluia^ behemoth^ cherub, cinnamon^ 
ephod, Jug, Messiah, sack, Satan, sahaoth, shibbo- 
leth. But the Greeks had intercourse with the 
Hebrews and Phoenicians before the Christian era, 
so that a number of words were borrowed by 
the Greeks from them. Alphabet, delta, iota are 
words of Hebrew root which we have received 
through the Greek. Most of these Hebrew-Greek 
words went into Latin from Greek in the Latin 
translation of the Septuagint. Among these are 
amen, manna, rabbi, Pharisee, Sabbath, Sadducee, 
etc. The names of the seven archangels, Michael, 
Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, and 
Zadkiel * are also Semitic. 
* In some lists Azrael, Satan, and Ithuriel take the place 
of the last three. 
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I06 ENGLISH WORDS. 
There has always been considerable commercial 
intercourse between the English and their ances- 
tral relatives in Holland. Antwerp, or "At the 
Wharf," was the principal market for English 
wool before manufacturing was established in 
England. Colonies of Flemish artisans settled 
in England at the invitation of the King, or fleeing 
from religious persecution. The Dutch have al- 
ways been a seafaring people, and many of our 
maritime terms are traceable to their language. 
Among these are ahoy^ avast, ballast, belay, boom, 
duck (sail-cloth), hold, hoy, hull, lighter, linstock, 
marline, orlop, reef, skipper, splice, sloop, yacht, 
yawl. The similarity of the languages allowed 
the ready transference of words, but it is pos- 
sible that some of the above maritime terms may 
have existed in the English sailor-language from 
very early times, parallel with their survival in 
Dutch, but have been first printed or written in 
Dutch. Sloop, yacht, and yawl are unquestion- 
ably Dutch. 
Hollanders and Englishmen sympathized in 
the religious questions brought into prominence 
by the Reformation, but these questions were dis- 
cussed for the most part in Latin. Otherwise, the 
exchange of some words of a more elevated char- 
acter than the above might have resulted. The 
few words introduced into our language by the 
Dutch settlers of New York, like stoop (for por- 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. 107 
tico), crullers^ supawn* have never attained com- 
plete naturalization. 
When we need a new scientific or mechanical 
word we are very apt to manufacture it from the 
Greek, as was done in the case of telegraph, tele- 
phone^ phonograph, dynamo, thermodynamic, iso- 
thermal, and the numerous "ologies." A large 
number of scientific terms, especially those used 
in mathematics and geology, and many political 
and philosophical words, came from the Greek by 
natural transference. Aristotle, Euclid, P3rthag- 
oras, and Plato furnished our forefathers with 
thoughts and with terms for the thoughts. These 
cover such words as analyze, anapest, dactyl, aph- 
orism, axiom, category, hexagon, and climax. The 
list of words taken directly from Greek is quite a 
long one — at least three hundred and fifty; but 
they are nearly all special words. More generally 
useful is the greater number that come from Greek 
. through Latin, or through French through Latin. 
Many theological, literary, and poetic words are 
in these classes. We may instance of the first: 
abyss, alms, angel, atom, asylum, echo, epoch, ethic, 
fungus, story, impolitic, orphan. Of the second : 
agony, air, austere, blame, cheer, diadem, giant, idiot, 
jealous, logic, machine, music, ocean, phrase, tyrant, 
* Supawn is Indian rather than Dutch, though used by 
the Dutch settlers. 
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Io8 ENGLISH WORDS. 
trophy^ tomb, tone^ zeal, etc. It is evident that 
English has enriched itself from many sources. 
There is not one of these words that we would 
be willing to part with. Though in some cases 
they retain a slight scholastic flavor, they are 
thoroughly embedded in our speech, and are now 
just as truly English as are our words of un- 
doubted Saxon ancestry. 
The following tables are taken principally from 
those in Marsh's Lectures on the English Language, 
The first is based on the number of words, count- 
ing each word but once. For instance, after count- 
ing the word is once, it would not be allowed to 
enter the enumeration again, although it might 
occur a hundred times in the matter under con- 
sideration. In making the second table, how- 
ever, the words is, the, an, etc., are counted 
every time they are used. The first is called 
an "enumeration of the total vocabulary;" the 
second is called an " enumeration of the total 
words used." The reason for the great prepon- 
derance of Teutonic words in the second table 
is, of course, that the particles, auxiliary verbs, 
and words of commonest use are Saxon, al- 
though our entire vocabulary is more than half 
Romance. 
The relative percentage of Latin words in the 
Bible and in Milton are especially worthy of com- 
parison. 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. IO9 
TOTAL VOCABULARY, 100. 
Per cent, of 
Namb of Book or Writer. Anglo-Saxon 
Words. 
The Ormulum, a.d. 1225 (semi-Saxon) * 97 
^English Bible 60 
*Shakspeare 60 
Milton (poetry) 33 
TOTAL WORDS USED, INCLUDING REPETITIONS, lOO. 
Per cent, of 
Namb of Book or WritBr. Anglo-Saxon 
Words. 
Robert of Gloucester, ten pages « . 96 
Piers* Ploughman, Introduction, entire . 88 
Chaucer, Prologue, 420 verses 88 
Squire^s Tale, entire 91 
Sir Thomas More, seven pages 84 
Faerie Queen, one canto 86 
John's Gospel, four chapters 96 
Matthew's Gospel, three chapters 93 
Romans, four chapters 90 
Othello, Act V 89 
Tempest, Act 1 88 
Milton, L' Allegro 90 
" II Penseroso 83 
" Paradise Lost 80 
Addison, Spectator 82 
Pope, poetry 80 
Swift, Political Lying 2>^ 
" John Bull 85 
Johnson, Preface to Dictionary 72 
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no ENGLISH WORDS. 
Nams of Book or Writbk. Anglo-Saxon 
Woi 
Per cent, of 
lo-Sax 
^ords. 
Junius, two letters 76 
Hume's History, one chapter 73 
Gibbon, Decline and Fall, one chapter. 70 
Webster,* Second Speech on Footers 
Resolution 75 
Irving, Stout Gentleman 85 
" Westminster Abbey 77 
Macaulay, Essay on Lord Bacon 75 
Channing, Essay on Milton 75 
Cobbett, on Indian-corn 80 
Prescott, one chapter 77 
Bryant, Death of the Flowers 92 
" Thanatopsis 84 
Mrs. Browning, Cry of the Children ... 92 
" '* Lost Bower 77 
Robert Browning, Bishop Blougram's 
Apology 84 
Edward Everett, Eulogy on Adams .... 76 
Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 
one chapter 73 
Tennyson, The Lotus-eaters 87 
" In Memoriam, first twenty 
strophes 89 
* Large Latin percentage owing to repetition of words 
like congress, constitution, union, etc. Webster ordinarily 
employed about eighty per cent, of Saxon words. 
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MINOR SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS. Ill 
Per cent, of 
Namb of Book or Writer. Anglo-Saxon 
Words, 
Ruskin, Modem Painters, chapter on the 
Superhuman Ideal 73 
Longfellow, Miles Standish 87 
Martineau, Endeavors after the Chris- 
tian Life 74 
We see from the above that after the language 
was first made a literary vehicle by Chaucer, down 
to the middle of the eighteenth century, the pro- 
portion of Saxon words used by the best writers 
was not far from seventeen words, counting repe- 
titions, to three of the foreign classes, and that 
Shakspeare and the Bible are markedly Saxon ; 
that after this period the proportion increased, 
reaching the maximum of Latinity in Gibbon; 
that during the present century there has been a 
reversion to the use of Saxon, especially marked 
in poetry ; and that the subject-matter influences 
the number of Saxon words used. This last is 
shown by the different ratios given by Milton's 
" L' Allegro," where the thought is cheerful and 
superficial, and the images drawn for the most 
part from rural life ; and by his " II Penseroso " 
(the reflective man), the tone of which is more 
philosophical, and the images scholastic or social. 
Again, " Westminster Abbey " naturally suggests 
topics connected with history and chivalry, and 
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112 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the writer draws more freely on our store of Ro* 
rtiance words. The " Stout Gentleman " is on a 
less dignified plane, and familiar Saxon phrases 
fit the thought. The same contrast is evident 
between Mrs. Browning's two poems, the "Cry 
of the Children " and the " Lost Bower.'' The 
modern reversion to Saxon words will be the 
more marked if we reflect that since Dr. John- 
son's day the number of Saxon words in ordinary 
use has not increased materially, while a large 
number of alien terms have been made familiar 
by science and the arts. It is further noteworthy 
how Saxon our best poetry is, and how Latinized 
our philosophic and artistic criticism, as shown 
by Ruskin and Martineau. .It seems strange, at 
first sight, that, as the table makes evident, an 
increase of only two or three per cent, in the 
number of Latin derivatives used should give 
the effect of excessive Latinity. Probably this 
is produced by the cadence and structure of the 
sentences more than by the character of the vo- 
cabulary. 
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CHAPTER X. 
METHOD OF THE WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. 
The origin of language is shrouded in impen- 
etrable mystery, like the origin of everything else. 
There can be no record before the means of 
making a record exist. By studying languages 
we can find out how they have changed during 
the historic period, and how they are changing 
now. We can then infer what the changes before 
that period must have been — proceed from the 
known to the unknown, on the hypothesis that 
the process by which languages were developed 
in the past 3000 years is the same by which 
they were developed in the much longer period 
during which articulate speech was slowly as- 
suming the forms which we now recognize as 
the most archaic. This is all that we can do, and 
we run the risk of overlooking some factor of 
prime importance which has ceased to be oper- 
ative. Again, we must remember that the part 
of the total development of language that has 
taken place in historic time is so slight in com- 
8 
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114 ENGLISH WORDS. 
parison with what had taken place before, that 
inferences carried from the nature of operations 
in the known past to those of the unknown past 
are very likely to be erroneous. The difference 
between a modem man and the most primitive 
man of whom we have record is small compared 
to the difference between the most primitive man 
and his earliest possible ancestor. Even if we 
should become convinced that the original word- 
forming instinct is still at work among modem 
men, we must remember that, like all the great 
primitive human instincts, it is so thwarted and 
corrupted by civilization that its original trend 
and character are barely discemible. Nor, for 
obvious reasons, does the process of acquiring 
the power of speech by infants throw much light 
— if any — on the original race -process. The 
powers and tendencies of the child are all in- 
herited, and those which date from fifty or one 
hundred generations back are the controlling 
ones, to the exclusion of the primitive instincts, 
and, what is of more consequence, the modern 
child is born into a modem environment. 
Since the discovery of Sanskrit a number of 
conclusions have been established by philologists. 
The great fact of the relationship of all the Aryan 
tongues points towards, if it does not establish, 
the unity of the race. The fact that all the 
Aryan languages are based on a limited number 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. II 5 
of roots or simple sounds about two hundred in 
number, most of which seem to be connected with 
a certain action, proves that language is a growth, 
in a fuller and more comprehensive sense than 
had before been thought possible, and shows, 
further, that man is a thinker just so far as he 
is in possession of words, and that both these 
powers must once have been in an elementary 
condition. Furthermore, it has been shown that 
language has been built on these roots by the 
use of metaphors. When the need was felt of 
expressing some new conception, an old word or 
combination of words was used which expressed 
a real or fancied resemblance between the thing 
already named and the new thing for which a 
name was wanted. Thus, man is a poet or 
maker of words in very much the same way that 
he is a creator of any poetical form. This met- 
aphor-making power is the main force in the 
formation of language, and it is necessary to as- 
sume the possession of only a very elementary 
vocabulary for a starting-point. In the present 
chapter it is the intention to present evidences 
oc this poetic imaginative faculty in some of our 
English words, the derivations of which are easily 
ascertained. It has been exercised in the for- 
mation of every word if we follow its history far 
enough back. 
For instance, breath and air and wind having 
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Il6 ENGLISH WORDS. 
names (probably one word), and a dead man or 
animal being one which has ceased to breathe, 
breath or air would naturally be thought to be 
that which constitutes life, or that which, having 
departed, made the living animal dead. There- 
fore, in all languages we find that the word which 
signifies soul or spirit has for a root the word 
signifying air or breath. Thus, spirit is spiritus; 
animus is Greek anetnos^ or wind. The origin of 
our word soul is unknown, but it may be taken 
for granted that it is some concrete and sensible 
thing used as the sign of an invisible thing. The 
Teutonic word ghost is from the root meaning 
breath. 
When it is said that these primitive metaphors 
are poetical, it is not meant that they always are 
what we should recognize as poetically beautiful. 
They are frequently so, for they are nearly always 
apt illustrations of something abstract by some- 
thing more concrete. It is the evidence of the 
naive striving of primitive man with his limited 
stock of materials to express something just be- 
yond him, that makes the roots of language poet- 
ical, for this struggling to express something not 
definitely understood is the main -spring of all 
art. Strange as it may appear, these primitive 
metaphors have widely colored our conceptions 
of spiritual things. 
It may very naturally be objected that, if a few 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. II7 
verbal roots form the elements of primitive lan- 
guage, we should find some savage tribes, whose 
development is in the lowest possible condition, 
in possession of these roots and nothing more, 
whereas no such example can be found. The 
answer to this is that the world is very old, and 
that no savage tribe represents the condition of 
primitive man, for all savages show traces of 
great antiquity in their inherited instincts and 
superstitions. The infant, undeveloped racial 
man cannot be found, for it is too late. The 
modern savage is mature, though in a state of 
warped development, and behind him lie hun- 
dreds of centuries of torpid life before we reach 
the period — if ever there was such a period — 
when language was formed from its elements, 
and the original language - building power of 
humanity was exerted. Therefore, we must look 
on a savage tribe as a wreck quite as much as a 
germ, and can draw no better inferences from its 
speech than we can from the speech of a highly- 
developed community. We find, too, that savages, 
as far as they have risen to the conception of ab- 
stractions, have employed the same method of ex- 
pressing them in speech that civilized men did. 
Names, then, are never given arbitrarily, ex- 
cept by moderns. All the geographical names 
mentioned in the chapter on local names, if of 
any respectable antiquity, are real names — mean 
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Il8 ENGLISH WORDS. 
something, embody something. Himalay means 
the abode of snow. Sneefell and Ben- Nevis 
have the same signification — the snow mountain. 
Sutherland (the iSi?aMland), the north-west county 
of Scotland, is so called because the name was 
given by the Norse inhabitants of the islands to 
the north of it. England, or Angle-land, is called 
Albion on account of the white chalk cliffs of 
the southern coast as seen from the Continent. 
Even now if a folk-name is allowed to form it- 
self, it grows from some root in the same way 
that the earliest ones did. 
The names of flowers not unfrequently embody 
a rustic poetry. Chaucer's daisy is the eye of 
day. Buttercup and golden -rod are equally de- 
scriptive, Rosemary is ros marine^ from some 
fancied resemblance between the flower and sea 
spray. It has been altered from ros marine by 
reason of a popular etymology connecting it with 
rose of Mary. Rose is from an Arabic word which 
passed into Greek, thence into Latin, thence into 
English. Foxglove embodies a pretty conceit 
The asters have a star-like form. Geranium is 
from the Greek geranos^ a crane, the flowers hav- 
ing a fancied resemblance to a stork's bill in 
color. Pink comes from a Celtic word meaning 
to pierce, as in "to pink with a rapier," and the 
name was given on account of the "pinked" or 
serrated edges of the flowers. Mallow is from 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. II9 
a Latin word based on mollis^ soft. Through the 
French it gives us mauve, the color. The violet 
also has given its name to a shade of blue. Lilac 
was the Persian name of the indigo plant, but, 
being appropriated in English to a flowering 
shrub with purple blossoms, has given its name 
to a shade of light purple. Bud is from a word 
meaning to push. Nasturtium is supposed to be 
from nas-torquere (nose-twister). Daffodil is from 
Greek, asphodel. Wort is the Saxon word for 
plant, and dock is the Celtic. In consequence, 
these words appear very frequently in the folk- 
names for plants and herbs. 
Primitive metaphors are very well illustrated in 
the words for feelings and actions of the mind. 
Thus, attention is a stretching of the mind. Ten- 
sion, as applied to a mental state, is of modem 
coinage, but is based on much the same met- 
aphorical conception. Our modern notions of 
physical science have given to this word and to 
pressure 2l new meaning. Conception (con capio\ 
a taking of two things together, or of one thing 
with another,* is based on the idea that in an 
* It is quite possible that the original force of the Latin 
prefix con or cum was not taking two things together, but 
taking all parts of a thing at once. Comprehend and con- 
ceive would then mean grasping the whole of a thing, not 
grasping a thing with its attendant circumstances. But the 
fact that the original metaphorical transfer lay in using a 
physical action to express a mental action remains un- 
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I20 ENGLISH WORDS. 
elementary mental act we compare one thing 
with another. One cannot comprehend anything 
unless it is taken hold of with its associated 
ideas. Associated ideas are companion thoughts, 
from socius. Idea is from the root vid, to see. 
An idea is a mental image. To see with the eye 
and to know with the mind are analogous. Sym- 
pathy, from the Greek, and compassion, from the 
Latin, express the thought that when we sympa- 
thize or compassionate in the true sense, we 
share suflEering with another person. Passion is 
from patior, to su£Eer, as if a man in a passion 
were enduring the mastery of a demon. The old 
use means suffering; from the same root are 
pathos, patient, and passive. Anger and anguish^ 
awe, and even quinsy are all from the same root, 
AGH, to choke. Courage is from coeur, the 
heart. Hate is based on the same root as hunt, 
meaning to pursue. Love is from a root meaning 
to covet, to desire. This would seem to show 
that hate was recognized as an active principle 
earlier than love, since its root contains a less 
complex idea, though such an inference borders 
on the fanciful. 
Mental states and characteristics are expressed 
by condensed metaphors. Modest signifies a 
changed. This is the point in which the growth of lan- 
guage illustrates the development of the human intellect 
from lower views to higher ones. 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. 121 
person who acts within a modus, or rule, and the 
root MAy from which it comes, gives us also 
measure and moon^ and, possibly, man. The rad- 
ical idea in the word temper is to moderate or 
qualify by mixing. This original import of the 
word is seen in the phrase to temper mortar, or 
to temper steel, for in tempering steel something 
was supposed to mix or unite with the metal so 
as to harden it. Again, temperature was taken to 
mean degree or amount of heat, in accordance 
with the theory that something material mixed 
with a substance to make it hot. Temper as ap- 
plied to the disposition meant the state resulting 
from a mixture of moods or impulses. Origi- 
nally, it was implied that the resulting state was 
a proper and commendable one, but now when 
we say a "fit of temper ^^ we mean a fit of bad 
temper. The use of the talents for mental apti- 
tudes comes, of course, from the parable of the 
intrusted talents or sums of money. The ad- 
jective talented was objected to in the last genera- 
tion, but seems to have acquired a good standing 
now, though it is better to avoid using it. At all 
events it has expelled the word gifted. The orig- 
inal root of the word memory is not known. It 
would probably mean something like picking up, 
or sorting out, or seeing a second time. But the 
verb think is supposed to be distantly connected 
with the root of the word things as if the thought 
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122 ENGLISH WORDS. 
were originally regarded as an image or emanation 
of the thing thought of. Lunacy derives its name 
from the superstition that the mental condition 
was somehow influenced by the moon, though the 
common word loony* is based on a metaphor 
drawn from the Norse word, loon^ which in Ice- 
land may refer to a foolish bird, though in our 
country it signifies one quite as intelligent as 
those who try to jshoot it. The point to notice 
in all these cases is that a concrete thing is al- 
ways found to be the godfather of an abstraction 
in the early efforts of man to express himself, and 
that his progress has been from the conception 
of the material to the partial conception of the 
spiritual. We are so closely bound to matter 
that we cannot learn to thihk without using the 
* The names of birds, with the exception of duck^ are 
used in a derogatory sense when applied to human beings, 
to carry the idea that a person resembles the bird in unde- 
sirable qualities — e,g. , coot^ goose ^ peacock^ owl, loon, gull, 
booby. Loon in the expression ** crazy as a loon'' has been 
influenced in its meaning by the word lunatic from Latin 
luna, which was applied to persons whose sanity was tempo- 
rarily disturbed under the impression that the changes of the 
moon were somehow responsible for periods of mental de- 
rangement. For this reason loony is sometimes incorrectly 
spelled luny. The old word loon or loom is also applied to 
an awkward clown ("Macbeth," Act. V., Scene iii., line 
xi.). Booby, too, is probably primarily an epithet applied 
to a man, and connected with balbutier, to stammer, and 
afterwards given to a bird in a derisive sense. 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. 1 23 
words which represented matter in man's earliest 
speech. 
So great is the influence of our material sur- 
roundings on us that, had we lived as fishes do in 
a gross medium like water, perhaps we should 
never have risen to the conception of pure spirit. 
The rarer medium, the ether, through which heat 
and light are conveyed, is not perceptible by our 
senses. Hence it has never been so fruitful of 
words to express conceptions of mental and spir- 
itual being as has air. Fiery is an old word, but 
it is not based on the word meaning fire, and 
does not radically mean a conflagration in the 
mind, but simply a rapid movement. When we 
say an "illuminated intellect," or an "ethereal 
being," we are using comparatively modem met- 
aphors ; but the word spirit^ from breath or air. is 
so ancient a metaphor that we have ceased to be 
conscious that it is one. Nevertheless, the for- 
mation of all of these metaphors is due to an 
effort of the word-building instinct. 
There is another element, of comparatively lit- 
tle importance, in the word-building instinct, and 
that is the tendency to imitate the thing signified 
by the vocal sound which represents it. Thus, 
buzz^ whiz^ cracky roar^ creaky croak, crash, boom, 
hiss, hunt, howl (probably), roar, squeak, drum, 
tomtom, and fizz are imitative words. As these 
words are original, it has been thought that they 
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124 ENGLISH WORDS. 
were entitled to rank as roots, and that language 
might have sprung from an attempt to reproduce 
certain of the natural sounds or noises. If we 
suppose man to have once been an animal desti- 
tute of language but possessed of the power of 
acquiring it, and eagerly desirous of communicat- 
ing with his fellows, it is difficult to imagine what 
he could have done except to gestiu'e and make 
imitative noises, just as persons do now when they 
cannot speak the same language. But can we as- 
sume an analogy between speechless man and 
modern man without being misled by it? And 
why should man not have developed a sign lan- 
guage instead of a vocal language ? Max Miiller 
ridicules the theory that language may have orig- 
inated in attempts to imitate the sounds of nature 
as the bow- wow theory. The serious objections 
to it are : First, the onomatopoeic words, with 
one or two exceptions, are not the fruitful words, 
the generative sounds, by the compounding and 
modification of which whole groups are formed. 
Hiss and buzz are two very good examples of ono- 
matopoeic words, but they are destitute of progeny ; 
while from sta, to stand, is derived a family of at 
least ten different groups, and spak^ to see, has 
been still more productive. Second, the imita- 
tive words are quite different in closely- allied 
languages, showing that they are of comparatively 
late origin. Third, the number of things-^and 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. 125 
actions which can be represented by a character- 
istic sound is quite limited, and entirely inade- 
quate to form the basis of language. 
It is true that there are a few onomatopoeic 
roots, or rather roots having some onomatopoeic 
quality, like bahl^ to resound, the root of bellow, 
bawl, and bull ; gu^ to low, the root of cow ; mu^ 
to mutter, the root of mutter; and mur^ the root 
of murmuf^ all of which refer to sounds ; but even 
these are not the great fruitful roots from which 
language draws its nourishment.* Again, there is 
a large number of words like breeze^ thunder^ 
freeze^ grinds tear, etc., of which we think the 
sound expressive pf the sense, they are so closely 
related in our minds. Possibly in the wear and 
tear of time the onomatopoeic sense of man may 
have modified the sound of these words slightly, 
but in their originals no resemblance between 
sense and sound can be found. On the whole, 
we should say that any pair of them might change 
meanings even now without any loss of fitness. 
We therefore allow to the onomatopoeic or imita- 
tive propensity a very subordinate part in language- 
formation, and recognize the imaginative or met- 
aphor-suggesting power of the human thinker as 
* For a full and plausible presentation of the arguments 
sustaining the theory that lang^uage sprang from imitations 
of natural sounds, see Canon Farrar's book, Language and 
Languages, 
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126 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the building energy of word-growth. It is true 
this last does not account for the origin of the 
roots. It takes these for granted, and so must 
any rational theory of language. 
At present, when a name is sought for a new 
thing or operation, it is arbitrarily manufactured. 
The botanists go to the Latin dictionary, the phjrs- 
icists to the Greek. There is no invention in this, 
no word -creating. It is merely ransacking the 
lumber-room for a disused tool and using it over 
again. In this way we have Ulescope^ the far- 
seer; telegraphy the far -writer; telephone^ the 
distant - speaker ; stereoscope^ the solid -seer, and 
thousands of others. The verb telescope, as ap- 
plied to a train of cars that have been forced into 
each other, is a happy example of the metaphor- 
ical word-making power in modem days. It is 
an indigenous growth out of a manufactured word. 
So also is the use of the word photograph for the 
quick fixing of a mental image on the memory. 
A long time is required for these artificial words 
to become fully naturalized in the language, though 
they are very necessary for the naming of new de- 
vices. Multitudes of them drop out or remain en- 
tombed in our dictionaries alongside of many of 
the barbarous Latin words of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. Some of the coined words 
* And yet we say ** long-distance telephone/' or long-dis- 
tance long-distance speaker. 
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METHOD OF WORD-FORMING INSTINCT. 1 27 
of science are very happy inventions ; as, atavism, 
to express the mysterious appearance in an indi- 
vidual of some mark of his remote ancestors, and, 
isothermalSy lines drawn through points when the 
mean annual temperatures are the same. The 
conceptions of modern science are gradually col- 
oring our thought, and the scientific terminology, 
if apt and striking, must more and more enter our 
daily speech. 
The foregoing are words which enter the lan- 
guage at the top and work down. Another class 
take the natural course of entering at the bot- 
tom and taking their chances. These are the 
words of indigenous growth, or slang. Sometimes 
they are coined, but not unfrequently they spring 
from an expressive folk-metaphor.* Multitudes 
of them die yearly, though they may have a vigor- 
ous life for a while. No one can tell whether any 
given slang-word will survive. Dude and crank 
are valuable words, and each denotes something 
not signified by any other English word. Ten 
years from this timq they may be out of use, or 
* Victor Hugo says {Les Miserables) : ** Slang is a vestibule 
where language disguises itself when it has some crime to 
commit. It puts on these masks of words, these rags of 
metaphors." This applies to an Argot ^ or slang dialect. 
Teutonic slang is language too full of rude, boisterous life. 
It expresses the humorous, not the criminal, attitude tow- 
ards life. It is a sign of linguistic health and vivacity. It 
reflects national character. 
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128 ENGLISH WORDS. 
they may be in as good standing as moby once a 
slang -word. Crank* 2l metaphor from cranky ^ 
an unstable craft, if it can establish itself, will 
prove a valuable acquisition and save many a 
tedious circumlocution. The duiU of 1890 is so 
different from the dandy of 1840, and the word is 
so expressive of one aspect of the genius of our 
age that it ought to be saved, but probably it wAX 
"have to go." Swellj originally from "swell 
mob," is also expressive and seems to be making 
its way. Rattled, demoralization accompanied by 
alarm, is also a good folk -metaphor. It may be- 
come respectable and literary. These indigenous 
growths have far more of the genius of the lan- 
guage than have the scientific formations. Never- 
theless, they must be received with circumspec- 
tion, for ninety in a hundred are ephemeraL The 
word slang itself is comparatively modem, and 
originated in a slang expression connected with 
sling. Now it is an indispensable word, if not 
strictly literary. 
* The entrance of crank into literary society would seem 
to be signalized by its appearance in the title of an article in 
the A tlantic Monthly (September, 1 890) : * * Cranks as Social 
Motors." Max MfiUer's Science of Language (Second Se- 
ries, Lecture viii.) contains a suggestive disquisition on this 
subject — the extension of the meaning of words by meta- 
phorical use until the metaphor is forgotten. 
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CHAPTER XL 
GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. 
To group words under their original Proto- Aryan 
roots implies more philological knowledge than 
is assumed for the readers of this book. But in 
every language there are families of words spring- 
ing from the same root in that language. This 
relationship can be profitably examined by any 
one, since it illustrates on a small scale what may 
be called word-branching, the process by which 
words, sometimes apparently unrelated in mean- 
ing, grow out of the same root. What could 
at first sight be more distinct in idea than the 
word post in /<7j/-haste and in fence-post Yet 
they are the same in origin. Let us examine a 
few groups of English words thus related. We 
will take up the words connected with cAeck, qua- 
tuor (four), sticky post, stetriy dOf and a few others. 
Skeat's smaller Etymological Dictionary, which 
groups words by their root-relationships, contains 
a great deal of information on this subject in a 
compact form. 
9 
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130 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Check is derived from the game of chess, which 
is of Persian or Indian origin, and is much older 
than the English language. ^^ Ex oriente lux et 
ludus scaccorumP Check - mate \s shah mat, the 
king is dead, and check is shah — ^that is, look out 
for the king. From this came readily the mean- 
ing of a sudden repulse, a stop, as in check-rein^ 
check-valve, to meet with a check. 
Chess, the game, is shahs, shaks or checks, and 
means the battle of the kings. 
Checker-board, or chess-board, is the board of al- 
ternate squares on which the game is played. 
The table on which the accounts of the king's 
treasurer were kept was called a checker-board or 
exchequer, because it was painted with squares 
of different colors. The squares were used for 
the purpose of computation, perhaps with the aid 
of counters. The place, therefore, was known as 
the " court of exchequer," the e being euphonic 
before s and x, as in escheat, estoppel, etc. The 
treasury department is still called the exchequer^ 
in consequence. 
Check, a written order for money deposited, 
sometimes pedantically spelled cheque, was origi- 
nally either an exchequer bill or draft on the 
treasury, or else connected with the idea of a 
check or restraint on the paying out of money by 
the one to whom it is intrusted. 
The derivatives of quatuor bear their origin on 
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GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. I3I 
their faces. A quadrangle has four angles, and a 
quadrant is the fourth part of a circle. Quadrille 
is a game at cards for four persons or a dance for 
four couples. Quaternions is a branch of mathe- 
matics which proceeds as if there were four di- 
mensions. Quarry is a place where stones are 
worked square. A quadroon has one-quarter ne- 
gro blood ; a quadruped has four feet ; a quart is 
a quarter of a gallon ; a quarto is a sheet folded 
into four leaves ; a squadron and a j^wdJ^ is a 
body of troops in a square — a square has four 
sides. In all these words except quarry the idea 
of four parts is very evident, and the branching 
has not proceeded very far. 
¥rom pono, besides the compounds deposit* ex- 
pound, impost, etc., we have the word post in sev- 
eral quite different senses. Thus, to post a sen- 
try means to assign him a definite position ; but 
post, in 
"Thousands at his bidding speed. 
And pest o'er land and sea," 
and in 
*' My days are swifter than a post,'^ 
* It is odd enough that a large number of words con- 
taining pose — all that come from the French— ^^j^, com- 
pose, dispose^ expose^ propose, purpose, repose, suppose, and 
transpose, are not from pono but from pausare, to bring to 
rest ; but everything connected with the sb. position, like 
deponent or supposition, comes direct from the Latin pono 
(position). Two Latin verbs were confused in France. 
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132 ENGLISH WORDS. 
evidently means to move rapidly. Post-office^ fence- 
post^ to post a ledger, post-hctste, post-chaise, have 
all grown out of the idea of position. Thus the 
fence -post is fixed in the ground, the military 
post is established at a certain place, items are 
placed or posted in the ledger ; the post-offices, 
also, were established at fixed points ; the post- 
chaise was drawn by horses kept at the posts ; 
and to post a letter and to post in the sense of 
riding rapidly are evidently derived from the post 
in post-office. 
Stick is a word whose relationship takes in a 
great many words. There are really two verbs, 
stick, to pierce, and stick, to be fixed fast A 
butcher speaks of sticking a hog, and a wag- 
oner of sticking in the mud. The active and 
the transitive verb, though evidently different 
words, are confoimded in modern English, though 
the connection between piercing and holding fast 
is evidently remote. Sting is the same as stick, 
to pierce, but has retained its identity. From 
this double word stick come tick, ticket, etiquette, 
stack, stake, steak, stick (sb.), stitch, stock, stocking, 
and stoker. Ticket and etiquette come through the 
French from the German, and are therefore dis- 
tant connections. A ticket was originally a little 
bill or order stuck up on the gate of a court; 
hence etiquette, a rule of social conduct. Tick, 
credit, came from the practice of buying things 
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GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. 1 33 
without paying for them, and having the charge 
marked on a card which was stuck up. A mem- 
orandum-book of charges is thus still known as 
"a tickler," and the cashier, when he takes money 
from the drawer, substitutes, or should substitute, 
a " ticket." Stack is a pile stuck up — that is, held 
fast. A stake may be something stuck fast in the 
ground, or it may be a sharp piece of wood to 
pierce the ground. (We say a horse staked him- 
self when he is wounded by a piece of wood.) 
A beefsteak is a bit of meat stuck on the point of 
a fork. A stick is a small bit of wood, so called 
from its piercing or sticking into anything. A 
printer's stick may be the holder in which the 
types are stuck, but more probably is qonnected 
with sto^ to stand, and corrupted. A stake is money 
held fast. Stocky originally that which is held fast, 
as the stock or stem of a tree, has a great variety 
of secondary meanings, as family stock, the stem 
of the family tree, Uve-stock, that which is fixed 
to the farm, the stock of a gun in which the 
barrel is fixed. Fixed or invested capital is also 
stock. The machine in which a malefactor's legs 
were fastened was called the stocks. The con- 
nection of stockings and of stocky the stiff con- 
struction once worn about the neck by men, does 
not seem so clear. A stoker cleans his fire by 
sticking a long poker into it, and a sticklebcuk is 
a fish with a stick, or something to pierce, on his 
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134 ENGLISH WORDS. 
back* As the st appears in all these words, we 
may note how much more obstinate a thing a con- 
sonant is than a vowel. The combination st seems 
to stand the wear and tear of use remarkably well. 
In the Norse tongues was a word htil or hel^ 
and in the Anglo-Saxon a word hal^ both meaning, 
substantially, whole, entire, both distantly related 
to the Greek KoKnq, beautiful, complete. From one 
or the other of these — they are really the same 
word, though one may have been the origin of an 
English word in one part of the country and the 
other in another part — come hale^ hail (a greet- 
ing), whole^ heal^ healthy holy, hallow, halibut, holi- 
day, hollyhock, and wassail. Wassail was Anglo- 
Saxon Wes-hal, be well (your health !), and was a 
pledge or drinking of health at a feast. Hollyhock 
is the holy mallow, so called because it was brought 
from Palestine. Halibut is the holy but or floun- 
der, a fish which the Church allowed its votaries 
to eat on fast-days. The connection between holi- 
ness or perfection on the one hand, and health or 
physical completeness on the other, is quite evi- 
dent, as is also the connection between hail, a 
greeting, and the original meaning. Halloo has 
no connection with hal, though the sound, or 
rather the spelling, suggests that it might have. 
It is from an Anglo-Saxon interjection, eala, and 
is confounded with the Norman call, Hola, or Ho 
there 1 the form used by Shakspeare. 
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GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. 135 
Another prolific root-word is the base of the 
Anglo-Saxon sceran, and of the equivalent Norse 
word meaning to shear. Thus we have shear, Jeer, 
scar (a rock), scare, score, shard, shred, share, sheer, 
shire, sheriff, shore, shore (a prop), short, shirt, 
skirt — all of the same family. Notice the ob- 
duracy of the consonant sound in this instance, 
and that the Norse members of the connection 
begin with sk, and the Anglo-Saxon with sh. The 
relation of signification is sufficiently evident, ex- 
cept, perhaps, in the case oijeer, which Skeat gives 
as from a Dutch phrase meaning to shear the fool, 
/>., to jest at one. Score, meaning twenty, comes 
from the practice of keeping count by notches on 
a stick, as Robinson Crusoe kept his diary. A 
deeper notch was made at twenty. Axemen still 
score a piece of timber before they " hew to the 
line," and we keep the score of a game. The 
shire is territory divided from the rest, and the 
shire -reeve is the executive officer. The shore 
is the dividing line between land and water. 
When a vessel sheers off she cuts the water at 
an angle. A shore is a prop cut to the proper 
length, 2, ploughshare cuts the earth, and a share 
of stock is a part separated or cut off. So with 
shred and shard, A shirt is a truncated garment, 
and a skirt is cut round the bottom. To skirt 
along the shore means, perhaps, to make short 
cuts from point to point. Scare is more remotely 
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136 ENGLISH WORDS. 
connected in meaning, as it derives from Norse 
skerre^ timid, shy, which is based on the idea of 
sheering off. This group of words illustrates the 
double Teutonic source — Norse and Low German 
— of the modem English. 
Do^ to perform, comes from an Anglo-Saxon 
word, as does also do^ to be worth, to avail. The 
use of the first as an emphatic auxiliary, as in '' I 
do say so," " I do not think so," is comparatively 
modem. From this comes ado^ to-do, deed, deem, 
doom, doff^ dup (to do off and to do up), indeed, 
and deemster (a judge). From do, to avail, comes 
doughty (valiant). " How do you do ?" is a very 
odd idiom when we examine it. " How actualize 
you in practicable availability ?" is about the sub- 
stance of our daily salutation. 
Latin words have branched in the original 
language, and also since their naturalization in 
English. Much of this is due to suffixes and 
prefixes — compounding rather than growth. Du- 
cere to lead ; tangere, to touch ; dicere, to say ; and 
agere, to perform, are familiar examples. From 
duco come duke, abduction, conduce, conduct (in both 
senses), conduit, douche (a shower-bath, since the 
water is brought through a duct), doge, ducat, duc- 
tile, educate, introduce, redoubt (an intrenchment 
to which to lead the men back), reduce, subdue, 
traduce (to lead a reputation to dishonor), etc. 
From tango come tangent, contain^ contagious. 
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GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. 137 
integer (a whole, intact), tact (a delicate touch), 
taste^ and tax^ of which last the original meaning 
was primarily to handle, hence to value, to ap- 
praise. 
From dico come diction^ abdicate^ addict^ con- 
dition, contradict, dedicate, dictionary, ditto (what 
has been said), ditty, edict, indicate, index, indite, 
preach {predicare), predicate (in two senses), and 
predict. In all of these the connection, of mean-' 
ing is sufficiently evident. 
From agere we have agent and act, agile, agi- 
tate, ambiguous, coagulate, cogent, cogitate, enact, ex- 
act, transact, and others more remote; in all of 
which we see the idea of effective agency. 
The relationship of meaning in words from the 
Latin is usually very evident, though the form 
is sometimes disguised in coming through the 
French. In miscreant, originally unbeliever, and 
in recreant, one false to faith, the credo is dis- 
guised. So in defy, to proclaim all bonds of faith 
broken, the fides does not appear. Frontispiece, 
again, is not connected with piece, but with specio, 
and means something to be looked at in the be- 
ginning. In preface, from prcefatio, the root is 
fari, to speak, notfacio, to do. Of disguised forms 
something will be said hereafter. The English 
roots, however, have been much longer under the 
influence of phonetic changes, and, perhaps, are 
more susceptible to them. A few more instances, 
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138 ENGLISH WORDS. 
in no case exhaustive, will finish this branch of 
the subject. 
Beaian, to strike, gives us baty beetle (a wooden 
maul), and batter, a kind of pudding beaten up. 
Beorgan, to shelter, besides its connection with 
burough, already spoken of, gives us ^wr^/i^zr (prob- 
ably corrupted from burgh and latro), harbinger (one 
who precedes to procure a harbor), harbor, and cold 
harbor, A cold harbor was an inn where the* trav- 
eller could procure shelter but no cooking. There 
are a number of places in England still called 
Cold Harbour, and one or two in this country. 
Blawan, to blow, is the origin of bladder, of 
blaze, to proclaim after giving notice with a horn. 
We still speak of a blaze on a tree (a mark which 
proclaims a boundary), blare {pi a trumpet), blis- 
ter, and bloat, Skeat says, however, that the con- 
nection between blow and bloat is conjectural. 
Blatant and bleat plainly belong here. 
From brynen, to burn, comes brown, brimstone, 
brandy, brand, and brindled. Skeat places brunt 
here, as if the brunt of the battle was connect- 
ed with a burning or hot fight, which seems odd 
enough. 
From ceapian, to buy, we have our word cheap, 
chapman, chaffer; and in composition, Cheapside 
and Copenhagen, the merchan's haven. Since 
buying necessitates trading or exchange, we have 
chop in the phrases "to chop logic," and " the wind 
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GROUPS OF WORDS WITH A COMMON ROOT. 1 39 
chops " or bhanges its direction. The result is a 
" chopping sea." In this last we have gone some 
distance from the idea of purchase, but each step 
is logical. 
Daelian, to divide, is found in the phrase " a 
good deal,^^ a considerable part; doie, a portion 
of food given in charity; deal, a piece of wood 
and to deal the cards. Distantly connected are 
dale and dell, a division or cleft in the hills. 
Wyrty an herb, appears in wort — St. John's wort^ 
etc.; in wart, a growth on the finger ; in orchard ^ 
or wort-yard. Orchard could not come from hor- 
tus, a garden, because the last syllable must be 
accounted for. 
Our large modern dictionaries give the etymol- 
ogies of words so fully that these few examples 
are quoted merely to incite the reader to look up 
others for himself. Take the following words : 
wit, war, wade, tell, shoot, pike, mow, batch, bear, 
can, food, clover, knout, dray, and note their con- 
nections, some of which are very peculiar. There 
is no branch of the subject in which conjecture is 
more apt to be misleading than in accounting for 
the different meanings of words similar in sound. 
Long experience sometimes fails to impart a trust- 
worthy judgment, so capricious seems the popular 
method of transferring meanings. In default of 
an historical sequence great caution is necessary, 
but sometimes not observed. 
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CHAPTER XII. 
ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 
Etymologists are fmr from being infallible. 
The usual causes of mistakes are excessive inge- 
nuity and disregard of the method in which the 
human mind works in forming a language and in 
transferring the meaning of words from one thing 
to another, or else ignorance of the way in which 
old sounds and spellings have been modified. 
Thus Dr. Thomas Fuller, a man of sense and acute- 
ness, says : "As for those that count the Tartars the 
offspring of the ten tribes of Israel which Shalma- 
nasar led away captive, because Totari signifyeth 
in the Hebrew and Syriac tongue a residue, or 
remnant, learned men have sufficiently confuted 
it. And surely it seemeth a forced and over- 
strained deduction to farre fetch the name of 
Tartars from a Hebrew word, a language so far 
distant from them." 
" The theory of Fuller," says Professor Marsh, 
" was better than his practice, for he derives com- 
pliment from completi mentirt, and not from co^/t- 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 14I 
pktio mentis^ because compliments are usually 
completely mendacious." * Elsewhere he quotes, 
with seeming assent, Sir John Harrington's ridicu- 
lous derivation of the old English elf and goblin 
from the two great political families, Guelf and 
Ghibbeline. Thus, also, abominable^ which is evi- 
dently derived from the Latin ab and otnen^ and 
involves the notion of what is religiously profane 
and detestable — "the abominations of the hea- 
then," for example — ^was supposed to be derived 
from ab and homOy as if it signified something in- 
human. For a long time it was spelled abhomi- 
nable, in accordance with this forced derivation, 
and though the error in the spelling has not been 
perpetuated, the word itself has taken up the 
meaning of something repugnant to humanity and 
not merely sacrilegious. 
The word Amazon is frequently given as com- 
pounded of df, privative, and mazon (Greek), the 
breast, with the explanation that the tribe of fe- 
male warriors which bore the name, cut off their 
left breasts to acquire greater facility in draw- 
ing the bow. This is so evidently absurd that 
the error is repeated in our dictionaries simply 
because no one has made a better guess at the 
derivation. 
* Compliment and complement (math.) are both complete' 
ment, or filling up. Extending courtesies, flattery, complying 
with wishes, is a meaning easily derived from '* filling up." 
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f42 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Mariposa^ the Spanish for butterfly, is some- 
times referred to mare^ the sea, zxiAposa^ position 
or rest, because the insect flutters aimlessly and 
then alights, and the sea is sometimes in motion 
and sometimes quiet. Anything more flatly sen- 
timental than this derivation cannot easily be 
imagined. It has not even the merit of being a 
really poetical invention. 
Again, the word pie is referred in Webster to 
pastry by a desperate guess. By this method all 
words beginning in / and of similar meaning 
would be connected. But words are connected 
by some law which governs the relation of the 
different sounds and meanings, and not hap- 
hazard. The word//> is probably a Celtic word, 
like many of the elementary kitchen-words, and 
dates from the time when Celtic slaves performed 
the menial offices of the kitchen. The pie in 
magpie is another word connected with the Latin 
picus, a woodpecker. 
Pie or //, meaning a heap of type, probably 
comes from pica^ the name of a certain size of 
type, which might be applied to an unassorted 
heap. 
One source of absurd etymologies is the resem- 
blance in the sound of words of different mean- 
ings in two languages. Because a Latin and Greek 
word sound alike we are tempted to think them 
allied, whereas resemblance of sound is a reason 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. I43 
for regarding the words as from different roots. 
We take it for granted that the Spanish mucho 
and our much are the same, whereas there is no 
connection between them, nor is there any be- 
tween the Greek oKoq and our word whole. Dr. 
Johnson in his dictionary gave curmudgeon as de- 
rived from the French coeur mechanic a wicked 
heart. In reality it comes from com-mudgin^ 
one who stores up grain to create an artificial 
scarcity.* 
A salt-cellar is referred to as if it were a cell in 
which to hold salt. The word cellar is originally 
salarius, a salt-holder, and has nothing to do with 
cell^ which is connected with celare^ to conceal. 
The expression stone-blind means either blind 
as a stone, or else refers to the stony look, as of a 
white pebble, in the eyes of those afflicted with a 
certain form of blindness. Having this expres- 
sion, we have manufactured another, sand-blind, 
out of semi-blind, to express near-sightedness. 
Because sand is finer than stones, men jumped at 
the conclusion that the proper expression for a 
degree less than stone-blindness would be " sand- 
*Dr. Johnson gave *' curmudgeon " as from ccew and 
mechanty and added the words " unknown correspondent," 
referring to his authority. Ashe, copying from Johnson, 
makes another more ludicrous mistake. He wrote : ** Cur- 
mudgeon from cceury unknown, and mechant^ correspond- 
ent." 
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144 ENGUSU WORDS. 
blind" Laoncelot, in the "* Mefcfaant ol Venice," 
goes on to dlWde the scale again by inventing 
the term gravd-biuuL*^ 
Pliny actually thought that iSoitpamthtr was so 
called from -rav tfi^Mor, as if the animal combined 
the elements of all wild beasts — was an ^tome 
of savage life ; and another writer says the Latin 
apis is derived from the Greek avovc, f oodess, be> 
cause at one stage of dieir existence bees are 
footless grubs. 
In his powerful poem, '^Childe Roland," 
Browning uses the expression slug-ham: 
** I put the slug'hartt to my lips and blew." 
Slug'hom has a fine flavor of the Dark Ages, 
and suggests a connection with slug and slaught- 
er, as if it meant a battle-horn. But its origin 
lies in a mistake of Chatterton's as to the mean- 
ing of the Celtic slogan^ sometimes written slog- 
gorne. So he wrote, "some caught a slug-horn 
and an onset wound," under the impression that 
a sloggome was a musical instrument and not a 
battle-cry. Browning took from him the word 
" slug-horn," which is so expressive that it is a 
pity there is not something real to base it on. 
* Launcelot, "This is my true-begotten father, who br^ 
ing more than sand-blind, high gravel-blind, knows me not'* 
— '* Merchant of Venice," Act II., Scene ii., line 30. 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 1 45 
Some one says that legend is derived from lU- 
gende, lying, because a legend has often so slight 
a foundation. Legends are legenda^ tales of the 
martyrs or saints, read in the churches, " written 
with a purpose." So untrustworthy were they 
that legend has now come to mean a tale pur- 
porting to be history, but evidently not founded 
on fact. A tradition, on the other hand — mean- 
ing originally some statement handed down orally 
from father to son — is regarded as having prob- 
ably a nucleus of truth. Legends are frequently 
invented to account for geographical names, and 
frequently based on some etymological mistake. 
Thus, there is a mountain in Switzerland called 
Pilate's Mount, and a legend has been invented 
to account for the name. There is a small lake 
near the summit, and it is said that Pontius Pilate 
committed suicide by drowning himself in it, im- 
pelled by remorse for his part in the Crucifixion. 
In reality, the name — Mons Pilatus^ or the hatted 
hill — comes from the fact that the summit is fre- 
quently surrounded by clouds, a phenomenon 
which has given a name to many mountains. 
Sometimes the legend is invented, as in the 
above case, to fit the name, and sometimes the 
name is given to suit the legend. The most com- 
mon error, however, is the warping of the spelling 
or pronunciation of a foreign name to render it 
similar to some word in the vernacular. Atten- 
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146 ENGLISH WORDS. 
tion has already been called to the curious cor- 
ruptions of some French geographical names in 
our country. Many other instances could be 
given. The mountain near the head of the bay 
of Fundy, called Chapeau Dieu^ from the cap of 
cloud which often overhangs it, is now known as 
the Shepody Mountain. In England, ^^ Chateau 
Vert has become Shotover^ Beau Chef^ Beechy^ and 
Burg Walter y the castle of Walter of Douay, who 
came over with William the Conqueror, now ap- 
pears in the form of Bridgewater, Leighton beau 
dhsert has been changed into Leighton Buzzard^ 
and the brazen eagle which forms the lecturn in 
the parish church is exhibited by the sexton as 
the original buzzard from which the place derived 
its name." Cape Horn we naturally suppose to 
be so called because it is the end or horn of the 
Continent, whereas it is named from its discoverer. 
In England the yeomen of the household guard 
are called beef-eaters. The derivation of this word 
is probably what the spelling indicates — at least 
there is no evidence to the contrary. With an 
excess of ingenuity, the etymologists of the last 
generation conjectured the origin to be buffetier, 
or waiter at a buffet, a sideboard. The derivation 
of the American expression " I don't care a hoot- 
er" from "don't care an iota" is so plausible 
that it would be a pity to have it disproved. In- 
stances of the corruption of words by a popular de- 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 1 47 
sire to express the etymology are : sparrow-grass 
for asparagus^ court-cards for coat- cards ^ shuttle- 
cock for shuttlecork^ maul -stick for mahler stuck ^ 
crayfish for icrevisse^ dormouse for dormeuse^ dan- 
delion for dent de lion^ country - dance for contre- 
danse. In Webster* s Unabridged^ haberdasher was 
said to come from the German, ^^Habt Ihr dass, 
Herr V The English sailors called the ship Belle- 
rophon " Bully Ruffian," and the Hirondelle the 
" Iron Devil ;" and the English mob called Ibra- 
him Pasha "Abraham Parker." It will be seen 
that the professionals are sometimes as ingenious 
as the uninstructed. 
In Scott's novel of The Pirate^ Noma lived on 
the Fitful Head — a not inappropriate name. It 
comes from the old Norse name Huit Fell^ or white 
headland. Cunning Garth, in Westmoreland, was 
originally the King's (Koening's) Yard. A widely- 
spread etymological error was the notion that 
King was originally Kenning, the man who knows, 
or, as Carlyle puts it, " the man who is able — who 
can." In reality the ing is the Saxon patronymic 
suffix. Koening is the son of the kin or tribe. 
Devil was once supposed to be from do evil. The 
name God, by a natural moral impulse, was sup- 
posed to be connected with the same root as good, 
though a little reflection would have made the 
et}Tnology suspected, for God is a very old Teu- 
tonic word, and certainly antedates Christiianity 
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148 ENGLISH WORDS. 
by many centuries. But an ante- Christian con- 
ception of deity never refers to the attribute of 
goodness. On the contrary, savage tribes are im- 
pressed with the idea of a being of irresponsible 
power, and therefore the root of the word God 
means that which can be propitiated. If the Teu- 
tonic race, or any other, could have worked out 
by themselves the belief in universal goodness, 
there would have been little need of a revelation. 
The Greeks called Jerusalem Hierosolytna^ as 
if it were the sacred city of Solomon. It is said 
that the name Tatars was in the thirteenth cen- 
tury changed into Tartars^ to carry the idea that 
the hordes, whose invasion was thought to be a 
fulfilment of the prediction of the opening of hell, 
were direct from Tartarus. The tower of Saint 
Verena, near Grenoble, is called Le Tour Sans 
Venin, and to fit the name the peasantry have orig- 
inated the superstition that no poisonous animal 
can live near it. In New York there is a square 
called " Grammercy Park," a name which might 
readily be supposed to be of French origin. But 
on an old map the locality is marked as occupied 
by a pond called De Kromme Zee^ the crooked 
pond. Equipage has nothing to do with equus, a 
horse, but is from equips to furnish. Hessians are 
not the boots worn by Hessians, but the word 
is probably connected with hose^ since the shoe 
and the leg-covering are united. Hangnail is a 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 149 
nail that gives pain, or ^«^ish, not one that hangs 
loose. Gingerly does not refer to ginger, but is 
from an old English root. Incentive is not that 
which incenses or causes to bum, but comes from 
incantare, to excite by singing, and is allied to 
incantations. 
Mr. Taylor calls attention to the insistence with 
which Teutonic nations try to twist old Celtic 
local names into a form in which they would be 
susceptible of explanation from their own lan- 
guages. The Celtic words alt maen mean high 
rock. In the Lake District this name has been 
transformed into the "(?/// Man of Coniston." In 
the Orkneys a peak or dome fifteen hundred feet 
high is called the " Old Man of Hoy." The 
Dead Man^ another Cornish headland, is a cor- 
ruption of the Celtic dod mean. Brown Willy ^ a 
Cornish mountain ridge, is a corruption of Bryn 
Huel, the tin -mine ridge. Abermaw^XhQ mouth 
of the Maw, has become Barmouth, 
Maidenhead was originally Mayden hithe^ the 
"wharf midway" between Marlow and Windsor. 
From this name arose the myth that the head of 
one of the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne 
was buried here. Again, Maidstone and Magde- 
burg are not the maiden towns, but one is the 
town on the Medway, and the other the town of 
the plain. Anse de Cousins^ the Musquito's bay, 
has been transformed by English sailors into 
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Nancy Cousin^ s bay. Hagenes, the Norse name 
of one of the Scilly isles, has become SL AgneSy 
and Horace's Mountain of Soracte is added to the 
list of saints by the Italian peasantry as St Oreste, 
In New Brunswick, the river Quah-Tah- Wah-Am- 
Quah-DuaviCy probably the most unmanageable 
name in the Gazeteer, has been abbreviated into 
the Petam Kediac^ and transformed by the lum- 
ber men into Tom Kedgwick, In nearly every lo- 
cality are to be found Indian names thus changed. 
No doubt Tombigby is an instance, and there was 
once a tendency to call Appalachian, Apple-acorn. 
The following extract from the Critic will show, 
however, that it is not always the unlearned who 
invent words : 
"An amusing illustration of the mechanical way 
in which dictionaries have been made, is furnished 
by the yfov6, phantomnation, which appears in Web- 
ster, Worcester, the Imperial, and CasselPs Encyclo- 
pedic Dictionary. Webster solemnly defines it thus : 
* Phantomnation n. Appearance as of a phantom ; 
illusion. [Obs. and rare.] Fope.^ Worcester says 
simply : * Illusion. Fope.^ The Imperial and Cas- 
selVs repeat this bit of lexicographic wisdom; 
but the latter omits the reference to Pope, appar- 
ently suspecting that something is the matter 
somewhere. Now the source of this word is a 
book, entitled Fhilology on the English Language, 
published in 1820, by Richard Paul Jodrell, as 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 151 
a sort of supplement to yohnson^s Dictionary, 
Jodrell had a curious way of writing phrases as 
single words, without even a hyphen to indicate 
their composite character; thus, under his wonder- 
working pen, city solicitor became *citysolicitor,' 
home acquaintance ' homeacquaintance ' — and so 
on indefinitely. He remarks in his preface that 
it * was necessary to enact laws for myself,' and he 
appears to have done so with great vigor. Of 
course he followed his * law ' when he transcribed 
the following passage from Pope : 
These solemn vows and holy offerings paid 
To all the phantom nations of the dead. 
Odyssey ^ x. , 627. 
Phantom nations became * phantomnations,' and 
the * great standards of the English language ' 
were enriched with a * new word !' There is a 
difference, however, between Jodrell and his fol- 
lowers : he knew what Pope meant. Webster'* s 
definition is entirely original. This appears to 
have been the best instance of a * ghost-word ' on 
record." 
Upstart^ the name applied to a person whose 
antecedents do not justify his pretensions, is given 
in Webster"* s Unabridged as from up and start. The 
verb undoubtedly has this derivation, but the noun 
is from up and start, or steort, a tail, the same word 
which appears in the name of the bird, redstart^ 
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and in stark-naked. Acorn was very naturally 
supposed to be oak-corn; but Mr. Skeat shows 
that it meant originally wild fruit, and is based on 
acker^ a field — cognate with Latin ager. There- 
fore, Chaucer was right and not tautological when 
he wrote, " acornes of okes." 
Andiron is another word in which a false idea 
of the etymology has changed the spelling. Its 
real etymology is obscure, but it has nothing to 
do with iron. But there was a term in Saxon — 
Brand-iron — having nearly the same meaning, 
with which the old word anderne became confused. 
Apace is used very early to signify rapidly. 
Gallop apate^ ye fiery-footed steeds. — Shakespeare. 
But it meant in Chaucer's time, slowly. He writes 
it a pas, signifying at a walk. 
Condign is now applied to punishment alone, 
but originally had the meaning of merited, con- 
dignus, in a general way, so that it was proper to 
say, " a condign reward " as well as " a condign 
punishment." This is, however, not an instance 
of an erroneous etymology, but of 'a limitation of 
the original meaning of a word. 
Sirloin is a well-known instance of an errone- 
ous etymology, detected many years ago. It was 
once said that Henry VIII. knighted jestingly a 
noble loin of beef. It is really sur, or supra, loin. 
Surly was supposed to be sourly, but the early 
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ERRONEOUS DERIVATIONS. 153 
spelling makes it highly probable that it is from 
sir-like, having the meaning imperious, from which 
the transition to its present force is easy enough. 
It would thus be analogous to lordly, which has re- 
tained the original meaning of arrogant bearing. 
Dog' cheap is an odd word, when we think of 
it. It was explained by saying that dog's-meat 
was of a poorer quality, but so is that of cats 
and other carnivorous animals. There is a Swed- 
ish dialect word, dog, meaning very, and this dog 
in dog-cheap is probably the same word, though 
cheap is not Scandinavian. Cheap, meaning to buy, 
is a very old word in English, though probably of 
Latin origin. Dog-cheap, then, is very cheap. 
The word cock illustrates as well as any other 
the many sources from which English has sprung : 
First, is cock, the male bird, from Latin through 
French, and from this comes the use of tum-^^?^^, 
on account of some fancied resemblance to the tail 
of the fowl ; second, a cock of hay is Scandina- 
vian ; third, ** to cock one's eye," or a cocked hat, 
is Celtic ; fourth, the cock of a gun is Italian, 
meaning the notch of an arrow, and probably the 
retaining notch on a cross-bow. The Germans 
have, by a natural etymological confusion, trans- 
lated this cock by hahn — ^^den hahn spannen,^^ to 
cock the gun ; fifth, cock, in the sense of a small 
boat, as used in "Lear," and as compounded in 
cockswain, is a widely-spread word, also from Latin 
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through French, but not connected with the first 
word, though from the same source. 
Wormwood is given in Webster* as taking its 
name from the fact that its bitter taste made it 
fatal to worms. The old spelling, wermode, shows 
that this is not the derivation. It was then con- 
jectured that it meant ware-moth, something that 
drives off insects. This hypothesis was found to 
be equally untenable, and Mr. Skeat conjectures 
that the original meaning was ware-mood, or mind- 
preserver, from the "supposed curative properties 
of the plant in mental affections," which is at least 
equally ingenious and much more probable. 
The above examples will suffice to show that 
etymology is full of blind alleys, and that the only 
safe method is the scientific one, of : First, gath- 
ering facts patiently; secondly, classifying the 
facts till a general principle can be enunciated ; 
and, thirdly, using this general principle with great 
care in examining the residual facts which are not 
readily explainable by the theory, but never forc- 
ing the facts into the theory. 
* Webster here means the Unabfidged. All the errors are 
corrected in the International^ or last edition of Webster. 
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CHAPTER XIII. 
ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 
The changes of pronunciation to which words 
are subject are never abrupt. If they were so 
the word would lose its identity. The phonetic 
law governing the change works very slowly, 
though much more rapidly at some periods than 
at others ; but the result is a gradual change, a 
growth, and the operation is largely an uncon- 
scious one. Spelling, on the other hand, is arti- 
ficial, and since the invention of printing has 
developed very little. Originally it was largely 
phonetic, and in some instances great pains were 
taken to make the letters represent the sound of 
the words as pronounced at the time. Our mod- 
ern spelling is traditionary and made up of " un- 
considered remnants." It is entirely arbitrary, 
and must always remain so, because a group of 
letters must represent a word, and a word is not 
a definite sound but a changing sound. Early 
spelling, however, indicates early pronunciation, 
or at least comparative pronunciation, which is 
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the most that we can hope to arrive at in reading 
an unspoken or obsolete tongue. It is altogether 
improbable that Chaucer or Shakspeare could 
understand their own works as read by a modern, 
especially by one who aims to reproduce the an- 
cient pronunciation. Nevertheless, we can say 
quite confidently that a certain combination of 
letters represented a definite sound in a thirteenth 
century book — in the Ormulum (a.d. 12 15), for 
instance, which is a great deal more than we can 
say of any modern book, although it may be im- 
possible to reproduce the sound vocally. It is 
evident, then, that early spelling is very useful — 
indeed indispensable — in tracing the pedigree of 
words. Sometimes a single, apparently superflu- 
ous, letter in a modem word betrays its origin. 
Letters as the indications of ancient pronuncia- 
tion are the main guides in seeking for derivatives. 
The value for etymological research of the si- 
lent, useless, and arbitrarily sounded letters in 
English words is, of course, no argument against 
phonetic spelling, and certainly none against such 
a moderate reform as would greatly lessen the 
number of letters we are forced to write, and sub- 
ject English orthography to at least the outline 
of a system. The words in their antique gar- 
ments would remain embalmed in old books and 
dictionaries for the use of philologists. A spell- 
ing reform is impossible for another reason. 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 157 
Printers and proof-readers will never permit it to 
be brought about. They have been forced to 
learn a certain system before they could obtain 
emplo)rment and cannot now learn another. Any 
modification of our present absurd system of 
spelling English words is hopeless, however de- 
sirable, on account of the practical difficulty of 
initiating changes in the memories of a great body 
of adults. If it could be made fashionable to 
spell lawlessly the first step would be taken, for 
then perhaps a coherent system might grow out 
of the ruins of the old one. 
The changes in meaning through which a 
word sometimes passes in succeeding generations, 
though nearly always logical, are sometimes very 
complex. Consequently, if a link of the historical 
sequence is lost it is dangerous to attempt to 
supply it by conjecture. An abstract word grows 
out of a concrete word because we learn by ex- 
perience to know concrete things first. But some- 
times the meaning is boldly transferred in the 
other direction by an exercise of the radical met- 
aphor-building faculty. The word is compounded 
with other words, and one of the words becomes 
an inseparable prefix or suffix, modifying the pro- 
nunciation or moving the accent. These changes, 
too, are growths, but sometimes they are very 
rapid, especially so during the formative period 
of the language. They take place, too, largely 
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in the oral language and may not be recorded. 
Usually every step of the changes in meaning 
can be readily explained if it can be uncovered. 
But the range of the metaphorical word-building 
power is very great, and it works on. individual 
words. Its results are, therefore, much more dif- 
ficult to follow than are those of the sound- 
changing power, which works in uniform lines on 
great bodies of words and within physical limits. 
These points, especially the last, explain why 
some derivations seem odd or unaccountable. 
Some of the words mentioned in the last chapter 
are illustrations of this, but there are others in 
which the connection between origin and mean- 
ing is even less obvious. How comes it that 
the -vfoxd frank, which probably meant a javelin, 
should now mean outspoken? The Franks of 
history were originally a body of High Germans 
— a colonizing army rather than a tribe — and one 
of their arms was a spear. They called them- 
selves spearmen or Franks. The territory they 
conquered came to be known as France. The 
members of the dominant people retained as the 
inheritance of conquerors certain civic privileges 
or immunities from civic burdens. It is easy to 
see how Frank-rights became the origin of fran- 
chise, and as a member of the ruling race can 
safely speak his mind, how frank came to mean 
outspoken. 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 159 
Free is a word of ancient Teutonic root, mean- 
ing not restrained by formal rule. It has had 
two meanings simultaneously: courtesy and lib- 
erty. Chaucer says of the Knight : 
*' He loved chivalrie, 
Trouth and honour, /r«f^(ii;w and curte'sie." 
Here, in an example of \yXvci^2X\sxs\^ freedom 
is employed in the sense of gentlemanly manners 
resulting from a sense of not beipg constrained, 
and therefore natural and genial. Shakspeare 
also writes : 
*'I thank thee, Hector: 
Thou art too gentle, and too free a man." 
The meaning is evidently lordly, noble, gentle. 
This meaning is retained in the poetic phrase 
" fair and free," and in the common expression 
" free and easy," in which last case it is somewhat 
degenerated. 
Barbour, a Scottish contemporary of Chaucer, 
writes : 
*^ Freedom is a noble thing; 
Freedom makes man to have liking," 
and contrasts freedom and thirldom, or thraldom. 
Here we have the meaning of civil liberty as op- 
posed to slavery, in which sense the word is used 
to-day. Why do we call a tale, in inventing which 
the imagination is allowed free play, a Romance^ 
after the most practical-minded race of history. 
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instead of after the Greeks or the Arabs, people 
of far more poetic power? The reason is that 
Romans, or the Roman language, meant very 
early the popular tongue of France, as distinguish- 
ed from the Latin of books. In this popular 
tongue tales were written, so that a romaunt be- 
came the name for a certain style of poem or tale, 
as the '^Romance of Richard Cceur de Lion," 
and the ^^ Romaunt of the Rose." The extrava- 
gance of these tales in Romance was so marked 
that the term was extended in time to cover any 
unbridled exercise of the imagination. 
The connection between candidate and candid^ 
or white, is not at once evident. It arose from the 
Roman fashion which dictated that those who 
presented themselves for election should signify 
their readiness by wearing white gowns. Ambi- 
tion is derived from the practice of going about 
(ambire) to solicit votes. Antic is derived from 
ancient, or more properly from antique, ancient 
being of course the Romance form of the Latin 
antiquus. Anything old-fashioned is odd. Any- 
thing odd is meaningless. Then, by one of the 
inexplicable whims of word -appropriation antic 
was restricted to meaningless capers. 
The humanities as applied to study now means 
the liberal branches. Originally it was used in 
distinction to theology, the one being regarded 
as human wisdom, the other as divine. 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. l6l 
Trivial is supposed to be derived from tres 
viasy where three roads cross, therefore common, 
that which may be picked up anywhere ; as we 
say of a sharp fellow who has not much depth, 
"he has been educated on the streets." Yet 
schools which taught grammar, arithmetic, and 
geometry were called trivial schools, or three- 
branch schools. 
Insult originally meant to jump on a man {in- 
sulto), having previously knocked him down, " add- 
ing insult to injury ;" but affront is to defy him 
to his face (ad frontare), "Proud Cumberland 
prances insulting the slain," is etymologically cor- 
rect. We are very apt to confound this word with 
insolent (in solens\ which means out of the com- 
mon, and applies to indecorous conduct from one 
inferior in age or station. 
Surround is a word having a strange history. 
It is sur {supra) and unda^ a wave, and meant to 
cover with water: "As streams if stopt, sur- 
rowndy^ in Warner's Albion'' s England {circ, 1600). 
The word is not found in Shakspeare at all, for 
he uses round in the sense of encompass : " Our 
little life is rounded with a sleep." Nor does it 
appear in the Bible or Prayer-book. It was con- 
fused with round in the seventeenth century, and 
stole its meaning entirely, except in the usage of 
herdsmen, and now means to encompass, not to 
inundate. This word bases itself entirely on false 
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pretences, but is firmly established in good stand- 
ing. 
Tarpaulin might more properly be noticed un- 
der hybrid words, for tar is a good old English 
word, and pawling is from the Latin pallium^ a 
cloak or mantle, which gives also the word pall^ 
a covering for the dead. 
Nice^ originally nescius (no science), ignorant, or 
imskilful, has passed through a variety of mean- 
ings, from ignorant to discriminating or exact, 
which is the proper use now, as " a nice observa- 
tion," " a nice distinction," etc. Nice^ in the sense 
of fitting, agreeable, is colloquial, and evidently 
derived from the idea of exactness. The con- 
nection between exactness and ignorance is not 
so evident, and the transference of meaning may 
probably have been influenced by the old English 
word nesh^ which meant " delicate " as well as soft. 
Mr. Earle gives the following account of the grad- 
ual change of meaning : " The word dates from the 
great French period, and at first meant * foolish, 
absurd; ridiculous ;' then in course of time it came 
to signify * whimsical, fantastic, wanton, adroit ;' 
thence it slid into the meaning of subtle, delicate, 
sensitive, which landed it on the threshold of its 
modern meaning." Its use in social slang is too 
unscientific to be traceable. Indeed, the change 
of meaning is abnormal, at best. 
Quaint is another word which has passed 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 163 
through various vicissitudes of meaning. It is 
derived from the Latin cognitus, known, and in 
point of derivation is the same word as noble. It 
now means old-fashioned with a slight implica- 
tion of simplicity and dignity. Professor Earle 
says : " We may almost say that the word quaint 
now signifies * after the fashion of the seventeenth 
century.' It means something that is pretty after 
some by-gone standard of prettiness." In the four- 
teenth century it was a "great social word, describ- 
ing an indefinite sort of merit and approbation." 
Chaucer calls the spear of Achilles a ''^quaint 
spear," for it could both hurt and heal. Shak- 
speare makes Prospero say " My quaint Ariel," 
and in " Much Ado About Nothing " speaks of a 
" fine, quaint^ graceful, and excellent fashion." 
Policy as applied to a written instrument, an in- 
surance policy, is a word of ancient lineage and 
quite distinct from policy^ line of public conduct, 
which is from ttoXic, a city. The first comes from 
^oXvc, much, and 7rru£, a fold, and means a long 
register in many leaves. Why the meaning 
should be limited as it is, is not known. 
Average is a modem word in its present sense. 
It was used as meaning a common ratio to a 
number of different quantities by Adam Smith, 
the economist {circ, 1780). Now we use it to sig- 
nify a number such that the sum of the plus dif- 
ferences between it and a given set Qf numbers 
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is equal to the sum of the minus differences. 
This, though mathematically distinct from the 
first meaning, is popularly the same thing. In 
feudal times the word meant a contribution tow- 
ards carrying the lord's wheat ; then it came to 
mean a freight charge, and lastly, a contribution 
towards the loss of goods which were sacrificed 
to save the rest of the ship's freight This con- 
tribution was proportioned or averaged according 
to the value of each shipper's goods. From this 
to the sense of a mean — ^the modem sense — ^the 
transition is easy. Each step of the change of 
meaning is logical, though the entire change pre- 
sents a seemingly irreconcilable divergence. 
Belfry has nothing to do with bell, but was 
originally bercfrit, or watch-tower, and was ap- 
plied to the movable tower on wheels used in 
the Middle Ages to attack a walled town. It 
now means a tower for bells. The change of 
meaning is due to the sound of the first syllable. 
Dirge, a funeral chant, comes from dirige, 
guide. In the Latin service for the dead, one 
part began, " Dirige domine vitam meam,^^ Dirige 
was contracted into dirge, and extended into a 
general word for any musical expression of grief. 
Fostumous, meaning last, was first applied to a 
child bom after the father's death, though it 
meant simply the last bom. Then an h was 
thrust into the word, as if it meant after burial 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 165 
in the ground. Finally, the meaning was re- 
stricted to a child born after the father's death, 
or to a work published after the author's death. 
Spends splay y and sport are an odd group of 
words. They are all Latin, yet have a decided 
appearance of belonging to old English stock. 
Spend is dispendere^ to weigh out; splay is dis- 
plicare^ to unfold ; sport is disportare^ to carry 
hither and thither. In all cases the first letters 
of " dis " have dropped out of sight, and the s, 
in accordance with a phonetic law, has sur- 
vived. Sport and spend have superseded the 
old forms, but splay has secured a standing in 
splay-footed only, display stubbornly holding its 
place. 
Allow is a verb with a double root, or, rather, 
there were originally two verbs, allow from allau- 
dare, to praise, and allow from allocare, to place, 
to expend — hence, an allowance, or money given. 
The first meaning can be found in the Bible and 
in Shakspeare: "Ye allow the deeds of your 
fathers." — Luke xi., 48. The use of allow in the 
sense of praise is obsolete, yet as there is a con- 
nection between approval and permission, the 
first meaning has colored the modern usage. 
Amazement, as confusion Of mind from what- 
ever cause, and not, as now, simply astonish- 
ment ; depart, in the sense of separate (" till death 
us depart,''* corrupted in the marriage service 
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into "do part"), and many other old usages can 
be found in the Prayer-book. 
Ampersand^ the arbitrary character for the 
word and^ has an odd origin. In repeating the 
alphabet, children were taught to close by say- 
ing, " X, Y, Z, and,/<?r se^ and " — ^that is, " and by 
itself." This, shortened into ampersand^ became 
the name of the character. The character itself 
grew out of the Latin <?/, which the scribes wrote 
in an ornamental fashion, curling backward the 
tail of the / in a flourish. 
As Dean Trench points out, a potent cause of 
change of meaning in words is euphemism, or 
a desire to avoid the direct name of something 
disagreeable or obnoxious, by substituting some 
term with pleasanter associations. Adventurer 
meant originally a bold man with a " heart for 
any fate " which might come to him or to which 
he might come. He took the chances in a legiti- 
mate mercantile risk. But the word was ap- 
plied to the half- merchants, half- pirates of the 
seventeenth century, instead of naming them 
honestly after their profession. Since then ad- 
venturer has come to mean one who preys on 
society in a pretentious and dashing manner. 
Singularly enough, adventurous retains the prim- 
itive meaning of fearlessness based on self-re- 
liance — readiness to meet danger half-way. 
In much the same way a gambler meant origi- 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 167 
nally a person who plays a game, but now is re- 
stricted to one who plays unfairly for money. 
We are continually inventing euphemisms for 
drunk, like intoxicated, overcome, and a multi- 
tude of other expressions, most of which carry 
the idea that the condition was an accident, and 
not the result of weakness of the will. Nor do 
we hesitate to palliate breaches of the sexual ob- 
ligation by some word or paraphrase which im- 
plies an excuse. 
Again, party-spirit, the desire to cast contempt 
or opprobrium upon opponents, operates to 
change the force of words. Whig and lory 
were originally nicknames. Quaker, Puritan, 
Malignant, Methodist, Roundhead, were names 
given by opponents. Prime - minister, or Pre- 
mier, was a title sarcastically given to Walpole. 
These, however, have all remained names, and 
have not, with the possible exception of premier, 
which designates the functions of a member of 
the English Ministry, become real words. 
Pigeon English is said to be " business English " 
— ^that is, a jargon invented for the purposes of 
trade with savages. 
Business, Skeat gives as from the English ad- 
jective busy, but Earle thought that there was 
no connection between them, and that business 
was from the French word besogne, as seen in the 
modern French, Faites votre besogne ("do your 
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duty "). As this is so much less simple than the 
other, it is not to be preferred without good evi- 
dence from ancient usage, which has not been 
found. 
Canter^ the slow gallop of a horse, is derived 
from Canterbury. The connection is, that the 
pilgrims to Canterbury were accustomed to make 
their horses take that gait. This is a very odd 
derivation, but that it is the true one is evident 
from early use. One of the latest examples is 
from Dr. Johnson : " The Pegasus of Pope, like 
a Kentish post-horse, is always on the Canterbury, ^^ 
Calipers^ the instrument for measuring the 
diameter of a cylinder, was first ^^ caliper com- 
passes." Caliper is the same as caliber^ which is 
from a French word, qualibre^ meaning quality or 
rank. Of this last the derivation is uncertain. 
The forces which affect the significance of 
words, and color the exact shade of meaning they 
convey, are numberless. They cover all human 
mental activity. Some words become more dig- 
nified, their meanings grow fuller and more ele- 
vated ; others sink and become degraded by asso- 
ciation till they lose standing entirely. Paramour, 
ringleader, traducer, dunce^ equivocate, imp^ gloze, 
silly,- simple, prude, and many others, had once 
nothing derogatory in their signification. Sacra- 
ment, Christian, eucharist, humility, martyrs, regen- 
eration, have been elevated by Christianity. In 
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ODD AND DISGUISED DERIVATIONS. 1 69 
fact, words record all the great movements of 
thought, the changes in character that distin- 
guish different ages of the world. Sometimes 
language is affected and precise, sometimes free 
and strong. The causes of growth or loss of 
meaning are too broad and general to be classi- 
fied. In fact, every word is a text for a chapter, 
if its various senses be collated and the reasons 
for the changes sought. An abstract word is but 
a form for an idea, and concrete words are not 
much more. As thought is in a perpetual flux, 
so must the forms of thought be also. The fol- 
lowing are suggested as illustrations ; Knave, vil- 
lain, boor, varlet, valet, menial, minion, pedant, 
swindler, timeserver, conceit, carp, officious, demure, 
crafty, artful, tinsel, specious, voluble,plausible, lewd, 
animosity, prejudice, askance, fulsome, gaudy, gush, 
hypocrite, monster, sad, zealot, brave, prude. 
Two instructive modem books on the growth of the 
English language are Modem English^ by Fitzedward 
Hall, and Standard English, by T. L. Kington Oliphant 
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CHAPTER XIV. 
GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 
Local names of the great features of the earth 
— seas, rivers, lakes, mountains, and islands — are 
not arbitrary sounds ; they were originally given 
with a purpose, and are frequently of great an- 
tiquity. Local names of civil divisions — coun- 
ties, towns, hamlets, even fields — often embody a 
great deal of history. These names, too, gather 
associations, and their interest depends greatly 
on these associations. A knowledge of the deri- 
vations frequently widens very greatly these asso- 
ciations or connected ideas, for the history of the 
successive races that have occupied the land is 
impressed on the names of their old homes. Our 
country is unfortunate in this respect. We have, 
it is true, preserved many — ^too few— of the Indian 
names of lakes, rivers, and mountains ; but the 
American aborigines are not, like the Celts and the 
Teutons, ancestors of modem civilization. Sen- 
eca, Cayuga, Niagara, Ontario, are fine words, and 
it is well that they have not been lost It was a 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 171 
sad confession of intellectual poverty to name the 
townships of Western New York after the cities 
or heroes of classical antiquity — Marcellus, Rome, 
Pompey, Syracuse, etc., and it will be many years 
before the incongruity ceases to be full of absurd 
suggestions. Nor are the names of the Presiden- 
tial range — Mount Washington, Jefferson, etc. — 
to be commended. Even the cacophonous Indian 
names of Maine are better than these, because 
they are not artificial. A more modem instance 
of the same bad taste is the attaching the names of 
the Queen of England and her husband and son 
to the great lakes of Africa. A civil geographical 
division may take the name of its founder, and 
there is reason in giving the name of the discov- 
erer even to some great natural feature of the 
earth. No one would wish to change the name of 
Hudson's or of Baffin's Bay, because these words 
are the records of perseverance and courage. The 
value of the associations in a name which con- 
nects the present with the past is greater than is 
supposed. It is a continual suggestion of poetry. 
Otherwise we might as well adopt numbers at 
once, which, indeed, as in the streets of new cities, 
is a convenient method of ticketing localities 
which have no history and no individuality and 
no distinction. 
Nevertheless, many local names in our country, 
though not relating to a distant past, have con- 
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172 ENGLISH WORDS. 
siderable historical interest. The rule that names 
of rivers are permanent is exemplified by the fact 
that all of our important rivers have retained their 
Indian names, except the St Lawrence and the 
Hudson. The gulf into which the former of the 
two rivers flows, was discovered on the day sacred 
to St. Lawrence, and the gulf narrows by degrees 
into the river. In the same way the Hudson has 
in its lower course the character of an arm of the 
sea, and lacks the life and individuality of a river.* 
The civil names on the map of North America 
testify to the original colonization by English, 
French, and Spaniards ; and the lines which mark- 
ed the territory originally occupied by each can 
be approximately determined by the character of 
the old names. Thus, France held possession of 
the valley of the Mississippi; and Louisiana, New 
Orleans, St. Louis, St. Charles, Detroit — the nar- 
row strait — still witness to the French occupation. 
The names of the Jesuit missionaries, Pfere Mar- 
quette, Allouez, and Joliet, give a slight flavor 
of the seventeenth century to towns which have 
grown up in the country where their missions were 
established. Lake Champlain takes its name 
* In South America the Spaniards disregarded the real 
names of the rivers in many cases, as La Plata, Amazon, 
San Francisco, Madeira, etc. The Amazon was discovered 
by Orellana, who said that a race of female warriors existed 
on its banks. The name is therefore a double fraud. 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 1 73 
from the bold Norman adventurer who, " delight- 
ing marvellously in such enterprises," joined an 
Indian war -party and explored the upper waters 
of the St. Lawrence. The name of the State of 
Vermont shows that it came within the French 
dominion. Fort Du Quesne, the key to the Valley 
of the Ohio, became Pittsburg, in honor of the 
great war-minister under whom the empire of the 
New World was wrested from France. 
When one race settles in a country occupied by 
a foreign population, it frequently modifies in imi- 
tation of the words of its own speech the local 
names of the country. Thus in Newfoundland — 
now belonging to the English, but a country where 
the French had fishing settlements — many of the 
bays and capes bear the old French names, ludi- 
crously corrupted into vulgar English. For in- 
stance, Rencontre is changed into Round Counter; 
Bale de Lihre is Bay Deliver^ and Bale des Espoirs 
has become the Bay of Despair. In Michigan, 
too, the island Bois Blanc is written Boblo, Lisle 
Aigailke is the original of the well-known light- 
house Skilagalee^ and the Sault Ste, Marie is ha- 
bitually spoken of and even written as the Soo, 
The name Purgatoire is corrupted into Picketwire 
River, and Prairie des Perdrix is said to be the 
original of Dipper tree Prairie, 
The Spanish names on the Pacific Coast are 
usually taken from the names of saints. Here 
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the Spanish names again contradict the rule that 
the "rivers and mountains receive their names 
from the earliest races, villages and towns from 
later colonists." They called the rivers Colorado 
or Sacramento or Del Norte with a haughty in- 
difference to their real names. As the occupa- 
tion of the United States took place after the 
general diffusion of printing, the spelling of the 
Spanish names remains unchanged, though the 
pronunciation is often ludicrously corrupted; and 
it remains a disputed point — which will soon set- 
tle itself — whether or^not (and, if at all, how far) 
to anglicize the Spanish pronunciation. Thus 
Santa Ft and San Diego are pronounced as they 
are written and with the a as in Samuel. Sierra 
and Nevada retain the Spanish vowel- sound. 
However pronounced, these names are memorials, 
in the early history of the extreme West, of the 
attempt of a moribund civilization to rejuvenate 
itself, and are in every respect superior to those 
of modern manufacture, which embody either a 
lamentable attempt at poetry or some common- 
place reminiscence of early mining camps. About 
the Spanish names lingers a romance and a flavor 
of the past, in a country where romance and a 
past are sadly needed. 
In our country some names have been manu- 
factured. Pomfret is derived from Pontefract A 
very odd name of a village in one of our Western 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 1 75 
States is Yreka^ which the future et)miologist will 
no doubt explain as a corruption of Eureka, In 
reality, it was suggested by the sign of a bakery, 
which, printed in large letters on a window-curtain, 
was legible from the inside, but from the outside 
appeared reversed, with the initial " B " concealed 
behind the right-hand casing. This must rank as 
the most singUxar origin of a geographical name 
on record. Our Connecticut ancestors made up 
some town names by an entirely original method. 
When wild land that lay between two towns, or 
was claimed as common land by two or more of 
the old towns, was set off as the abode of a new 
community, the name was made by amalgamating 
syllables from the names of the old towns. Thus 
Harwinton is Ifartiord' IVmdsor town; Winton- 
bury is ^/«dsor-Farming/^;?-Sims^/^rF; Stratfield^ 
the old name of Bridgeport, is Stratioxd-Y^xtfield ; 
Stamwich is StamiordrQtQQnwich ; and Hadlyme 
is Hadddim-Zyme. There is a self-conscious in- 
genuity about this method which forbids our rec- 
ognizing it as a genuine folk -name formative 
process. 
The names in the English settlements embody 
certain facts of early history. Passing over the 
Indian names which have survived, we note that 
the local names in New England, New York, and 
Virginia are colored by the characteristics of the 
settlers. Plymouth, Boston, Worcester, Cambridge, 
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176 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Hartford, remind us of the parts of England from 
which the Puritans emigrated, and Salem was in- 
tended to be an " earthly realization of the New 
Jerusalem" which Calvinism was to inaugurate. 
We find very few references to the aristocratic 
forms of the country which they left. That Vir- 
ginia — named from Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin 
Queen — was settled by loyal subjects of the King 
of England, is evident as we enter Chesapeake 
Bay. The river near the mouth is the James, so 
called in honor of the sovereign, and on either 
side are Capes Henry and Charles, bearing the 
names of his two sons, the hopeful prince whose 
succession to the throne might have changed the 
entire course of English history, and his unfortu- 
nate brother who became Charles I. Elizabeth 
County is named from their sister, the mother of 
Prince Rupert. The State of Delaware was found- 
ed in 1610 by Lord De la Warr, and Maryland 
commemorates Henrietta Maria, the Queen of 
Charles I. Baltimore is the Celtic name of a vil- 
lage in Ireland, from which Lord Baltimore de- 
rived his title. The city of Charleston, Albemarle 
Sound, the rivers Ashley and Cooper, and the 
States of North and South Carolina refer plainly 
in their names to the Restoration and the worth- 
less Charles II. Annapolis is named from Queen 
Anne ; Georgia, the youngest of the original thir- 
teen States, from George II.; Fredericksburg from 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 1 77 
his son. These names indicate the original po- 
litical character of the settlements and the con- 
trast between them and New England. New 
York dates from the reign of Charles II., as it 
was granted to his brother, Duke of York and 
Albany. Its chief cities, New Amsterdam and 
Fort Orange, were rechristened, after the Dutch 
were dispossessed, New York and Albany. Some 
Dutch names survived — the Katskill Mountains, 
Fishkill, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Haarlem, Wa- 
tervliet, Haverstraw, and others, to testify to its 
original colonization, but they are surrounded by 
English names. New Rochelle was settled by 
Huguenot refugees and named after their French 
home. 
The history which is exemplified in the local 
nomenclature of our continent is comparatively 
recent But the names of rivers, States, mount- 
ains, and cities in Europe belong in many in- 
stances to a remote past The migrations of pre- 
historic races — Phoenicians, Celts, and Iberians — 
can be dimly traced on the modern map by names, 
which are the distorted survivals of those given 
two or three thousand years ago. The study of 
these linguistic relics has proved a valuable ad- 
junct to ethnology, as the crushed and deformed 
relics of animal life have to paleontology. Nine- 
tenths of the geographical names of England are 
fossil-words containing some record of the life of 
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IjB ENGLISH WORDS. 
forgotten tribes. This is a feature of interest 
which a new country like America can never 
possess. To give a few instances, the names of 
tribes are preserved, as of the Parisii in Paris, 
of the Dammonii in Devon, of the Boii in Bohe- 
mia ; of ancient families, like that of the .^scings, 
the royal family of Kent, in Agincourt, France, 
and in Essington, Staffordshire ; of individuals, as 
Marlborough, Merlin's barrow, or hill, in Hamp- 
shire ; and of battles, boimdaries, dwellings, tem- 
ples, sacred places, camps, in profusion. We 
will confine ourselves to the consideration of a 
few points referring to some of the fuller treat- 
ises on this interesting branch of the study of 
words.* 
Nations or tribes very frequently have two 
names, one by which they call themselves, and 
another by which they are known to foreign na- 
tions. The regular ethnic name frequently signi- 
fies the "speakers," or the "people," and the 
name given by other nations frequently means the 
foreigners, or the jabberers. Thus the people of 
England call themselves the English, while the 
Celtic peoples — the Welsh, the Manxmen, the 
Gaels of Scotland — call them Saeson, Saoz, Sasun- 
naich^ or Sagsonach, The natives of Wales call 
* Much of this chapter is taken from Taylor's Nanus and 
Places. 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 1 79 
themselves Cyntry ; we call them Welshmen, The 
root of this word Welsh appears in a large number 
of ethnic names. All nations of Teutonic blood 
have called the bordering tribes by the name 
of welchers — that is, foreigners. Waelschland is 
the old German name of Italy. The Bernese 
Oberlander calls the French-speaking district to 
the south of him by the name of Canton- Wallis. 
Wallenstadt and Wallensee^ the foreign city and 
the foreign lake, are on the frontier of the Ro- 
mansch district. The Germans called the Bul- 
garians Wallachi^ and their country Wallachia^ and 
the Celts of Flandfers were called Walloons by 
their Teutonic neighbors. 
The roots gal and wal have frequently been 
confounded, and it is in some cases, no doubt, im- 
possible to distinguish them. The Teutonic w 
and the Celtic and Romance g are convertible 
letters. The French Gualiier and Guillaume are 
the English Walter and William. So guerre and 
war^ gard and ward, guise and wise, guile and wile, 
guarantee and warranty, are the same words. Ca- 
lais was Galeys or Waleys, and the name no doubt 
indicates, whatever the root, the existence of a 
Celtic remnant surrounded by Teutonic settlers. 
The French to-day call the Prince of Wales "^ 
prince de Gallesr 
Gal, from Gadhael or Gael, is probably an inde- 
pendent Celtic root, for it was used as a national 
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appellation by the Gaels of Gz/edonia,* Gal'n2cy, 
Donne^^/, Gallo^zy, and Argyll, the 6^<z/atians to 
whom St Paul wrote, and possibly by the inhabi- 
tants of VoTXxigaL Gallia, the word used by the 
Romans, is not connected with Gael, but may 
be from the root wal, the Teutonic appellation, 
stranger. This instance of the confusion between 
the Teutonic root wal and the Celtic root gal 
shows how much study as well as care and acute- 
ness is necessary in the examination of derivations. 
It is beset with endless pitfalls for the unwary. 
To return to the subject of double ethnic 
names. The Germans call themselves Deutsche, 
2L word meaning the people ; the French call them 
Les Allemands, from the name of the ancient fron- 
tier tribe, which probably means the other men 
or foreigners, outsiders.! The etymology of the 
word German is doubtful • possibly it comes from 
the Celtic gairmean, one who cries or yells in try- 
ing to talk. The Russians call the contiguous 
Ugrian tribes Tschudes, which means strangers. 
The Egyptians, and afterwards the Greeks, called 
♦ This word is usually derived from CoHdooirUy the men 
of the woods. If it contains the root Gal^ it would mean the 
Gaels of the dunes or hills. 
f Orlando, in "As You Like It," when asserting his claim 
to social sympathy, says, *' Yet am I i«/a«^bred." He uses 
inland^ not as opposed to seaboard, but as opposed to out- 
landy just as we use outlandish for grotesque or uncultured. 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. l8l 
all who did not speak their own language bar- 
barians^ which may be traced to the Sanskrit root, 
varvara, one who speaks confusedly. The Greeks 
called themselves ethnically, Hellenes^ but the Ro- 
mans carelessly, applied to them the name of the 
Greedy a small and unimportant tribe with whom 
they first came into contact, who were probably 
not Hellenes at all. This is but one of a number 
of misnomers, just as we carelessly use ^ew, Israel- 
ite, and Hebrew indifferently, yew is the name 
from the point of view of their religion, Israelite 
is the national name, and Hebrew is the ethnic 
or race name. But the distinctions are rarely ob- 
served in use, except by the most careful histori- 
ans. A mediaeval error is perpetuated whenever 
we speak of Gypsies, for the Gypsies did not come 
from Egypt, but probably from India, and they 
call themselves the Romany or else the Zincali — 
the last being the true name. Numerous other 
instances of this rede of double ethnic names 
might be gathered. 
Another root which is frequently found in the 
names of peoples is ar. This ancient word, which 
is found in the vocabulary of all Indo-Germanic 
peoples, seems to have referred primarily to the 
occupation of agriculture. 
Thus, in Greek, apooi means to plough. 
" " Latin, ^r^ " " 
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Thus, in Gothic, arjan means to plough. 
" " Polish, ^mr...: " " 
" " old High German, tfrd5« " " 
" " \xi^\araim " " 
" ** old English, ear 
" " Norse, ard " a plough. 
" " English, aroma means odor of freshly- 
ploughed land. 
" " English, harrow means to pulverize the 
surface. 
" " Sanskrit, arya means a landholder, hence 
a member of the dominant race, a man 
as opposed to a slave. King Darius, 
a Persian, proudly claimed to be an 
" Arya of the Aryans, ^^ 
The name of this Aryan race is to be found in 
the names Iran^ Herat, Aral, Armenia, and possi- 
bly in Iberia and Erin, In languages of the Teu- 
tonic branch we find this root in the form ware, 
inhabitants. Burhvare, or burghers, are citizens 
of a burgh ; skipveri, or shippers, are sailors. It 
is Latinized into the forms vari, uari, and bari, 
as the Inguarii, the Ripuarii, the Chattuarii, the 
Ansibarii, etc. The Bulgarians were the men from 
the Bolg or Volga, and Boivarii is preserved in 
the word Bavaria, while the home of the Boii has 
become Bohemia, In England Worcester is a cor- 
ruption of Hwic-wara-caster, the camp of the men 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 183 
of the Huiccii. The men of Kent were Cant-ware^ 
and their chief town is Cant-er-bury, the burgh 
of the men of Kent. This term survives in the 
Latin title of the archbishop, Episcopus Cantu- 
ariensis, Carisbrooke^ in the Isle of Wight, was 
originally written Gwiti-gara-burg^ the fort of 
the men of Wight. The first two syllables were 
dropped, and the burg became bruk^ then brooke. 
The names Cant and Gwiti are still older Celtic 
words — that is, were geographical names before 
the archaic word ware (or gar<i) was added to 
them. 
The syllable set is frequently found in the names 
of places. It means the seat or place inhabit- 
ed by settlers, thus Somer-x^/, X^ox-set ; and Al- 
sace is the other set^ or the settlement west of the 
Rhine. Holstein is not the forest stone, but 
the forest settlement, Holtsaetan. These few in- 
stances may serve to show that a great deal of 
ancient history is embodied in words. The sub- 
ject is a very broad one, and demands great care 
and patience. 
The traces of the Roman occupation are found 
all over Europe in camps, roads, and in the Latin- 
ized forms of the ancient names of cities, espe- 
cially of cities which from their situation had mil- 
itary importance in controlling the surrounding 
districts. The character of the Romans as strate- 
gists and intrusive administrators, not colonists, 
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184 ENGLISH WOia>S. 
IS as evident from the character of the local names 
derived from their language which have been in- 
corporated into English, as from the remnants of 
their walls, military roads, villas, and camps which 
have survived through fifteen centuries. 
We will close this brief reference to the subject 
of geographical names by calling attention to the 
fact that nearly all of the great rivers of Europe 
contain a Celtic root in their names. When a 
race enters a new country it is, of course, most 
likely to follow the river valleys, which afford the 
best land for settlement and the most convenient 
road for penetrating the wilderness. Hence a river 
is apt to have the same name for its entire course. 
The first-comers would naturally call the stream 
by a generic name, the rrvery or the w€Uer^ or per- 
haps distinguish it by some adjective, as the swifts 
the crooked^ the sandy, or the b^ river. Sup- 
posing that it was called simply the water. When 
the first settlers are dispossessed by an intrusive 
race, the new-comers, not being familiar with the 
language, would take the word water for a specific 
or proper name, and would add to it the word 
river in their own speech. This amalgamation is 
evident in the names of many rivers in England 
and on the Continent 
Almost all of the larger rivers of Europe con- 
tain one or more of the following Celtic roots for 
water or stream : 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 
i8S 
1. Avon or aon or awn, 
2. Dwr or ter, 
3. 6^^;^^, or wysk, wye, is, es, oise, usk, esk, ex, ax, 
4. Hhe or Rhin, swift flowing. 
5. Don or i?^//. 
Thus it seems probable that the name 
Danasier or Dniester contains roots 5, 3, 2 
Rhadanau " " 4, 5, i 
Rhodanus " " 4, «; 
Danubius " " 5, i 
Rhenus " " 4, i 
Eridanus " " 4, 5 
Exter, " " 3, 2 
We have the Stratford Avon, the Bristol Avon, 
and the Hampshire Avon; the Ive in Cumber- 
land, the Inn in Fife, and the Tyrol, the Auney, 
the Ewenny, the Wye, the Eveneny, and the In- 
ney — all from the first root. A great number of 
the names of French rivers end in on, ome, or o?te. 
The syllable Dur, Der, Stour, forms part of in- 
numerable river names, as the Derwent, the Dar- 
win, the Dart — there are four river Derwents in 
England — and the Adar, the Adder, and the Adur, 
The third root is in the Esk, in Scotland; the Iz, 
the Isis, and the Thames or the Tamesis, the broad 
Isis, The Axe and the Ouse2iTe also the same word, 
and the root appears in innumerable Combinations. 
The fourth root, the RAe, Rhin, or Rhine ap- 
pears in the English streams the Rye, the Ray, 
the Rhee, the Wrey, the Rhoe, and several others. 
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ENGLISH WORDS. 
The fifth appears very generally on the Conti- 
nent and in the British Isles in the Don^ the Dane, 
the Dun, the Tone, and the Tyne, Teagn, and Teyn, 
From the fact that the Celts named the rivers, 
the inference is irresistible that they were the first- 
comers, unless it can be shown that some of these 
roots were common to the speech of other races. 
That the English came later is evident from such 
words as Y>yx^'beck, Is-bourne, Ash-bourne, Wash- 
boume, Ovi^t-bum, where the Teutonic words beck 
and bum, or brook, have been added to the cor- 
ruptions of the Celtic word for stream. In the 
name Wans-beck-water we find the Celtic Wan or 
avon, the s probably a remnant of wysk, the Eng- 
lish beck, and the modern water. Thus we have 
the singular compound River-water-stream-water. 
From the names of villages, fields, hills, woods, 
valleys, inferences may be drawn as to the dis- 
tribution of the races from whom the modern in- 
habitants are descended. Mr. Taylor gives the 
following table : 
PERCENTAGB 
OF 
NAMES FROM : 
Suffolk. 
Surrey. 
Devon. 
Com- 
waU. 
Mon- 
mouth. 
Isle of 
Man. 
Ireland. 
Celtic 
Anglo-Saxon. 
Norse 
2 
90 
8 
8 
I 
32 
65 
3 
80 
20 
76 
59 
20 
21 
80 
19 
I 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 1 87 
The derivations of the family names of any 
locality would, with certain modifications, yield 
evidence to the same point. 
By far the greater part of the Celtic names in 
England are Cymric, but a thin stream of Gad- 
haelic names extends across the island from the 
Thames to the Mersey, as if to indicate the route 
by which the Gaels crossed and went to Ireland. 
From the North of Ireland the Gaelic tribe, the 
Scoti, crossed into Argyle, and in their turn par- 
tially dispossessed the Cymry of the Lowlands, who 
were probably the people known to history as the 
Picts. To determine the territory occupied by the 
Cymry and the Gaels, the words Pen and Ben — • 
both meaning mountain — are useful test-words ; 
also the words inver and aber^ both meaning the 
mouth of a river, as Inverness and Aberdeen, In 
Ireland we find only Invers, but in Scotland In- 
ver s and Abers, both. Bally, 3l town, occurs 2000 
times in Ireland and a few times in the Gaelic 
part of Scotland. If we draw a line from a point 
a little south of Inverary to a point a little south 
of Aberdeen, the Invers lie to the north-west of 
the line, and the Abers to the south-east of it, 
with few exceptions. The Celtic names in the 
Isle of Man are all Gaelic. There are ninety-six 
beginning with Balla, for instance. The names 
of the places connected with Christian worship 
are all Norse, indicating that here the Celts re- 
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1 83 ENGLISH WORDS. 
mained heathen, though Christianized on the main- 
land long before the Saxons or Danes. In the 
Channel Islands all the names of the towns and 
villages are derived from the names of saints, in- 
dicating that before the introduction of Christian- 
ity the islands were very sparsely populated, or, 
at least, that no towns were built. 
To determine the settlement by Saxons or 
Danes the following syllables are test-words : For 
the Saxons, ton, haniy worthy stoke, fold, yard, park, 
bury, barrow, ford; for the Northmen, by, thorpe, 
toft, ville, garth, ford (or frith), wick, ness, scar, 
and thwaite. Ton means a place enclosed by a 
hedge — a family settlement — and is the origin of 
our word town. In some parts of England they 
still call the stack-yard the barton, or enclosure 
for what the land bears (or else the barley-yard), 
and in a few cases isolated farm-houses bear the 
name ton, as Shotting/^, Apple/t?«, and Wingle- 
ton. The word yard had nearly the same original 
signification as ton, and the Norse equivalent 
garth. Tine, a twig — surviving in the tyne of a 
pitchfork — bears the same relation to ton and 
town that yard, a little stick — surviving in yard- 
measure — does to yard, an enclosure. Stoke 
means a place enclosed by stakes, and fold, 
an enclosure made by felled trees, or by felling 
the trees — afield, a clearing. Worth is a place 
warded or guarded. Park also meant an en- 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 189 
closed field, and a hay is a place surrounded 
by a hedge. 
A very large number of towns and villages in 
England and Scotland — certainly not less than 
one thousand — have the termination borough^ 
bury^ barrow^ and burgh, as Gzmsbo roughs Edin- 
burgh, Salis^wrv, and Barrow- in- Ynm^ss, The 
original meaning of this terminal, Anglo-Saxon 
burh or burg^ is earthwork, from a verb meaning 
to protect, beorgan. A funeral mound protects the 
body, and is called a barrow, whence the verbs to 
bury and to burrow. Since the fort or protected 
place would usually be an elevated ground, or 
would be surrounded by an artificial mound of 
earth, we have sometimes confounded the Anglo- 
Saxon termination burgh with the word meaning 
hill, which we have in ice^<fr^. In Scotland the 
termination retains its original roughness, and is 
spelled burgh. In the north of England it is soft- 
ened into borough, and in the south and west into 
bury. In many of the places in England ending 
in borough or bury the remains of the ancient hill- 
fort can be found near by, and, in some cases, it 
is known by the name of Castle, as Marbury Cas- 
tle and Wemsbury Castle. In many cases this 
earthwork is of Celtic origin, though perhaps util- 
ized by the Saxon conquerors, and given the Sax- 
on name after it had been lost by the original 
builders. The one best worth visiting is the great 
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mound at Marlborough^ in Wilts, where is now 
one of the great modem schools. Marlborough 
is Merlin's barrow, and the tradition is that the 
mound is Merlin's grave. A part of London is 
called the Borough, This is named from an an- 
cient earthwork which once protected the city on 
that side. 
The suffix ham is distinctively Saxon. It is 
the same word as home. Thus we have Northam, 
Allingham, Buckingham, etc. Sometimes the ham 
is united to ton^ as Hampton^ Southampton^ indi- 
cating, perhaps, that the home has developed into 
a ton or town. In very many cases the syllable 
ing is combined with ton, Ing is the patronymic 
or tribal designation. Thus the Warings are the 
tribe or family of Waer^ and their settlement was 
Warington ; and Allingham was the home of the 
tribe of Al; Arlington the ton of the children of 
ArL This syllable ing is Saxon and Norse both. 
Thus the Vaeringer^ or Norse soldiers employed 
by the Saracens were Warings, The syllables 
ham and ton and ing in the names of French 
towns, as Aubinges^ Beaubigny, Brantigny^ de- 
rived from settlements of the yEbing, the Bob- 
bing, the Branting, determine the limits of the 
Saxon settlements in France, and, when found in 
German towns, indicate the original home of the 
Saxons and their allied tribes. 
The Norse settlements are indicated by the syl- 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. I9I 
lable hy or hye^ a home, which in Normandy takes 
the form bosuf or bue. Thus, in the Danish dis- 
trict of England we find towns called Grimsby^ 
Derby ^ Whitby^ Rugby, Kirby, 
Thorpe means a village, as in Althorpe, etc. 
Toft, or, in Normandy, tot, as in Ivetot, Ivo's toft 
or homestead, is Danish as distinguished from 
Norwegian ; but Thwaite, a field, is Norwegian. 
Ville, in many cases, is Romance from villa, but 
is also Norse, from weiler, a house. In England it is 
found sometimes as well or will, as in Kettlewell, 
Ford, in both Saxon and Norse, is connected 
with the word faran, to go, which we see in fare- 
well and fare, cost of travelling. But the Saxon 
ford is a place for passing a river for man and 
beasts, while the Norse ford is fiord, a navigable 
arm of the sea. Thus Oxford is the place to 
cross the river Ox, but Wexford, Deptford, and 
Carlingford are named from bays or creeks, and 
are Norse names. 
Another Norse word which may be confounded 
with a similar Saxon one is wic. With the Norse- 
men it meant a harbor or bay, hence Wikings or 
Vikings are baymen, or longshoremen. Sandwich 
is Sandy bay, and Berwick, Wicklow, etc., names 
given to places near the sea, are Norse. 
Ness or Naze, 2l, nose or rocky promontory, and 
scar, a cliff, seen in Caithness, Scarborough, and 
the Skerries, indicate Norse occupation. 
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On comparing the Saxon and Norse geograph- 
ical names* we note that the proportion of tons 
and hams^ compared to byes^ thwaites^ thorpes^ 
varies in different localities, and indicates the ter- 
ritories where each race settled. Again, the tons 
and hams indicate tribal settlements, for they are 
generally united to ing^ but the byes are preceded 
by the name of an individual. Thus Grimsby is 
the place where Grim, a captain of a band of sea- 
rovers, settled with his men; but Buckingham is a 
tribal home, not named from one man. In both 
cases the fact of the detached character of the 
Teutonic settlements, referred to by Tacitus, t is 
well brought out, for all the Saxon syllables ham^ 
ton, yard, etc., indicate an enclosed and guarded 
place. This love for a fenced-off, private owner- 
ship of land is still characteristic of Englishmen. 
The study of the derivations of geographical 
names adds very greatly to the interest of travel, 
and gives reality to history. In particular, the 
* The class of names resulting from the early Norse inva- 
sions must not be confounded with the much later Norman- 
French names in England. 
f Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari satis notum 
est, ne pati quidem inter se junctas sedes. Colunt discreti 
ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. Vivos lo- 
cant non in nostrum morem connexis et cohaerentibus sedi- 
ficiis ; suam quisque domum spatio circumdat, sive adversus 
casus ignis remedium sive inscitia sedificandi. — Tacitus 
Germania, 16. 
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GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 193 
names of the streets, houses, and places in Lon- 
don embody, frequently in a very odd and strik- 
ing way, a great many historical events. This is 
true of Cheapside, Pall Mall, Temple Bar, Picca- 
dilly, High Holbom, Southwark, the Savoy, Rotten 
Row, and many other London names. 
Besides Mr. Taylor's hook^ Names and Places^ my acknowl- 
edgments to which have already been made, Edmunds's 
Traces of History in the Names of Places may also be read. 
Webster* s Unabridged contained a list of geographical ety- 
mologies unfortunately omitted in the International, The 
popular et)rmologies of Indian names, as Alabama (here we 
rest), K'entucky (dark and bloody ground), etc. , are usually 
pure inventions. Blakie's Etymological Dictionary of Place 
Names is useful for reference. 
13 
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CHAPTER XV, 
SURNAMES. 
Logically, a proper name is a different kind of 
word from a common noun, for it is a word appro- 
priated to a single individual. Strictly speaking, 
a proper name has no meaning, or at best but an 
arbitrary and temporary one. We call a man 
John, but the word is not exclusively appropriated 
to him, and does not convey the slightest informa- 
tion about him to a stranger. His surname indi- 
cates that his father bears the same last name, 
but affords no clew to the character of the man 
himself. But, philologically, surnames and Chris- 
tian names 4o not differ from other words. They 
are growths, and every syllable of them has or 
once had a meaning. We confine ourselves to the 
consideration of surnames because they are com- 
paratively modem in origin — not dating back be- 
yond the tenth century. Given names, on the 
contrary, are of extreme antiquity. Harold and 
Albert and Edward and Edith were names borne 
by our Saxon ancestors before the Conquest; 
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SURNAMES. 195 
John, Elias, Abraham, Noah, and Adam antedate 
English history itself. 
The word surname is not, as might naturally 
be supposed, derived from sire name, or father 
name, but from supra nomen, or extra name. We 
know this because it is spelled with a u, and not 
with an /, and also from the fact that in the 
Proven9al language it is written soubrenom. The 
question of early spelling is often of the greatest 
importance in tracing derivations. If it is possi- 
ble to follow a family name back through old 
deeds, wills, tax -lists, court -records, etc., to the 
fourteenth century, the early spelling will almost 
invariably furnish a clew to the original meaning, 
for names were rarely given arbitrarily, but usu- 
ally for some evident reason. 
The old spelling will also frequently determine 
which of the possible derivations is the true one. 
Thus the name Woodman might originally mean a 
forester, or it might possibly once have been writ- 
ten Woadman, which means dyer, from woad, the 
native indigo used by both Britons and Saxons in 
dying the rough woollen cloth they made. Cole- 
man might be a maker of charcoal for the forges 
of the primitive smiths, or it might be cunning 
man, since col meant cunning. This syllable col 
is seen in the name Colfax, or the cunning fox. 
The syllable fax might be originally fox, or it 
might come from facere, to do, as in the name 
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196 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Fairfax^ which comes from the motto of the 
family : " Fare^ fac,^^ or say, do. The other syl- 
lable, fair or far, found in so many names, like 
Fairman, Playfair, Fairchild, Farwell, Famum, 
etc., is especially troublesome. It may be from 
the Saxon fair, meaning beautiful, clear, just ; or 
it may be from the Saxon farm, to travel ; or 
the German fern, distant ; or the English far or 
fern; or the Norman Fr^re, brother ; or the Latin 
facere, to do, or fart, to speak. The ancient spell- 
ing or some extraneous information will fre- 
quently afford a clew in investigations of this sort, 
but numerous insolvable cases remain. If it 
were not for questions of this nature etymology 
would be a comparatively simple matter, and 
would possess an element of certainty which 
would deprive it of much of its charm. 
Surnames came into general use very slowly. 
We may say, broadly, that the introduction of the 
surname — as we understand the term, a name 
common to all the children of a family — dates 
from the tenth century, and was not general be- 
fore the fourteenth century. Indeed, there were 
districts in Wales in the last generation where 
individuals possessed bat one name. Now it has 
become difficult for a man to change his surname. 
Tyrwhitt says in his edition of Chaucer: "It 
is probable that the use of surnames was not in 
Chaucer's time fully established among the lower 
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SURNAMES. 197 
class of people," and Lower, in his work on sur- 
names, holds that hereditary surnames can scarce- 
ly be said to have been permanently settled 
among the lower class before the era of the Ref- 
ormation. Among the upper classes the name 
of the estate descended from father to son and 
served as a distinctive appellation, but the pedi- 
gree of the Fitz-Hugh family runs thus through 
nine generations : 
Bardolph. 
Akaris Fitz-Bardolph. 
Hervey Fitz-Akaris. 
Henry Fitz-Hervey. 
Randolph Fitz- Henry. 
Henry Fitz-Randolph. 
Randolph Fitz-Henry. 
Hugh Fitz-Randolph. 
Henry Fitz-Hugh. 
This last Henry assumed the name, Fitz-Hugh, 
and gave it permanence as a family application 
in the reign of Edward III. In the same reign 
(1340) we find the following in a list of the com- 
monalty : 
Johannes over the Water. 
William at Bishope Gate. 
Johannes o' the Shephouse. 
Agnes the Priest's Sister. 
Johannes in the Lane. 
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198 ENGLISH WORDS. 
Johannes at See. 
Johannes le Taillour. 
Johannes of the Gutter. 
This shows that surnames were not universal in 
the fourteenth century. The growth of civiliza- 
tion making it necessary to identify every person, 
and confusion arising from the multiplication of 
the baptismal names, men were forced to use 
some sobriquet as a distinctive mark. By de- 
grees these became firmly attached surnames. 
For a long period it was legal for a man to change 
his surname, but not his baptismal name. Lord 
Coke holds this distinctly. While the oldest son 
among the Normans in England assumed the 
name of the paternal estate, the younger sons not 
infrequently assumed entirely different ones on 
acquiring land in other counties. Thus Richard, 
Earl of Brionne, has five names in Domesday 
Book (the list of knights who accompanied the 
Conqueror). He is called : 
1. Richard de Tourbridge, from a lordship in 
Kent. 
2. Richard de Benfeld. 
3. Richard de Benefacta. 
4. Richard de Clare, from a Suffolk lordship. 
5. Richard Fitz - Gilbert, from his father's 
name. 
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SURNAMES. 199 
To go back a step further, we find that as a 
rule our Saxon ancestors were content with but 
one name, as Gurth, or Cedric, or Alfred. To 
avoid confusion, they sometimes distinguished 
two men of the same name by adding the tribal 
name, usually ending in ing or the father's given 
name. Sometimes a descriptive appellation was 
used, as: Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironsides, 
Edward the Confessor, Edith Swansneck; and 
Bede tells us of two priests named Hewald, 
" whom," he says, " we distinguished as Hewald 
Black and Hewald White, by reason of the differ- 
ence in color of their hair." From this early 
time when two names * were unusual, comes the 
habit, still surviving, of calling sovereigns by 
their single baptismal name. English bishops 
still sign their Christian names and the names 
of their sees to all documents. That the first 
names of the contracting parties are used in the 
marriage service is also an ancient survival. 
A classification of surnames by their deriva- 
tions gives us four principal classes : f 
First ; surnames derived from personal names. 
*When a missionary baptized, as we are told was the 
case, an entire company of men John, and an equal number 
of women Catharine, some distinctive nicknames, or eke 
names, would be absolutely necessary. 
t Thirty years ago the negroes in the south had no real 
surnames, and even now they change their names with great 
readiness. 
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200 ENGLISH WORDS. 
These nearly always take the patronymic form, as 
Henrickson or MacAdam. But in a few cases 
the given name of the father has been adopted 
as a family name ; thus we have Henry George, 
Patrick Henry, Henry James, William Paul, and a 
few others. 
Second; local surnames. These are derived 
from an estate, manor, or village, or from some 
natural featiu*e of the earth, as Henry Hill, David 
Dudley Field, William Wood, Henry Yorke, John 
Worthington. 
Third ; occupative surnames, drawn from some 
trade or office. This is a very numerous class. 
We find Carpenters, Taylors, Smiths, Websters, 
Turners, and Wrights, or Stewarts, Butlers, and 
Chamberlains everywhere. 
Fourth ; surnames derived from personal pecu- 
liarities, from nicknames, from some fancied re- 
semblance to a bird or to an animal. Thus we 
have White, Brown, Black or Blake, Talman, 
Armstrong, Crookshanks, Lamb, Cow, Fox, etc. 
Into this class must come those names derived 
from business signs, from heraldic animals pict- 
ured on coats of arms, and from family mottoes. 
Of such a name as Lion, or Bull, we cannot say 
whether it was first given by reason of the strength 
or courage of the man originally bearing it, or be- 
cause he was the landlord of an inn having the 
beast on its sign. Names of this derivation might 
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SURNAMES. 201 
properly come under class three ; but as this der- 
ivation is rarely certain, we are obliged to put 
them in class four. 
From names formed in any of these four ways 
patronymics might be formed. The son of Will- 
iam the Clerk might be called John Clarkson ; of 
George Brown, Henry Brownson or Brunson. 
John gives us Johnson, Johns, and Jones. Daw, 
the short for David, gives us Dawson, and Lamb, 
Lampson. The territorial appellative, Whitby, is 
the source of the family name Whitbyson. Patro- 
nymics formed from territorial names are rare, but 
they are very generally formed from personal 
names. Thus twenty-four forms come from Will- 
iam : Williams, Williamson, Wills, Wilks, Wilkins, 
Wilkinson, Wickens, Wickenson, Bill, Bilson, 
Wilson, Woolson, Woolcock, Woolcot, Wooley, 
Wilcoxe, Wilcoxson, Wilcoxon, Willet, Willy, 
Willis, Wilsie, Wylie, Willott, and probably Wool- 
sey. Most of these are patronymics, though 
some are diminutives. Woolcot and Willcox, for 
instance, mean little Will, and might have been 
applied to a diminutive person, as well as to a 
child. 
The Gaelic patronymic prefix is Mac or O; the 
Cymric is O or Ap. In Ireland O meant grand- 
son, or, in a more enlarged sense, any male de- 
scendant. Mac meant son. The O is supposed 
in Ireland to be more ancient than the Mac, 
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202 ENGLISH WORDS. 
and is more common. With the exception of 
O'Gowan,* it is not found attached to any indus- 
trial name, which may account for the idea 
that it is considered the more honorable prefix. 
Both these prefixes designate not only the 
children of a family, but the members of a clan. 
Clan means children. In Gaelic Scotland the 
Mac only was used. But the members of a clan 
were only theoretically blood-relations, not neces- 
sarily so. The Norman Fitz and the Danish Son 
mean son of the blood. The Welsh also used 
the genitive j, as in Williams, Davids, Jones, to 
designate the son, though ap was their ancient 
form. The Saxon suflSx ing was a tribal patro- 
nymic. We see it in Waring^ Ailing^ or Billings^ 
where it has the meaning of the "descendants 
of." It is the oldest and rarest patronymic in 
use, though the Celtic O may lay claim to equal 
antiquity. The Cymric patronymic Ap is usually 
amalgamated with the personal name. Thus 
Price is Ap Rice^ the son of Rhys; Pugh is Ap 
ffughy Powell is Ap Howell^ Bowen is Ap Owen, 
Pritchard is Ap Richard^ Bethell is Ap Ithell, 
Bevan is Ap Evan, and as Evan and Ivan are 
forms of John, Bevan is the same name as John- 
son or Jones, which is really Johns. Most of the 
names beginning in Ap are Welsh, like Apple- 
* Gowan means a smith. 
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SURNAMES. 203 
gate, Ap Legatt ; Appleyard, Ap Ledyard, and 
Apthorp* The distinctively Welsh names are 
Owens, Davis, Morgan, Howell, Jones, and Will- 
iams. 
To return to our first class of surnames, those 
derived directly from personal names, one of the 
first things that strikes us as peculiar about the 
English is their inveterate habit of shortening 
the given name of a man to, if possible, one syl- 
lable. Thus, if a man were christened Bartholo- 
mew they called him Bat, from whence come the 
surnames Bates, Bartlette, and Babcock. The 
suffixes cock, got, lot, and kin were diminutives of 
good-fellowship or of endearment. The sylla- 
bles appear in many of our surnames, as Wil- 
kins, Wilcox, Simcox. Cock is seen also in the 
expressions cock-xohin, cock-spdiiTo^, Cock-rohm. 
in the nursery song does not necessarily mean 
male robin, but quite as much, dear little robin. 
Matilda, shortened to Till, was made Tillot, and 
Tillot and Tillotson are used as surnames, for 
there are a few matronymics to be found in 
English. Margaret was shortened to Margot, 
and we find the rare name Margotson. Walter 
was Wat, whence Watts and Watson. John was 
Jack, whence Jackson. Robert was shortened 
* Apthorpe, however, is thought to be Atthorpe, or of 
the village ; Appleton and Applegarth are compounded of 
Apple and the Saxon syllables, ton or garth. 
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to Robin, Rob, Dob, and Dod, whence Robert- 
son, Robinson, Robeson, Dobson, and Dodson. 
David was Daw, whence Dawson, and Horace 
was Hod, whence Hodson. From Isaac comes 
Hick, hence Hicks and Hixson and Hitchcock ; 
from Gilbert, Gib and Gibson. No other na- 
tion exercises this unlicensed habit of deform- 
ing given names. The Frenchman certainly pro- 
nounces his name — Emile, Leon, or Adolphe — 
in full. Nicknames are given, it is true, by all 
nations. A nickname is an eke name, or an ad- 
ditional name invented in a jesting spirit,, and 
must not be confounded with a shortened given 
name. 
A patron3anic is pretty sure to date back to 
the sixteenth century, if not to a much earlier 
period. The old Bible Christian names, like 
Samuel, Jacob, Daniel, Peter, John, and James, 
have all given us patronymic derivatives. Joseph, 
too, appears in Jessop. But the Bible names 
adopted in the seventeenth century by the Puri- 
tans, like Asa, Abijah, Seth, Eli, Jabez, have not 
resulted in any patronymics, because they were 
taken up after surnames were pretty well set- 
tled. Some personal names that have disappeared 
from use are preserved in patronymics. The Nor- 
man names Ivo, Hugo, Hammet, once so com- 
mon, are now never given to English-speaking 
boys, but survive in the surnames Ives, Iveson, 
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SURNAMES. 205 
Hughes and Hamlin* The very pretty girl-names, 
]oYCQ, joyeuse, or merry; Lettice, Letitia, or inno- 
cent pleasure ; and, best of all, Hilary, from the 
root of hilarious or happy, now lost, might very 
properly be revived in use. 
The second division is local or territorial sur- 
names. Barons to whom a grant of land was 
made usually took the name of the town or es- 
tate which was their foef. In French-English 
names this is generally evidenced by the prefix 
dey which we see in the names Devereux, Dela- 
fieldy Delameter, Delaney, Delancey, etc. Then, 
again, nothing was more natural than to call a 
man after the place of his abode, as John of the 
Mill, William at the Brook or River. Atwood, 
Atwaier, Woods and Waters, Nash or Aten-Ash, 
Nokes or Atten - Oaks, Green, Lane, Townsendy 
Shaw, Lay, or Leigh, and Dean are local names. 
A shaw was a small thick wood ; a dean or den 
was a wooded valley, and a lay or lea was a pasture. 
Dean, like Parsons, might also be derived from 
an ecclesiastical title. Graves is the same as 
Groves, Cliffe, Clifford, and Cleveland are of sub- 
stantially the same meaning. Any name end- 
ing in thwait, an enclosure ; ton or by, a town ; 
combe, a ridge ; throp or thorpe or ville, a village ; 
* Hugo, however, appears in Hugh, and Hamelin, a 
little town or hamlet, may be a duplicate source for Ham- 
lin. 
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2o6 ENGLISH WORDS. 
ham^ a home ; /^ or <rr, an island ; oxford^ a path, 
is pretty certain to be a territorial name. From 
the cathedrals we have the names St. OnurSy 
or Sommers; Si. Daiis^ or Sidney; St. Clair^ 
or Sinclair, eta, though names of this denom- 
ination may have been (in some instances) de- 
rived from the motto or family war-cry embody- 
ing the name of the patron saint From the 
points of the compass we have Norths Norris^ 
South, Soutfuy, Surrey, West, Wesley, East, Easter- 
ly, and Sterling. Wallace and I^ Estrange, mean- 
ing a foreigner, evidently have reference to the 
place of abode, though, strictly speaking, not local 
names. 
From the names of countries we have Irish, 
Scott, French, Brett and Britton from Brittany, 
Burgoyne from Burgundy, Gale from Gael, Jane- 
way from Genoese, Normcm from Normandy, 
Saxon, Wales, and Morris* 
Bottom is the old Sussex word for valley, and 
is compounded in a number of English names, 
as HiggMothem, Wmttxbottom, etc. Bume is a 
brook ; Clough, a ravine ; Cobb, a harbor ; Crouch, 
a cross, of which so many were erected in the 
market-places of towns. Hatch is a gate ; Holt is 
a grove ; Lynch, a thicket ; Ross, a heath ; Sykes, 
a spring; Sale, a hall. These are all territorial 
* Morris and Moore have several derivations : Moor, a 
plain ; Moor, an Arab ; Mohr, great, etc. 
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SURNAMES. 207 
names, though Ross may be, in some instances, 
from the word meaning red. 
The names of places and persons not unfre- 
quently end in ham, ingkam, or ington. These 
are true Saxon territorial names. The termina- 
tion ing meant belonging to the tribe. Thus, 
King is really son of the tribe. The Eppings 
and Hastings are the descendants of Aes, the 
Warings of Waer, the Erpings of Erp, and so on 
through some two hundred and fifty monosyllabic 
given names. Very few of these words ending 
in ing are found to-day in England as surnames, 
because the custom of adopting transmissible 
family appellations was not instituted in Saxon 
England; but all of them have given names to 
English villages, though usually the suffix ton, 
town, or haniy home, is added. Thus Walsing- 
ham is the home of the Walsing ; Worthington is 
the town of the Worthing. Then, these towns 
gave surnames to those who lived in them, and 
we have the class of old Saxon names like Rem- 
ington, Hoisington, Huntington, AUington, Erp- 
ingham, Buckingham, Washington, and many oth- 
ers. These are the finest names in our language. 
Coffin, which is seen in Covington, is the only 
one not strong and euphonic. In addition to 
these, there is hardly to be found a town or 
county that has not given a surname to some 
families. York, Bradford, Manchester, Winches- 
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ter, Sheffield, Kent, Salisbury, Richmond, Chester, 
we meet everywhere. 
Of the third class, or occupative surnames, we 
have a large number, and as a rule these sur- 
names are represented by a larger number of in- 
dividuals than are any others. The Smith was, 
of course, represented in every village, though 
he is sometimes called a Gower or a Gowan in 
Celtic districts. Then we have Bishops, Clerks, 
Parsons, Leaches, Carters, Tailors, Turners, Cooks, 
Fullers or cloth - workers, Carpenters, Wagners, 
Millers, Wrights^ etc., in abundance. We have 
no doctors nor lawyers, though Councilman is 
not unknown, nor is jfudge as a surname. Spenser 
is dispensier, the man who had charge of the spence 
or buttery. Stetvart is the king's steward, and 
Butler his " boteler." Many old forgotten trades 
are represented in occupative surnames. Said- 
der is probably Scuteler, the man who made the 
wooden trenchers — scutels — which served in- 
stead of plates. Latimer, or Latiner, is an inter- 
preter; Pullinger — boulanger — is a baker; yen- 
ner is a joiner. In Yorkshire, Sack means a 
ploughshare, and from this comes Sacksmith, or 
Sixsmith. Kidder is an obsolete word for huck- 
ster. No one can make anything of Lundhunter, 
Brewer, Brewster, Weaver, Webb, Webster, Baker, 
and Baxter are plain enough. Walker was a 
man who inspected the king's forest and guarded 
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SURNAMES. 209 
the game from poachers. Dexter appears to be 
from daegsestrey a woman who works by the day, 
or, possibly, from the word meaning a maker of 
daggers. 
A Pilgrim was one who had taken a journey to 
any shrine, as to Canterbury. A Palmer was one 
who had gone to Palestine. There were so 
many pilgrims that it was not used as a distinct- 
ive name, but to be a "holy palmer" was an 
honor. The porter "stood at the castle gate," 
the usher within. Now there are many Porters, 
but few Ushers. The reason of this is that 
Porter had an additional source — from the por- 
ters who carried burdens. The Hayward — ^from 
hay^ a hedge — had charge of the animals belong- 
ing to the town. Howard is derived from this 
word, unless it be from the Saxon Hereward^ or 
general. Hogward gives us Haggard^ a very rare 
surname. Wirth and Ward are the terms for 
Saxon officials often found in combination in 
surnames, as Woodswortk^ Woodward, etc. A 
Barker is a tanner. 
The fourth class comprises surnames derived 
from nicknames. To call individuals by some 
personal peculiarity is a very natural propensity. 
The Romans and the modem Italians seem 
especially fond of doing so. The English work- 
ing-men in some districts still have two names — 
one their regular legal name, which is seldom 
14 
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210 ENGLISH WORDS. 
heard, and another, the nickname by which they 
are known among their mates. It was inevitable 
that surnames should grow out of those sobri- 
quets, which are often more firmly attached than 
the baptismal name itself. Nicknames can be 
conveniently divided into three groups : 
1. Those from physical or external peculiar- 
ities, relationship, age, size, shape, complexion, 
dress, etc. 
2. From mental and moral peculiarities. Some- 
times these are complimentary, sometimes quite 
the reverse. 
3. Real nicknames, having no especial mean- 
ing, or from some fancied resemblance to ani- 
mals. 
Under the first sub-head we have White, Brown, 
Black, Grey, Morrell or Moore — when it means 
black; Nott, which means crop-haired ; Peel, which 
means pilled or bald ; Russell ox red, and a variety 
of others. Frieze-mantle is the origin of the name 
Freemantle. Bunker means Bon Couleur, Big 
and Small and Little and Pettit explain them- 
selves. The odd name Firebraces is derived 
from Bras de fer (iron arm) by inversion. We 
have, too, Younger, Senior, Ames, from Earn (an 
uncle). Kinsman, and Cozzens, 
Under the second sub -head we have Good, 
Fairspeech, Pinchpenny, Saveall, Scrapeskin, etc. 
The third sub-head, or nicknames proper, pre- 
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SURNAMES. 211 
sents considerable difficulties. The nickname may 
have been meaningless, or it may have become 
obsolete, and if the spelling has been changed 
we have nothing to aid us in reconstructing it. 
When we find a name that seems absolutely 
unexplainable, it is convenient to be able to say 
that the base is probably an unmeaning sobri- 
quet. The names which sound like the names 
of animals — as BuU^ Lamb, Wolf, Lion^ Crow, 
Swan, Hart, Stagg — may possibly have originated 
in nicknames, and afterwards have developed into 
surnames, but it is much more likely that they 
originated in heraldic devices or business signs. 
Every little manufactory had its device — a ship, 
or an arrow, or a rudely -carved lion or bull's 
head. The proprietor was spoken of as William 
of the Ship, or John o' the Lion. Inn signs were 
generally double — a device on each side, or a 
line divided the field, as in the shields of knights. 
Thus we have the "Goat and Compasses," the 
"Cat and Battledoor," the "Bull and Mouth," 
" Pan and the Bacchanalians " — this last corrupt- 
ed into "Pan and the Bag o' Nails." As a rule, 
heraldic devices were borne by families who took 
the name of an estate, and the names of animals 
given as nicknames for fancied resemblance in 
strength or swiftness are inextricably mixed up 
with the same names drawn from business signs 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
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212 ENGLISH WORDS. 
The nttmber of names in each of the above 
classes varies greatly. Taking a large number 
of names in the London Directory^ it was com- 
puted that about twenty-five per cent were from 
personal names, thirty-three per cent were local, 
twelve per cent occupative, twenty-five per cent 
from nicknames, leaving five per cent unac- 
counted for and unaccountable. The number 
of individuals in each class would differ greatly 
from these ratios, if for no other reason, because 
a disproportionate number of persons bear the 
names of occupation. Smithy Taylor^ Carpenter j 
Webster^ Baker^ and the like, and the personal 
derivatives, yohnsan, Thompson^ yones, WilliamSy 
are also very well represented. No one terri- 
torial surname is borne by a great number of 
persons. White and Brown are also very com- 
mon. 
The question arises — Is the number of surnames 
increasing or diminishing ? We hear occasionally 
of families becoming extinct by the death of the 
" last of the name." On the other hand, a few 
new surnames are formed even now by variations 
in spelling or the anglicizing of foreign names. 
The entire disappearance of a name is rarer than 
we think, as it will generally be found that it is 
preserved in the family of some remote and for- 
gotten offshoot. The practice of hyphenating 
names like " Floyd- Jones " may give rise to some 
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SURNAMES. 
213 
new variants. The doctrine of chances proves 
that it is extremely improbable that any name 
that has lasted from the fourteenth century to the 
present should become extinct hereafter. Fur- 
thermore, observations on sixty names in Eng- 
land go to show that the excess of births over 
deaths in any group bearing the same name is 
normal, or the same as that of the great bulk of 
the population. 
It has been computed from a careful tabula- 
tion of the surnames beginning with "A" that 
the entire number of surnames in England would 
exceed thirty thousand. In our country the large 
foreign element would make the number still 
greater, even admitting that many rare English 
names are unrepresented here, and that many for- 
eign names have been assimilated in sound and 
spelling to our American surnames. 
The thirty names most common in England 
are given in the following table from Patronytnica 
Britannica^ in the order of their frequency : 
I. Smith, one in every 73 of entire population. 
2. Jones, " 
" 76 " 
3. Williams, " 
u 115 
4. Taylor, " 
" 148 
5. Davies, " 
" 162 
6. Brown, " 
" 174 
7. Thomas, " 
" 196 
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214 
ENGLISH WORDS. 
8. Evans, one in 
every 198 of e 
9. Roberts, 
« 
(( 
23s 
10. Johnson, 
u 
(( 
265 
II. Wilson, 
it 
(( 
275 
12. Robinson, 
<( 
(( 
276 
13. Wright, 
(( 
a 
293 
14. Wood, 
u 
a 
301 
15. Thompson," 
it 
304 
16. Hall, 
it 
it 
305 
17. Walker, 
ii 
it 
310 
18. Green, 
a 
a 
310 
19. Hughes, 
ti 
a 
312 
20. Edwards, 
ti 
it 
316 
21. Lewis, 
a 
it 
318 
22. White, 
a 
it 
323 
23. Turner, 
a 
it 
327 
24. Jackson, 
ti 
it 
330 
25. Hill, 
ti 
a 
352 
26. Harris, 
it 
it 
35S 
27. Clark, 
it 
a 
363 
28. Cooper, 
it 
it 
380 
29. Harrison, 
it 
it 
390 
30. Ward, 
it 
it 
402 
These thirty names are applied to a little more 
than one-sixth of the entire population of Eng- 
land. The Welsh name Davies is distinct from 
Davis y which has one representative in every four 
hundred and twenty-one Englishmen. This name. 
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SURNAMES. 215 
and yones, Williams^ Evans, Owens, and Edwards 
are common names, because there are so few 
Welsh surnames. It is said that Evan Evans — 
or its equivalent, yohn jfones — is so common in 
Wales that it does not individualize its owner in 
the least. 
Those who wish to look up this subject more fully are 
referred to Lower*s Dictionary, the Patronymica Britannica^ 
to the Essay on English Surnames^ and to The Teutonic 
Name System^ by the same author. These contain a great 
deal of curious information. In the introduction to the 
first-named is an account of the older authorities, many of 
whom are very entertaining. Robert Ferguson's book. Sur- 
names as a Science, is more modem (1883), and, though 
treating of but a limited number of names, more systematic. 
An earlier work by the same author, English Surnames, 
may also be consulted. Bardsley's English Surnames is 
entertaining, but limited. Bowditch's Suffolk Surnames 
(third edition) contains a long list of peculiar names found 
in this country, but the author seems more occupied with 
the humors and oddities of the directories than with scien- 
tific examination or classification. For given names Miss 
Yonge's two volumes on Christian Names cover a good 
deal of ground. The Appendix to Webstet^s Dictionary 
will also be found useful. 
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CHAPTER XVI. 
WORDS OF THE PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 
To the philologist the meanings of words are 
of comparatively little importance except as a 
means of identification. He follows the root 
through its various fortunes, pointing out how it 
has gathered suffixes and prefixes and amalga- 
mated with them, or dropped them in the course 
of centuries until the original sound is entirely 
changed and the word becomes part of a new 
language — becomes, in fact, a new word. But a 
great deal of interesting information about the 
early professions and trades can be gathered by 
observing the peculiar vocabulary of each. Such 
an examination carried but a little way will throw 
incidentally a good deal of light on history, and 
will show how men instinctively select a set of 
words having a relation to the nature of their 
employments. In all the mechanical trades tech- 
nical terms are used which are interesting sur- 
vivals of ancient usage, and others which show 
when improvements in tools or methods were in- 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 217 
troduced. Let us consider first the ancient and 
honorable trade of the smith. 
The worker in iron was an important member 
of society in the early village communities. He 
forged the rude weapons and agricultural imple- 
ments, shod the horses, and made the hasps, 
hinges, and nails requisite to building a house. 
In making armor great proficiency was required, 
and in forging railings, screens, and ornamental 
work a high degree of artistic skill was often 
shown. There i? nothing more satisfying to the 
artistic sense than finely -wrought iron-work, as 
there is nothing more unsatisfpng than cast-iron 
ornaments. One is the product of human intel- 
ligence, subduing an obdurate material directly 
by strength, patience, and skill ; the other is me- 
chanically produced after the pattern is made, 
and has therefore a much less direct relation 
to the human mind. For all these reasons the 
workman in iron held in early days a unique posi- 
tion. He was not called a smith because he was 
a smiter, as was originally supposed. Smith is 
one of the oldest Teutonic words, and is probably 
connected with smooth. But his helper is called 
a striker. To smith a piece of iron is to form it 
with the hammer ; but to forge includes the idea 
of heating in addition. The worker in brass is 
not a smith, but a brass-founder^ because brass 
is melted, and if wrought is hammered with light 
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2l8 ENGLISH WORDS. 
blows. We have coppersmith^ gold-smithy silver- 
smithy and tin- smithy because these metals are 
ductile and require smithing. The word had 
many metaphorical applications in early litera- 
ture. Not only do we read of the armorer by the 
name of waepna-smith, but we have the promoter 
of laughter called hleahtor-smith, laughter-smith ; 
we have the teacher called Idr-smith^ lore-smith ; 
and the warrior called wig -smith, war- smith.* 
The scales which fell from the iron were called 
slag, because they were slugged from under the 
sledge. Nowadays we apply the term slag to 
the impurities which float on molten iron, as 
blast-furnace slag. Etymologically it would be 
more correct to call this substance by the orig- 
inal name, sinner or cinder, a term which we are 
inclined to confine to the calcined impurities in 
coal-ashes. The old terms are correctly used by 
the hands in a rolling-mill, where they speak of 
hammer-slag, and call refuse that is melted and 
squeezed out, cinder, not cinders, even sapng 
" roller cinder" 
The following are some of the terms used by 
* The fact that now the word sharp would be used in 
folk-metaphor for many of the above meanings — the teach- 
er, for instance, called the hoo\i'sharp; the musician, the 
piano- j^^/ the geologist , the tocV-sharp — ^may be taken 
as illustrative of the difference between ancient and mod- 
em times, the days of honest blows and the days of shifty 
devices. 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 219 
the smith : bellows^ wind, tuyere, anvil, blast, ham- 
mer, tap, screw, tongs, fire, sledge, swedge,file, horn, 
upset, weld, fiatter. He uses the word wind in 
the sense of air, and speaks of the wind in the 
bellows as he might speak of "knocking the 
wind " out of an antagonist, not the atmosphere. 
The moving or issuing air he calls the blast. 
These words are of Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon 
origin, and show that the Germanic tribes were 
skilful workers in iron before they came into con- 
tact with the Latin races ; and, further, that black- 
smiths continued to use their trade-terms after 
the Conquest, without much reference to the lan- 
guage * of the Norman-French. The vioxds former, 
vice, and die are Norman, but they are special 
tools, adapted to produce certain shapes more 
readily than can the hammer. Chisel is Norman, 
but even now a blacksmith calls the stationary 
chisel fitted into a square hole in the anvil, pref- 
erably, a cutter. The hole in the anvil has also 
a peculiar name, used by some blacksmiths. It 
* The back of the hammer is called by mechanics the 
pene, and to straighten a piece of iron by light blows with 
the sharp back on the hollow side is said to be to pene it. 
This word is given in Webster as pin, as if connected with 
the Latin pinna, which seems impossible, whether we re- 
gard pronunciation, meaning, or probable source. Monkey- 
wrench is another very peculiar expression. None of the 
explanations offered concerning its origin seem entirely sat- 
isfactory. 
pigitized 
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220 ENGLISH WORDS. 
would be worth while to collect all the blacksmith's 
words — many of which are not in the dictionary 
— and also to ascertain whether some words are 
not in use in this country that have been lost in 
England. In general the smiths of England use 
more archaic words than do those of America, as 
so many new devices to save hand labor are in 
use here. 
The distinctive names of the parts of the 
steam-engine were, for the most part, taken from 
those of similar parts of a pump — an instrument 
which was known to the Romans — so that we find 
steam 'Cfust^ piston^ cy Under ^ valve, governor, con- 
necting-rod, crank, main -shaft, balance-wheel, ex- 
haust-pipe, eccentric, cross -head, stuffing-box, gland, 
parallel- motion, slides, representing a very large 
proportion of words of Latin derivation, as might 
be expected, since the steam-engine was invented 
by men acquainted with the use of scientific in- 
struments, and at a time when Latin terms had 
been fully naturalized. Even English George 
Stephenson's machine was called a locomotive, 
though the starting -valve is still properly the 
throttle. Many of the smaller parts of the con- 
struction — key, cotters, gibs, well-known mechan- 
ical devices of great antiquity, and adapted to 
the new purpose by mechanics — have Saxon 
names, but as far as the engine is a " thermody- 
namic machine," its nomenclature is Latin. The 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 221 
compound name, steam-engine^ is half English and 
half Latin. 
As the art of printing was invented in Germany 
and brought to England through Holland, we 
might expect to find in its vocabulary a large 
proportion of Teutonic words. So far is this 
from bein^ the case that there is no trade of 
which the nomenclature is so distinctively Latin. 
The man who arranges the types is called a com- 
positor. He takes the types from a case^ and 
places them in a sticky brings his stickfuls to a gal- 
ley^ puts them on an imposing-stone^ and takes an 
impression^ which he calls a proof; corrects the 
proof, and locks the type in a form with quoins. 
Then, the proof-reader's marks are all Latin ab- 
breviations, and the different sizes of type^ pica, 
primer, minion, brevier, and agate, are all called by 
Latin names, and the same is true of the element- 
ary parts of the press except the bed. In fact, 
so thoroughly Latin is the printer's vocabulary 
that he must be conscious of falling below the 
dignity of his trade when he asks for a take or 
speaks of pulling a proof, or calls blank spaces 
fat. He justifies his lines by spaces, the last be- 
ing almost the only Saxon word he habitually 
uses. Quad is quadrate, a square space. The 
pages are collected into signatures, and the types 
are finally distributed after the printing. Ink, too, 
is a Romance word — en caustre — ^though adopted 
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222 ENGLISH WORDS. 
into old English. In fact, the technical vocabu- 
lary of the printer is as Latin as that of the law- 
yer. The reason of this is that the first printers 
were learned men, and Latin was the language of 
scholars in the fifteenth century. They were the 
successors of the old scribes. Caxton personally 
translated from Latin a number of the books he 
published — ^and the best work of the early print- 
ers was editions of the classics. Printing was 
not supposed to be a people's art, nor could any 
one have foreseen that it was to be one of the 
great popular forces. So its language is scholas- 
tic, and in the dialect of those for whose service 
it was intended. 
The trade of making and repairing coverings 
for the feet is an old one in cold countries ; so we 
find that those following it are cobblers and shoe- 
makers^ not chaussiers, and may be pretty sure that 
our Saxon ancestors did not go barefooted at all 
times. Cobbler is given by Skeat as from couplare, 
to join,* as if a cobbler were one who joins new 
leather to old, and was a Norman. This deriva- 
tion does not seem consistent with the character 
of the word nor with the fact that it contains two 
b^Sy nor with the fact that the cobbler's tools have 
all Celtic or Saxon names. There is a flavor 
* See discussion of this word in Century Dictionary, and 
in Dr. Murray's Dictionary, 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 223 
about the word which does not belong to a Latin 
derivative. It sounds like an old folk-word. It 
is the same word as that found in cobble-stones^ with 
which we cobble or roughly mend a wall.* Shoe- 
maker^ at all events, is above suspicion as to its 
genuinely English source, and so are the shoe- 
maker's terms. His kit is a small receptacle for 
tools ; we have the same word in " kit of mackerel.'' 
His last is from a Saxon word meaning a track, 
connected in root with the word to last — to en- 
dure ; to pursue is the same as to track, and to 
pursue unceasingly implies endurance ; so there 
is a distant connection between the two meanings 
of last. Vamp is said to be derived from avant- 
pied^ the front foot, but the uppers were first made 
from a single piece, Latimer says. So vamp is a 
modem word. Welt may be of Celtic origin, and 
lace may be descended from the Latin laqueus, a 
snare, though this seems hardly probable in the 
sense of boot -lace. Awl^ lapstone, waxed ends^ 
leather^ hide^ pegs, patch, sole, are all of Teutonic 
origin. Tan, if not from an English root, has 
been used so long that it may be regarded as an 
original English word. Kip-skin and deacon^ s-s kin 
are undoubtedly English, though their derivations 
* Why should it not be distantly connected with cobble, 
a boat (Celtic) ? The wooden shoes of the French peasant- 
ry are hollowed out like boats, and cobble^ a boat, is based on 
the word meaning to excavate. 
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224 ENGLISH WORDS. 
are not known. Tap^ so universally used for half- 
sole, and seen in the old phrase, "standing on 
his taps^ must mean either the top sole, or else a 
sole that is fastened on with pegs which are driv- 
eti in by taps of the hammer. Foxing^ or putting 
a front on a boot, is an old English word. Boots 
and gaiters are of course comparatively modem, 
for our ancestors wore shoes. Many of these 
words were not printed nor written, unless they 
may have appeared in some of the Elizabethan 
dramas, and as we do not know the original spell- 
ing, the derivations may be lost. It is evident, 
however, that the shoemaker has plied his trade 
and used the same words for his implements and 
materials since our ancestors emigrated from 
Schleswig-Holstein. 
The building trades — masons and wood-workers 
— ^would evidently be much more affected by the 
conquest of England by a people speaking a for- 
eign language than would the folk -trades — ^vil- 
lage smiths and cobblers and household-weavers. 
The Normans wiere skilful architects, especially 
in stone, and built feudal castles, extensive eccle- 
siastical buildings — cathedrals and monasteries. 
Most of the important buildings were erected 
under a Norman master, or in the cities where 
French was spoken by the wealthy classes. The 
old word Wright was dropped, except in some 
special cases, like wainwright, wheelwright, mill- 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 225 
Wright^ playwright^ and a few others. When Chau- 
cer says of one of his pilgrims : 
"He was a well good wrighte, a carpentere," 
he may be using wright as we should use mechan- 
ic — as a general term— ^or he may feel it necessary 
to explain a Saxon word by the equivalent Nor- 
man word. However this may be, we find all 
through the vocabulary of these trades a mixture 
of English and French words, the French being 
usually applied to special tools and to work of a 
higher grade, and the English to simpler and more 
elementary operations. Carpenter y joiner^ and ma- 
son are French words. Builder and stone-cutter 
are English. House and home and cottage are 
English, and so are the elementary parts of a 
simple building: the doors^ roof, nails, walls* 
sills, eaves, beams, rafters, thatch, shingles, boards, 
laths, scantling, timber,floor. On the other hand, the 
joist, from jcuere, to lie , the studding, from sto, to 
stand ; the posts, from posita, Xkit planks, the plates, 
the jambs, are all Norman, and the Norman man- 
sion is divided into rooms and chambers. The 
chimney \^ Norman, and so is Xh^Jlue. The Sax- 
ons apparently built ?i fireplace, a hearth, and a hob, 
* JVall is from vallum, but is Latin of the first period, 
not Norman. Sleeper is another Teutonic word, connected 
with slab. Sleeper from slape — a smooth foundation — not 
from lying still, as if sleeping. 
15 
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226 ENGLISH WORDS. 
and let the smoke escape from a hole in the roof, 
or a window (wind-eye). All the ornamental and 
architectural parts of a house are Norman, and so 
is any complicated construction, and so, of course, 
are all the parts of a cathedral. Possibly some 
of these architectural terms were introduced into 
England by foreign workmen before the Conquest, 
like towery and a few of the oldest words connect- 
ed with church architecture. On the whole, the 
relations of the races are very strikingly illus- 
trated in the names of the parts of a building. 
There are three words in common use by car- 
penters and woodsmen in America, which are no 
doubt survivals of old words; brashy stunt^ and 
dozy. Brash is an adjective applied to wood 
which is lacking in transverse strength and elastic- 
ity. A " brash stick " differs from a brittle one 
in that it will not spring or bend at all. This 
word is referred to in Webster as being of Ar- 
morican origin. The application of brash — also 
very common — to quick temper — giving away sud- 
denly and unexpectedly — is possibly secondary. 
Stunt means cut at an obtuse angle with the 
grain, bluntly sharpened. It is connected with 
stinty to make short,, but retains the original 
meaning of " making dull " — as in " that post is 
too stunt to drive " — rather than of cutting off a 
definite portion, as in the expression, "a day's 
stintP Dozy means aiffected by a peculiar kind 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS ANt> TRADES. 227 
of rot which destroys the grain. If so far gone 
as to be ruined by the dry-rot, timber is said to 
be punky^ which is from the Gaelic spunky tinder. 
Doz^ means in the incipient state of dry-rot 
when the " life of the timber is gone." It is 
probably connected with dozy^ sleepy. Skeat says 
of dozy^ meaning sleepy, "cf. Sanscrit dhoas^ to 
crumble." Crumbling would almost exactly hit 
the carpenter's use of dozy. 
In the names of wood-workers' tools we find 
that the simpler and more general tools have 
English names, and that those adapted for some 
special purpose are Norman. The axe is the 
most important and primitive tool that man uses. 
A skilful axeman can shape almost anything 
from wood, as is seen to-day in Russia. The 
axe is so archaic an implement that its name is 
similar in all the Aryan languages, showing that 
its use was understood even before the Germanic 
and Italic stocks developed definitely different 
languages. We retain the name of the tool that 
was used to hew the timber for the ships that 
brought Hengist and Horsa to Britain, and have 
borrowed from the French only the diminutive 
form, hatchet^ and the verb to hatch — />., to mark 
with cross-lines — corresponding to our English 
verb, to score^ and hash^ anything chopped up. 
The saw is, of course, not nearly so old a tool as 
the axe, which indeed dates from the Stone Age, 
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228 ENGLISH WORDS. 
but our Saxon ancestors possessed it and called 
it a sage, and we use the same word. The primi- 
tive operations, chopping, hewing, cutting, splitting^ 
and riving are all indicated by Saxon words. It 
is worth noticing that in many parts of the coun- 
try the modern workman uses the word split when 
he separates a piece of irregular shape, and the 
word rive when he separates a wide thin piece, 
the taking special pains seeming to be the dis- 
tinction. Thus he splits wood, but he rives a bolt 
to make shingles. The word Ifo/t in the above 
sense is no doubt equivalent to di/let. Draw- 
shave, grindstone, whetstone, hammer, saw, adze, 
and axe, are all English, but plane, chisel, gouge^ 
mortice, and tenon, are all French. A carpenter 
to-day calls a small plane used for cutting a 
groove by the French name, robot, or rabbeting- 
plane, from the French raboter, to plane. Mitre 
is French, and means properly to cut at an angle 
of forty -five degrees, a word derived from the 
bishop's hat , but the Saxon word scarf means 
to hew at any sharp angle with an axe. Auger 
and gimlet are English, as might be expected, 
since the simplest construction necessitates bor- 
ing holes. We know that the English built ships, 
of which the framing and planking were se- 
cured with pins called treenails, and with leathern 
thongs. The long plane which is used for mak- 
ing the edges of boards straight is called a 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 229 
joinUr^ from joindre^ to unite, since the edges 
when brought together come in contact through- 
out and can be firmly united with glue. The 
word joint refers to an inflexible union, though 
we use it preferably for a flexible one, as the 
joints of the body. 
The mixed vocabulary of the carpenter's trade 
goes to show that the Saxons were competent 
wood-workers before the Conquest, but that the 
Norman workmen modified their method by intro- 
ducing better tools and a higher order of archi- 
tecture. The same may be said of stone-masons 
and plasterers, who have preserved some singular 
words like hawk* the board on which they carry 
mortar; darby, a board for smoothing the face of a 
wall ; and putlog ^sadi ledger lor parts of the scaffold. 
Cast-iron was not invented till the seventeenth 
century, but the art of casting brass was known 
to the ancients. The technical name of the pot 
in which brass is melted is crucible. The estab- 
lishment for making iron castings is a foundery. 
Both of those are French words, crucible being 
probably of Celtic origin and connected with 
♦ The derivation of hawk and darby I am unable to con- 
jecture. Hawk^ to carry about, seems to imply the idea 
of oflfering for sale. Can darby be connected with daub ? 
The carpenters pronounce jointer jinter. As this is the 
archaic pronunciation correctly handed down, have we any 
right to change it ? 
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230 ENGLISH WORDS. 
crock. But many of the words used by men who 
work in a foundery are English. They are called 
moulders. The sand is rammed in a flask^ of 
which the top is called the cope or nowl (one word 
being French, the other Saxon) and the bottom 
the drag. The opening through which the metal 
enters the mould is called a gate^ and the metal 
which hardens in the gate is called a sprue. The 
division in the mould is called a parting, the ves- 
sel in which the melted metal is received from 
the furnace is called a ladle. The large sieve 
used to separate lumps from the sand is called a 
riddle, a small tool for smoothing the mould is a 
slick, and the waste metal which runs into the 
parting is 2i fin. The patterns are made with 
draft that they may be readily drawn from the 
sand, and a shrink-rule is used by pattern-makers. 
Here is a large proportion of Saxon words, all of 
them, however, except sprue, used in secondary 
senses — riddle, for instance, is originally a win- 
nowing sieve. The art was developed among an 
English-speaking people by practical men, not 
by scientific men. These men naturally took up 
popular words, whereas the inventors of the steam- 
engine used learned words. Had iron-founding 
developed from the casting of brass, more of the 
technical words would have been of Latin origin. 
Had it been an old English art, it would have 
contained more old English words belonging ex' 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 23 1 
clusively to its peculiar operations. Sprue seems 
to be the only special term. 
The Saxons were seamen, but so were the 
early Normans. What are usually called " sailos- 
man's words " are almost exclusively English or 
Scandinavian or Dutch. Though the first Nor- 
mans who settled in France gave up their own 
language, and the third generation spoke only 
French, many Norse words are found in the 
French nautical language, relics of the ancestral 
trade of RoUo and his fellows. It is safe to as- 
sume, however, that the vocabulary of the Eng- 
lish sailor was not recruited from the Norman 
French, but is radically Anglo-Saxon or Danish. 
It is very extensive and almost destitute of any 
Latin element. The official terms of the navy, 
on the contrary, embrace many words of Ro- 
mance origin. Captain^ lieutenant^ commodore^om- 
mandani^ and admiral are not seamen's words. 
They would say, preferably, skipper or mate if 
they had invented the terms. The seamen's vo- 
cabulary is large, because a ship is a home to 
them in which they are isolated from the world 
for long periods, and because they have gathered 
words from foreign countries, like catamaran from 
Ceylon, kedge and yawl from the Dutch, and the 
local names of boats from whatever port they 
entered. The great body of their speech is Eng- 
lish. To begin with, all parts of the ship and 
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232 ENGLISH WORDS. 
rigging — huli^ low, waist, stem, deck, mast, sails, 
shrouds, ratlines, halyards, yards, sprit, boom, Jib, 
leech, bits, tops, keel, garboard, larboard, starboard, 
scuppers, rudder, tiller, helm, cockswain, gig, cutter, 
launch, jolly- boat, taffrail, belaying -pin, hawser, 
fathom, cabin, barge {Q^\xq,\ galley, mess, bunk, 
wake, berth — are of Teutonic origin, and a great 
many of them are used only by sailors. If we 
use rudder, or helm, for instance, in any other 
sense except as applied to a boat, we use the 
words metaphorically. Their antiquity as sailors' 
words is evident from this fact, and in this they 
differ from the moulders' words heretofore alluded 
to. The only words of Latin origin and of every- 
day use by sailors 2S^ forecastle, compass, capstan, 
cable, and binnacle; for though in realistic stories a 
sailor may talk about " going on a long vyage," 
a real sailor say^ preferably a cruise. Prow, too, 
is a literary word never heard " on board ship." 
A castle was once built on the stem of war -ships 
and 2^ fore castle in the bow, with the absurd idea 
of imitating a fort, and the viox^ forecastle is now 
applied to the quarters of the crew. Quarters 
has crept in, too, from the Latin quartarius, a 
fourth part, hence a part set off for any definite 
purpose ; but this is originally a man-of-war term. 
A compass is a scientific instrument, and received a 
Latin name, and chronometer — a later invention — 
was given a Greek name. The box in which the 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 233 
compass was kept was called a binnacle^ from 
the Latin habitacuium, a. little room. Gimbals is 
also Latin, and is from gemini^ meaning the twin 
rings. Cable is a French word, but has never — 
except for chains — superseded in common use 
the regular English word, hawser. Course is also 
a Latin word and, strictly, means the angle which 
the vessel's track makes with the meridian. The 
application of the word courses to the main sails 
cannot be explained. Davits is said to be de- 
rived from davus, the Latin popular name for a 
slave (used something like our word yack\ but 
this derivation is purely conjectural. Capstan is 
French and Spanish, from a Greek root, and an 
anchor was used by the Romans. The Saxons 
drew their small ships on the beach and must 
have used the oars to keep off from a lee shore. 
The words connected with handling the anchor, 
however, are English, as the bars^ the pawls, cat- 
heads, to trip, or to fish. A small anchor, too, has 
a Dutch name — a hedge. 
The bow of a ship is connected with the Saxon 
bog, the root meaning an arm, hence the shoulder. 
The bow of a ship is its shoulder, and a bowline is 
so called because it is fastened to the shoulder of 
the sail. This word is from the same root as 
bough — an arm of a tree, and is entirely distinct 
from bow, the archer's weapon which comes from 
bugen, to bend. 
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234 ENGLISH WORDS. 
The vocabulary of English seamen is therefore 
radically Teutonic. Its racy individual character 
and lack of formality testifies to its antiquity and 
independence of foreign terms, and to the original 
sufficiency of English for practical matters. Its 
phrases are strong and expressive, and would be 
absurdly feeble if translated into Latin equiva- 
lents. It embodies the maritime life and seafar- 
ing character of a vigorous, out-door race, and is 
well worth examining by any one who wishes to 
appreciate the directness and force of spoken 
English.* This brief sketch does not even out- 
line the subject. 
Inductions similar in general character can be 
drawn from the vocabulary of the still older occu- 
pation, farming. Genuine farmers' words are of 
the Teutonic stock. Many of them belong to the 
class of words evidently related in all the Aryan 
tongues, and were used in the remote past, when 
the Proto- Aryans, the parent stock of Celt, Greek, 
Latin, and Teuton, spoke the same language and 
formed one tribe. Such are the names of the 
domestic animals, and of the old implements and 
operations. Itorse^ marCy cow, bull, ram, ewe, 
♦ An admirable Chaucerian word, rote^ is preserved by 
American sailors. It means the confused sound of the sea 
breaking on a beach, heard at a distance, and seems now 
to be especially applicable to the sound heard inland. It 
can hardly be connected with roar. 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 235 
plough^ sickle, thresh, milk, are radical words. 
Even the parts of the modern plough, the land- 
side, the mould-board, the beam, the share, are old 
English. The cleans and the coulter are Latin at- 
tachments. A farmer to-day never calls himself 
an agriculturist. He speaks of the plough's tail, 
an expression which is a survival from the time 
when the plough had but one handle, and is 
strictly plough-stalL A stall is a handle, a word 
allied to the root of still, a stall being that by 
which the implement is held firm. The root ap- 
pears also in the word headstall, that by which a 
horse is held comparatively still. His stall in 
which he stands is another English word, from a 
different English root, but allied to the first and 
to the Latin sto through common relationship to 
the original root, STA. This word stall in the 
sense of handle is also used by farmers when 
they say " stale of a pitchfork." The word flail 
is given as from the Latin, flagellum. If this be 
true the Saxons must have threshed their grain 
in some different way — by the feet of oxen, like 
the Hebrews, for instance. At all events, there 
is no stain on the lineage of thresh. The name 
for the two parts of the flail — the swingle and the 
staff— zx^ unmistakably Saxon. 
The names of the grains, barley, corn, wheat; 
of the trees, oak, beech, apple, are also old. Some 
weeds and roots bear testimony in their names to 
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236 ENGLISH WORDS. 
the country from which they were introduced, 
like beet^ carrot , turnips radish^ potato, zxad pumpkin, 
and show that the Anglo-Saxons never lived in 
a country where these were indigenous. In the 
names of the products of the soil a great deal of 
archaic history is embodied. The primitive oper- 
ations are denoted by primitive words, or per- 
haps we should say that the use of a primitive 
name proves the things or operations so designated 
to be ancient. The soil of England has never been 
cultivated by men who spoke French, and so the 
rural dialect abounds in good, old Saxon words. 
Many survivals of the old stock of words can be 
found in New England, some of which have been 
lost in England. Modern inventions have so mod- 
ified farming work that many of the old terms are 
passing out of use. This is notably the case with 
words used in the household industries of spin- 
ning and weaving, as practised fifty years ago. 
Many handicraft words are of obscure origin, 
since they have but rarely been printed, and their 
pronunciation has become so modified from the 
primitive sounds that it is sometimes very difficult 
to conjecture the original derivation or connec- 
tion. The technical language of the professions^ 
on the other hand, was early committed to writing 
in many documents. All pleadings in law were 
written in Norman-French for a century after the 
Conquest, and even after the issue was made a-d 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 237 
the trial conducted in the new English, the judg- 
ment was entered in Latin. Law terms are, 
therefore, universally Latin, though the common 
law is an evolution of the English nation. Law 
terms of Latin origin, though they a^e not so 
barbarous as medical terms, have little force or 
simplicity, except the short ones, like deed^ Judge, 
arrest, jury, court, suit, writ, warrant, mortgage, and 
summons, which have become fully naturalized. 
Such words as replevin, quo warranto, affidavit, 
demurrer, certiorari, rebutter, garnishee, mandamus, 
cestui que trust, feme- covert, and their congeners, 
which make up nine-tenths of the legal dialect, 
betray their foreign origin too freely to allow 
their admission into the society of the old Eng- 
lish words which we recognize as part of our 
mother-tongue. The artificial character of these 
words has, no doubt, contributed to the artificial 
and remote character of the science of the law, 
which, at least in an old work on pleading, seems 
to be concerned with a verbal system, and not to 
refer to real things. It is worth noticing that the 
officer with whom Englishmen come most in con- 
tact retained his Saxon title — sheriff, or shire-reeve. 
This retention of the English word for the legal 
executive is somewhat analogous to the assump- 
tion by the Duke of Normandy of the title, 
" King of England," instead of the French style, 
"m," or ''^ suzerain r 
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238 ENGLISH WORDS. 
The class which may be designated as Church 
words, or the ecclesiastical terminology, is also 
exclusively classic — Latin or Greek — in origin, 
with the exception of the Saxon derivatives, like 
righteousness^ goodness^ kindness, brotherly love, sin, 
wickedness, selfishness, meekness, and a few others, 
which express the underl3dng elements of human 
character as opposed to formal theological con- 
ceptions like/^, devotion, regeneration, repentance, 
faith, and a host of other terms of Latin origin. 
This is as might be expected. The Church of 
Western Europe was originally a Latin Church. 
Its sacred books were in Latin or Greek. Its 
volumes of ecclesiastical law were in Latin. 
Words that refer to the organization are, of 
course, Latin, as are also words that belong to 
party differences in the Church. At the same 
time religion deals with the ultimate facts of 
human nature, and in the most corrupt periods 
there were to be found in the Church some ear- 
nest priests whose hearts yearned towards their 
fellow- men ; who, like their Master, " had com- 
passion on the multitude," and wished so to 
speak that they — in good old phrase — " might be 
understanded of the people." Chaucer's " poor 
parson " spoke English, though he is rather Lat- 
inized in his story of Meliboeus, as Harry Bailey 
notices. We owe much to Wycliffe, Tyndale, 
Coverdale, and the seventeenth century revisers, 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 239 
that they translated the Bible into our mother- 
tongue, and not into Latinized English, and 
thereby gave their words a unique and radical 
power. The watchwords of the human systems 
over which men argue and fight, under the influ- 
ence of that peculiarly Latin mental condition — 
''odium theologicum'^ — pass away and possess 
only a historical interest after a century or two. 
They are invariably Latin watchwords. The 
word atonement — at-one-ment — with its Saxon 
base and Latin suffix, is almost the only one of 
the theologic war-cries that is an exception to 
this rule, but this word embodies a concept as 
deep and abiding as that expressed by its correla- 
tive, sin^ and is a word of an entirely different 
class from such strictly doctrinal words as iran- 
substaniiation^predestination, election, eschatology^^tc. 
The relations of the Classic and Saxon deriva- 
tives in theological nomenclature open too broad 
a field to be gone into at present, but it is worth 
while to consider the different effects of such 
phrases as ''an offended Deity ^^ and "an angry 
Godr 
Just as chemistry retains some words which 
date back to the mediaeval quackeries, alchemy 
and magic, and as astronomy retains some of 
the words once peculiar to the pseudo- science, 
astrology, so medicine shows traces of the ter- 
minology of the " learned leeches " of the Mid- 
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240 ENGLISH WORDS. 
die Ages. All medical books were then in Latin, 
and the mediaeval names were kept in use even 
after Latin was discarded. They became a sort 
of professional shibboleth which gave mystery 
and dignity to simple matters. Even now the 
names of drugs are translated, and dandelion is 
mentioned as taraxicum^ 2Lnd foxglove as digitalis. 
For scientific classification special names are 
necessary, and Latin still offers the most con- 
venient storehouse of words which have the same 
meaning in all countries. The doctors have an 
hereditary fondness for " words of learned length 
and thundering sound," and will hardly conde- 
scend to speak of the backbone or the skull. 
Like cooks, they are fond of giving foreign names 
to mysterious compounds. But the great object 
of their efforts — health — and the important events 
over which they preside — childbirth and deaths 
which, indeed, concern the patient more than the 
physician — remain radically Saxon. The vocab- 
ulary peculiar to the profession testifies to the 
cosmopolitan nature of diseases and remedies. 
The world has been searched for the latter, and 
the former are common to men of all nations. 
Possibly it may testify to the fact that the wealthy 
Normans were more frequently the objects of the 
doctor's care than were the humbler Saxons. We 
have dropped the expressive Saxon writh — con- 
nected with writhe — and have retained the French 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 24I 
equivalent, fever. Traces of the old medical 
notions can be discovered in medical words. 
Cholera^ for instance, is derived through Latin 
from the Greek word meaning bile. Gangrene^ 
from the same source, means something which 
gnaws. The fact that the Latins drew their 
notions of medical science from the Greeks is 
shown by the number of Greek - Latin and Greek 
derivatives in use among doctors. Of these are : 
antiseptic^ asthma^ artery^ bronchitis^ cranium^ oesoph- 
agus ^ epidermis^ larynx^ spleen, pleurisy, pore, rheum, 
surgeon. We very early dropped the Saxon word 
leech in favor of the Latin doctor, or the Latin- 
Greek physician. 
The vocabulary of mines is a curious jumble 
of archaic words — Celtic and Saxon — and mod- 
ern scientific engineering terms. A classification 
of miners' words would prove very interesting 
and instructive. 
That events could be foretold by an expert ex- 
amination of the stars was a very general belief 
from the earliest time. In the Middle Ages the 
practice was reduced to rules, and gave rise to a 
precise technical vocabulary, which has left some 
curious traces in our language. We still use the 
words horoscope and ill- starred With a conscious- 
ness of their metaphorical force. But considera- 
tion, disaster, ctspect, contemplate, and influence are 
habitually spoken without any thought of theu: 
16 
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242 ENGLISH WORDS. 
origin. They are all astrological words, and, nat- 
urally, are of Greek or Latin derivation. Con- 
sider is considerare, to consult the stars. Dis- 
aster is an unpropitious position of a star. The 
sky was divided into temples or houses, and to 
contemplate was to examine what planets occu- 
pied the different temples at a given time. Influ- 
ence is the occult power supposed to flow in from 
the moon or planets. Aspect meant the general re- 
lation of the planets and their distances from each 
other. Two planets could assume nine " aspects " — 
five good aspects and four bad ones — ^with which 
they looked on the earth — a slight fraction in 
favor of optimistic views. The planet which rose 
above the horizon at the hour of birth was said 
to be in the ascendant, and was supposed to exert 
a peculiar influence on the future life. Conjunc- 
tion signifies that two planets were in the same 
temple, and we still use conjunction not only to 
mean a bond, but for two events happening 
about the same time. Contemplate dates back to 
Roman astrology, or even to Greek, since templum 
is from re/ivw, to cut, and is based on the idea of 
a place set apart or cut off. Auspicious, aves- 
spectare, is from the Roman art of divination. 
It is possible that some of these words, as 
aspect and contemplate, might have come into the 
language, even had they not formed a part of the 
vocabulary of mediaeval astrology, but it is evident 
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WORDS OF PROFESSIONS AND TRADES. 243 
that their character has been, affected by that 
use. The force of a word is affected by all its 
•associations, and a knowledge of them enables 
us to appreciate precise and delicate uses of the 
word. 
From the groups of folk-words, especially from 
the maritime and agricultural groups, the liter- 
ary language is recruited. They are the living 
and vigorous roots of national speech, and prun- 
ing the upper growth without allowing the vital 
sap to circulate is futile ; fortunately so, for if it 
were not, it would be criminal. The superiority 
of the words of the working trades over the words 
of the learned professions, in directness, force, 
and power of vividly presenting the thing signi- 
fied, proves that a language, to possess any of 
these qualities, must be a growth, and not a 
" manufactured article." 
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ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION. 
Find the meaning of the word in the language 
from which it was taken into our modem Eng- 
lish. Show the connection between the original 
meaning and the modem meaning. Use a mod- 
em dictionary. 
Abbot 
Alms. 
Abominate. 
Ambergris. 
Accord. 
Ambidextrous. 
Accost 
Amorphous. 
Acid. 
Appal. 
Acom. 
Appraise. 
Acquit. 
Apprise. 
Acute. 
Apron. 
Adequate. 
Arch. 
Adroit 
Ark. 
Affidavit 
Arm. 
Agate. 
Attic. 
Alarm. 
Auction. 
Alligator. 
Aureole. 
Allow. 
Ballad. 
Ally. 
Ballet 
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ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION. 245 
Ballot 
Clever. 
Ban. 
Collaborator. 
Battledoor. 
Colonel. 
.Battlement 
Combat 
Between. 
Commence. 
Bitter-enA 
Comparison. 
Blaze. 
Craven. 
Blindfold. 
Cutter. 
Blunderbuss. 
Dad. 
Bondsman. 
Dainty. 
Bower. 
Damsel 
Brattice. 
Date. 
Buttress. 
Ddbut 
Buxom. 
Demure. 
Calculate. 
Deuce. 
Cancel. 
Dextrous, 
Cant 
Diamond. 
Capitulate. 
Direct 
Caprice. 
Ditty. 
Cardinal. 
Dry (tedious). 
Carnival. 
Eagle. 
Casemate. 
Ear. 
Cat's-cradle. 
Ecstasy. 
Causeway. 
Elixir. 
Centering. 
Ember-days. 
Chancellor. 
Envelop. 
Chaperon. 
Etch. 
Chatter. 
Expectorate. 
Chivalry. 
Fanatic. 
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246 
ENGLISH 
WORDS. 
Fare. 
Kindle. 
February. 
- Laconic. 
Fend. 
Lasso. 
Ferry. 
Lawn. 
Fit. 
Left 
Founder, 
Lieutenant 
Friday. 
Limb (of the Sun). 
Fritter. 
Linstock. 
Frontispiece. 
T«istless. 
Gantlet 
Loathsome. 
Gingerly. 
Manoeuvre. 
Goggle-eyed. 
Map. 
Guinea. 
March. 
Gutta-percha. 
Martyr. 
Halyard. 
Maundy-Thursday. 
Hammer-cloth. 
Metre. 
Hanger. 
MUdew. 
Hematite. 
Mob. 
Hollyhock. 
Mosaic. 
Hmnble-pie 
Muse (vb). 
Husband. 
Napkin. 
Infantry. 
Nation. 
Instep. 
Nightmare. 
January. 
Normal. 
Jerked beef. 
Observe. 
Jet. 
Obstinate. 
Jot. 
Old Nick. 
Kernel. 
Onion. 
Kickshaw. 
Oriole. 
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ADDITIONAL WORDS FOR ILLUSTRATION. 247 
Pale. 
Recount 
Palette. 
Reindeer. 
Pallid. 
Remark. 
Parboil. 
Restive. 
Parson. 
Rook (in chess). 
Patent. 
Rote. 
Pathos. 
Rout 
Patient 
Route. 
Pea-jacket. 
Rut 
Pedant 
Sarcophagus. 
Peer. 
Seminary. 
Pendulum. 
Sentry. 
Pew. 
Sinister. 
Plumb. 
Skeleton. 
Pope. 
Smoke (to find out), 
Posy. 
Soldier. 
Press-gang. 
Soprano. 
Prophesy. 
Steelyard. 
Provender. 
String (of horses). 
Pulley. 
Supplant. 
Punch (vb). 
Tangle (sea-weed). 
Purblind. 
Tantalize. 
Pur6e (a soup). 
Termagant. 
Purloin. 
Testament 
Pusillanimous. 
Thursday. 
Pyramid. 
Thwarts. 
Queen (in chess). 
Tontine. 
Quit 
Touchy. 
Rant 
Train-oil. 
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24$ 
ENGLISH 
WORDS. 
Traitor. 
Wardrobe. 
Tribulation, 
Wednesday. 
Tack (at cards). 
Welcome. 
Trigger. 
Welsh-rabbit 
Tuesday. 
Whiskey. 
Tureen. 
Wiseacre. 
Uncouth. 
Worsted. 
Vermilion. 
Wound (a horn). 
Vinegar. 
Yankee. 
Volmne. 
Zero. 
Walnut 
Zodiac. 
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 
Anglo-Saxon terminations, 
78. 
"At," the root, i8i. 
Arnold, Matthew, quotation, 
88. 
Aryan stock, 13. 
Aryans, home of, 13. 
* languages of, 31. 
Astrologers' words, 241. 
Berners, Juliana, quotation, 
66. 
Bible, translations of, 60-83. 
Blacksmiths' words, 217. 
Book of St. Albans, 65. 
Branching of words, 129. 
Britain abandoned by Ro- 
mans, 37. 
invaded by Saxons, 
38. 
Browning, quotation, 144. 
Brugmann's classification, 20. 
Builders' words, 224. 
Change from Anglo-Saxon 
to English, 43. 
Chivalry, language of, 63. 
Collect, quotation from, gi. 
Colloquial English, 47. 
Composite character of Eng- 
lish, 91. 
Concrete images in language, 
ng. 
Critic ^ quotation from, 150. 
Danish invasion, 40. 
Dialectic English, 48. 
Dialects, 40. 
Doctors' words, 239. 
Double names, 180. 
Double rhymes, 85. 
EarWs Philology, quotation, 
25. 
Ecclesiastical words, 238. 
Effect of material surround- 
ings, 123, 
Emerson, quotation from, 94. 
English, changes in, 37-49. 
kinds of, 47. 
Latin element in, 56. 
Norse element in, 98. 
number of words in, 92. 
rhythm of, 44. 
sources of, 36. 
Erroneous derivations, 140. 
Etymologies promote good 
use, 92. 
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250 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 
Euphemism, 166. 
Euphuism, 68. 
Farmers' words, 234. 
Founders' words, 229. 
Fourteenth century poem, 42. 
Fuller, Dr. Thos. , quotation, 
140. 
Grimm's Law, 25-28. 
Hale, Horatio, quotation, 
33. 
Hunting, language of, 64. 
Hybrid words, 93. 
Imitative words, 123. 
Invasion of Britain, 37. 
Ivanhoe^ quotation, 70. 
Kinds of English, 47. 
Kitchen wor£, 52. 
Language, Albanian, 20. 
a mark of humanity, 
1-3. 
Anglo-Saxon, 19. 
Armenian, 20. 
branches of study of, 9. 
Celtic, 16-55. 
classification of, 13. 
connectionwiththought, 
4. 
Cornish, 16. 
Cymric, 16. 
Dutch, 19. 
Friesic, 19. 
Gallic, 20. 
German, i8. 
Gothic, 18. 
Hellenic, i6. 
High German, 18. 
how far an evolution, 7. 
Language, Indian branch of, 
15. 
Indo-European, 13. 
Iranian, 15. 
Italic, 17; 
Low German, 19. 
Netherlandish, 19. 
Norse, i8. 
Old English, 19. 
origin of, 113. 
Platt-Deutsch, 19. 
Romance, group of, 17. 
Slavonic, 16. 
Teutonic, 18. 
Welsh, 16. 
Latin element in English, 56. 
Law words, 237. 
Literary Englisii, 47. 
London slang, 53. 
Max MOller, quotation, 
31-47, 92. 
Miners' words, 241. 
Modem scientific words, 126. 
Monosyllables, French, 81. 
MorU d: Arthur, 65. 
Names, corrupted from 
French, 173. 
double ethnic, 178-180. 
European place, 178. 
history in, 170. 
Indian, 171. 
modified in sound, 173. 
New England place, 
175. 
North American, 172. 
of birds. 122. 
of Connecticut towns, 
175. 
of rivers, 184. 
Southern place, 176. 
Spanish, 172-174. 
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 
25* 
Nicknames, 204. 
Norman conquest, 61. 
invasion, 41. 
Norse element in English, 98. 
Number of words in English, 
92. 
Onomatopceia, 124. 
Origin of language, 113, 
Pairs of words, 73-76. 
Periods of Latin introduc- 
tion, 57. 
Poetic quality of words, 88. 
Poetry in words, 118. 
Pjinters* words, 221. 
Pronunciation (note), 30. 
Proportion of Latin, 108. 
Public, or ordinary English, 
47. 
Rhymes, 84. 
Root **ar," 181. 
Sailors* words, 231. 
Sanskrit, 32. 
Set, 183. 
Shakspeare, quotation, 89, 
90, 144. 
Shoemakers' words, 222. 
Sir Tristram, 65. 
Skeafs Dictionary ^ 92. 
Slang. 50-53. 
Spelling, 29-155. 
St. Albans y Book of, 65. 
Steam-engine, 220. 
Suffixes, 97. 
Surnames from personal 
traits, 210. 
increase of, 212. 
»— local, 205. 
Surnames, occupative, 208. 
percentage, 212. 
total number of, 213. 
Synonyms, 74. 
Words, Arabic, 102. 
branching of, 129. 
builders', 224. 
Celtic, 46-51. 
changes in meaning, 
158. 
character of Romance, 
87. 
Dutch, 106. 
— - expressing mental states, 
1 20. 
founded on metaphors, 
115. 
Greek, 107. 
Hebrew, 105. 
hunting, 66. 
hybrid, 93. 
imitative, 123. 
kitchen, 52. 
Latin, 56. 
modem scientific, 126. 
Norman-French, 72. 
Norse, 98. 
of astrology, 241. 
of the trades, 222. 
pairs of, 77. 
per cent, of Latin, 108. 
poetry in, n8. 
printers*, 221. 
professional, 237. 
record changes of 
thought, 169. 
rhythm of English, 44. 
sailors*, 231. 
society, 66. 
value of study of, 5. 
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INDEX OF WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS 
EXPLAINED. 
Abominable, 141. 
Acorn, 152. 
Admiral, 104* 
Adventurer, 166. 
Affront, 161. 
Agere, 13% 
Alchemy, 103. 
Alcohol, 103. 
Alembic, 103. 
Algebra, 103. 
Alkali, 103, 
Allow, 165. 
Alms, 59. 
Amazement, 165. 
Amazon, 141. 
Ambition, 160. 
Ampersand, 166. 
Andiron, 152. 
Anse de Cousins, 149. 
Antic, 160. 
Apace, 152. 
Apostle, 59. 
Ascendant, 242. 
Aspect, 242. 
Atonement, 239. 
Attention, 119. 
Auspicious, 242. 
Average, 163. 
Aye, 99. 
Baggage, 51. 
Baie de Liivre, 173. 
Baie des Espoirs, 173. 
Bailey, 59. 
Barker, 209. 
Beak, 53. 
Beatan, 138. 
Beefsteak, 133. 
Belfry, 164. 
Bellerophon, 147, 
Beorgan, 138. 
Binnacle, 233. 
Bishop, 59. 
Blawan, 138. 
Boblo, 173. 
Bois Blanc, 173. 
Bottom, 206. 
Bound, 99. 
Bow, 233. 
Bowline, 233. 
Brace, 64. 
Brash, 226. 
Brick, 53. 
Brown Willy, 149. 
Brynen, 138. 
Bud, 119. 
Bunker, 210. 
Bume, 206. 
Business, 167, 
Butler, 208. 
Bye, loi. 
Calc, 59. 
Calipers, 168. 
Candidate, i6a 
Canter, 168. 
Carmine, 73. 
Carpenter, 51. 
Castra, 57. 
Ceapian, 138. 
Cester, 57. 
** Cheese it," 53. 
Chester, 58. 
Cholera, 241. 
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WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS EXPLAINED. 253 
Church, 60. 
Cinder, 218. 
Cipher, 104. 
Clerc, 59. 
Clough, 206. 
Cobb, 206. 
Cobbler, 222. 
Cock, 153. 
Colonia, 58. 
Combe, 205. 
Compassion, 12a 
Compliment, 140. 
Comprehension, 120. 
Conception, 119. 
Condign, 152. 
Conjunction, 242. 
Consider, 242. 
Contemplate, 242. 
Courage, 120. 
Course, 233. 
Court-cards, 147. 
Crank, 128. 
Crayfish, 147. 
Credo, 137. 
Crimson, 73. 
Crouch, 206. 
Crucible, 229. 
Cunning garUi, 147. 
Curmu^eon, 143. 
Daisy, ii8. 
Dandelion, 147. 
Davits, 233. 
Dead Man, 149. 
Defy, 137. 
Den, 205. 
Depart, 165. 
Devil, 147. 
Dico, 137. 
Dilapidated, 11. 
Dirge, 164. 
Disaster, 242. 
Do, 136. 
Dog-cheap, 153. 
Dozy, 226. 
Drunk, 167. 
Duco, 136. 
Equipage, 148. 
Ey, 206. 
Fast, 99. 
Fiery, 123. 
Fiord, loi. 
Fitful Head, 147, 
Flag, 99. 
Flail, 235. 
Ford, 206. 
Forecastle, 232. 
Fork, 72. 
Frank, 158. 
Free, 159. 
Freemantle, 210. 
Frontispiece, 137. 
Gal, 179. 
Gambler, 166. 
Gangrene, 241. 
Geranium, 118. 
Ghost, 116. 
Gibraltar, 104. 
Gimbals, 233. 
God, 147. 
Graeci, 181. 
Gnunmercy Park, 148. 
Haberdasher, 147. 
Hadlyme, 175. 
Hagenes, 150. 
Hale, 99. 
Ham, 207. 
Hangnail, 148. 
Harwinton, 175. 
Hash, 227. 
Hatch, 227. 
Hate, 120. 
d by Google 
254 WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS EXPLAINED. 
Ha)rward, 209. 
Hessians, 148. 
Himalaya, 118. 
Hirondelle, 147. 
Holt, 206. 
** Hook it," 53. 
Howard, 209. 
Humanities, 160. 
Ibrahim Pasha, 147. 
Idea, 120. 
Incentive, 149. 
Influence, 242. 
Ink, 221. 
Insult, 161. 
Jerusalem, 148. 
Jointer, 228, 
*• Kick the bucket," 53. 
Kidder, 208. 
King, 147. 
Last, 223. 
Latimer, 208. 
Lea, 205. 
Leash, 65. 
Legend, 145. 
Le Tour Sans Venin, 148. 
Loony, 122. 
Lunacy, 122. 
Ly, 2oi6. 
Lynch, 206. 
Magdeburg, 149. 
Maidenhead, 149. 
Maidstone, 149. 
Mallow, 118. 
Mariposa, 142. 
Marquis, 69. 
Marshall, 69. 
Masher, 53. 
Maul-stick, 147. 
Memory, 121. 
Modest, 1 20. 
Much, 143. 
Nasturtium, 119. 
Nice, 162. 
Noble, 69. 
Nott, 210. 
Old Man, 149. 
Palmer, 209. 
Panther, 144. 
Passion, 120. 
Peel, 2IO. 
Phantomnation, 150. 
Picketwire, 173. 
Pie, 142. 
Pigeon English, 167. 
Pilatus, Mount, 145, 
Pilgrim, 209. 
Pink, 118. 
Plaid, 52. 
Plough's tail, 235. 
Policy, 163. 
Pomfret, 174. 
Porter, 209. 
Pose, 131. 
Post, 131. 
Posthumous, 164. 
Prairie, Dippertree, 173. 
Precipitate, la 
Preface, 137. 
Presbyter, 59. 
Priest, 59. 
Quad, 221. 
Quadrangle, 131. 
Quadrille, 131. 
Quadroon, 131. 
Quadruped, 131, 
Quaint, 162. 
Quarry, 64, 131. 
d by Google 
WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS EXPLAINED. 255 
Quart, 131. 
Quarters, 232. 
Quarto, 131. 
Rencontre, 173. 
Rive, 228. 
Romance, 160. 
Rosemary, 118. 
Ross, 206. 
Russell, 210. 
Sacksmith, 208. 
Sale, 206. 
Salt-cellar, 143. 
Score, 135. 
Scudder, 208. 
Scutcheon, 63. 
Shaw, 205. 
Shear, 135. 
Sheriff, 237. 
Shirt, 135. 
Shuttle-cock, 147. 
Sirloinp, 152. 
Skilagalee, 173. 
Slag, 218. 
Slang, 127. 
Slug-horn, 144. 
Smith, 217. 
Soo, 173. 
Sparrow-grass, 147. 
Spend, 165. 
Spirit, 116. 
Splay, 165. 
Sport, 165. • 
Squad, 131. 
Squadron, 131. 
Stack, 133. 
Stake, 133. 
Stall, 235. 
Stamwicic, 175. 
Stick, 132. 
Stock, 133. 
Stoker, 133. 
Stone-blind, 143. 
St. Oreste, 150. 
Strata, 58. 
Stratfield, 175. 
Street, 58. 
Stunt, 226. 
Surly, 152. 
Surround, i6i. 
Sutherland, 118. 
Swell, 128. 
Sykes, 206. 
Sympathy, 120. 
Talents, 121. 
Tango, 136. 
Tap, 224. 
Tarpaulin, 162. 
Tartars, 140, 148. 
Temper, 12 1. 
Temperature, I2i, 
Think, 121. 
Thorp, 205. 
Tick, 132, 
Ticket, 132. 
Ton, 207. 
Trivial, 161. 
Twig, 53. 
Upstart, 151. 
Vallum, 58. 
Venison, 64. 
Weal, 53. 
Welch, 53. 
Welcher, 179. 
Whole, 99. 
Wintonbury, 175. 
Wormwood, 154. 
Writh, 240. 
Writhe, 240. 
Wylen, 53. 
Zero, 104. 
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