f t-
Significant Etymology
Significant Etymology
or
Roots, Stems, and Branches of the English Language
BY
THE VERY REV.
JAMES MITCHELL, M.A., D.D.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
M C M V I 1 1
All Rights reserved
PREFACE.
THIS book is simply what it professes to be, a collection and explanation of the significant etymologies of the English language. It is not written for philologists, but for intelli- gent and thoughtful men and women who are interested in the study of their own language, and of the sources from which it is derived. I have called it " Significant " Etymology, because only those roots are given which throw light upon the signification of the words derived from them. To quote a word from German, for example, of the same sound and of the same meaning as our own, is not signifi- cant etymology, but insignificant and useless, unless for comparative philology ; and besides, it is just as likely that the German word has been taken from the English as the English from the German. In every case, however, where the original word helps us to understand the meaning of an English word better, or shows us how it has come to bear its present meaning, I have endeavoured to trace the etymology clearly step by step through the written records of even past centuries, until its origin has been found in the fixed form of a parent language.
I do not claim originality for the etymologies I have
VI PREFACE.
given, otherwise they would be of very little value, but I have traced them with care through all the changes of letters, sounds, and meanings which they have undergone down to the present day. The Dictionaries and other books in many languages to which I have been indebted are far too numerous to be mentioned here or referred to in the notes, for there are very few books bearing on the subject which I have not consulted, and to which I am not more or less indebted ; while in many cases I have used the very definitions which their authors have given of the words in question. In several cases I have seen reason to differ from other etymologists, but I have done so without any affectation of timidity ; and in many cases where I have had to decide between conflicting etymologists, I have always assigned what seem to me good reasons for my preference.
While I cannot claim credit for the originality of the assigned etymologies, I do claim credit for the originality of the method in which the words are arranged — viz., in groups, according to the different subjects of which they treat, or from which they are taken. In all the etymologi- cal books in our language, words are classified and arranged either according to the languages from which they are derived, according to the laws under which the changes have taken place, or according as they have narrowed or broadened in meaning, or improved or deteriorated in sense ; but this is the first time, so far as I know, and most certainly in English, where, without overlooking altogether these methods of classification, they have been arranged in an orderly manner, beginning with words connected with the universe at large ; then the heavenly bodies ; the earth, its two great domains of land and water; the mineral,
PREFACE. Vll
vegetable, and animal kingdoms ; man, his bodily structure, including food, clothing, and habitation, his mental powers, his moral faculties, and his spiritual nature. From tests applied, it has been found that in grouping words in this way a special interest is not merely awakened but main- tained in their study ; and that in thus dealing with a whole group of words at one time, a naturally dry subject is invested with a fresh charm and a deeper meaning.
As I have endeavoured to stick to my text throughout, and have given the etymologies of the words which were connected with the special subject of each chapter, I have in the notes at the foot of the different pages given the most important English words, whatever their subject, derived from the root words quoted in the text. These words referring to so many different subjects, being in the notes, do not interfere with the thread of the chapter, and wherever necessary their signification is explained, for the purpose of showing how their meaning came to be derived from that of the root word.
For many valuable illustrations in the notes I am in- debted to the readable Dictionary of Mr Milne, while throughout the whole volume in addition to a multitude of other authorities, I have been greatly helped by such recent works as those of Professor Skeat, Murray's great English Dictionary, now drawing towards a close, and ' "Words and their Ways in English Speech,' by the American Professors Greenough and Kittredge.
JAMES MITCHELL.
EDINBURGH, 14 ABERCROMBY PLACE, February 1908.
CONTENTS.
WORDS CONNECTED WITH
CHAP.
I. THE UNIVERSE ..... II. THE HEAVENLY BODIES
III. THE EARTH .....
IV. THE WATER ..... V. THE LAND .....
VI. THE MINERAL KINGDOM
VII. THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM
VIH. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM ....
IX. MAN IN GENERAL ....
X. HIS BODILY STRUCTURE
XI. HIS HEALTH, SICKNESS, DISEASE, AND DEATH
XH. HIS CLOTHING .....
XIII. HIS FOOD .....
XIV. HIS DWELLING ..... XV. HIS MENTAL FACULTIES
XVI. HIS SPOKEN LANGUAGE
XVII. HIS WRITTEN LANGUAGE
XVIII. CITY LIFE . . . ...
XIX. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
XX. NUMBERS .
XXI. DIVISIONS OF TIME ....
XXII. MONEY .
1-2
3-21
22-30
31-48
49-51
52-56
57-69
70-106
107-120
121-132
133-152
153-171
172-191
192-201
202-206
207-230
231-254
255-268
269-274
275-281
282-292
293-311
X CONTENTS.
XXIII. GOVERNMENT, ETC. ..... 312-330
XXIV. THE ARMY ...... 331-340
XXV. AMUSEMENTS ...... 341-352
XXVI. OCCULT SCIENCES ..... 353-357
XXVII. THE DRAMA . . . . . . 358-371
xxvni. MUSIC ....... 372-376
XXIX. HIS MORAL NATURE ..... 377-409
XXX. HIS SPIRITUAL NATURE .... 410-447
INDICES 449-479
CONTEACTIONS.
AS Anglo-Saxon.
Dan Danish.
Dut Dutch.
P French.
Gael Gaelic.
Ger German.
Gr Greek.
Goth Gothic.
Icel Icelandic.
It Italian.
L Latin.
ME Middle English.
OE Old English.
OF Old French.
OH. Ger.... Old High German.
Port Portuguese.
Prov Proven9al.
Sp Spanish.
Sans Sanscrit.
ERRATA.
P. 15, 1. 20, far " tempo " read " temno. "
„ 55, L 29, for "gamem" read "gamein."
,, 65, 1. 12, for " droays" read "drosos."
„ 69, 1. 3, for " is " read " are. "
,, 69, 1. 8, for " vermuth " read " wermuth."
„ 86, 1. 23, for " rhin " read " rhis. "
„ 96, 1. 14, for "Gr." read "Ger."
,, 101, 1. 31, for "pelikan" read "pelekan."
„ 101, 1. 32, for "pelicos" read "pelekus."
,, 123, note, for "invidis " read " invidia. "
„ 139, 1. 22, for "tropho" read "trophe."
,, 141, 1. 33, for " empeirekos " read " empeirikos."
„ 142, 1. 21, for " to dry "read "dry."
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
CHAPTEK I.
THE UNIVERSE.
THIS word, which includes all things both in the heavens and on the earth, the whole system of created things (lit. turned into one or combined into one whole), is from the L. universum (composed of units,1 one, and verto,2 verti, versum, verier e, to turn). The word nature is frequently used in the same sense both in Latin authors and by ourselves. The word natura (from nascor* natus, nasci, to
1 From unus (gen. unlus) we have one, alone (all = quite, and one), unit, unite, unity, unison, one single sound, unanimous (animus, mind), of one mind, unicorn, an imaginary animal with only one horn (L. cornu, a horn), unique (through the F.), unmatched, or the only one of its kind ; Unitarian, a believer in one God, but not in the doctrine of the Trinity ; onion, also through F. oignon, from L. unio, as having but one bulb.
2 Verio and its participle supply many words — such as version, turn- ing from one language into another ; to be versed in or highly skilled in it ; versant with it ; vertebrae, the
joints in the backbone, whereby we are able to turn.; vertigo, a dizzi- ness or turning in the head ; and to animadvert is to turn the mind to, and generally in an unfavourable sense, as to criticise ; but to advert is to turn to ; to avert is to turn away. We have also convert, divert, invert, pervert, revert, subvert.
8 From this verb nascor, through the F., we derive naive (for na- tive), meaning artless and natural. For the F. word naivete there is great need ; and it is therefore to be wished that it were disencum- bered of its diaeresis, its accent, and its italics. Nascent passions are
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
be born) is used by Cicero for what we call the universe. " Nature is but a name for an effect whose cause is God." Of this universe it is but a very small part we know, or with which we have even a slight acquaintance.
those just beginning to grow. Our native land is the land of our birth. Nation also is from the same source. Our natal day is the day of our birth, or its anniversary ; and the country of Natal was so called from having been discovered by the Portuguese on the Feast of the
Nativity 1497. The Nativity gener- ally signifies the birthday of our Lord. We have also innate, in- born, and cognate, proceeding from the same stock ; while a naturalist is one who studies animals, plants, or other departments of natural history.
CHAPTER II.
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
THE Solar system is that alone of which we know anything. Men have from the earliest times been familiar with the sun, moon, and stars. The Sun, which is the source of light and heat to our system, derives its name from the AS. sunne, an old word of unknown etymology, but possibly from the Aryan root su, to give life. The Latin word is Sol. Cicero derives it from L. solus, alone, as if it dwelt in solitary majesty ; and Milton in ' Paradise Lost,' IV. 33, seems to have adopted the same derivation, as in Satan's address to the Sun he says —
" O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the god Of this new World — at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads — to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun ! to tell thee how I hate thy beams."
We have only two words derived from Sol — viz., the word solar, applied to the system of which our sun is the centre, and also to the solar plexus in anatomy, a great plexus of sympathetic nerves supplying the intestines, and the word solstice, which indicates that point where the sun is farthest from the Equator, and seems to stand still (L. solstitium — from sol, the sun, and sisto, to make to stand, from L. sto, stare, to stand).
The Moon plays a far more important part than the Sun in questions of Etymology and Grammar. It receives the name of
4 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
the Moon, lit. the " measurer " of time, from the AS. word mona, found in all the Teutonic languages, also in L. mensis, Gr. mene, Sans, mas, and all from the root ma, to measure. It was for our forefathers the distinctive attribute of this one of the heavenly bodies that it enabled them to measure time ; and the word which they used to mark it — its name, in fact — was Moon ; and so among all nations the revolution of the moon has been employed as a measure of duration. From her first appearance, or from new moon to new moon again, is a month — a lunar month, a moonth, from AS. monath, from mona, the moon. I have just used the word lunar here, which reminds me that things may have many attributes, but that all people are not equally impressed by each, so that with different people the same thing will have different names. The forefathers of the Latin race seem to have been most impressed with the brilliancy of this heavenly body, and this brightness determined the name which they gave, luna or lu(c)na, from lux, lucis, light. It is the same process in each case — the selection of an attribute, and then some form of such attribute, to serve as a name for the thing. Now, consider the case of a word that has so arisen. The object to which it belongs, if it still remains for the users of the word to exercise their minds on, may present itself to them in a different light from that in which it presented itself to the origin- ators of the word, just as in earlier times it may have struck different people differently. For us the moon is not specially the measurer of time; it is rather as the earth's attendant that we think of it, and so to us the moon suggests a different idea, so much so that we can use it of a body which stands to another in a relation like that of the moon to the earth. We can speak of Jupiter's moons, though in this case the original idea of measurement has no place. The connection between word and thing is such that it does not restrict to the latter the application of the former. There has been an attempt made to derive the word luna from the L. verb lunare, to bend, and to suggest that it has been so named from the bent, crescent -shaped appearance of the new moon. The fact is, however, that the word lunare is derived from the word
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
luna itself. Virgil, ^Eneid, I. 490, speaks of "pelta lunata," a light, half-moon-shaped shield. Milton, from its crescent shape, speaks of the moon as " horned," but the " crescent " is the more common name, from the Latin cresco, crevi, cretum, crescere,1 to increase, as it goes on increasing till the full moon, and the crescent is the symbol of Mohammedanism, as the Cross is of Christianity. There is a remarkable difference of opinion as to the gender of the sun and moon. Classic mythology made the moon feminine. She is Diana, a huntress, with her horn or crescent, the sister of Apollo, the sun. From this many poetical comparisons, as well as puerile conceits, have been formed ; and the continual change in her appearance has been compared to the supposed fickleness or inconstancy of woman. Though we have retained the Teutonic name of this luminary, we consider her poetically as a female ; and we apply to her all the classical allusions, because we have long laid aside the Northern Mythology and taken as our pattern the poets of Greece and Eome. In those Gothic languages which still retain the distinctions of gender, such as Saxon, Danish, and German, the moon is masculine ; and in the mythology of Scandinavia he was the husband of Tuesca or the sun, which in those languages is feminine. In some of them, such as Danish or Dutch, the word is still spelt " man," so that " the man in the moon," who amused our childhood, now, long after we have left the nursery, appears again on the page, and may to some extent account for the sex which it continues to maintain among the Teutonic tongues.
In the days when the stars were observed only by the naked eye, and when no optical instruments had been invented, those stars which seemed to wander about, while the other stars seemed fixed, were called planets (F. plan&te, from Gr. planetes, a wanderer, from plando, to make to wander). More accurate information was
1 From cres&re, to grow, we have also accretion, adding to. Minerals, for instance, augment by accretion, not by growth ; concretion is a mass ; concrete is opposed to abstract ; de-
crease, to grow less ; increase, to become, or to make, greater or more ; increment, the amount of increase, and excrescence, any unnatural growth.
6
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
afforded by the invention of the telescope (from the Gr. tele,1 far off, and skopeo or skeptomai? to look at or view).
The greater the power we give to the telescope, the more stars we bring into view, so that their number is indeed beyond cal- culation 3 — " without number, numberless." The stars are more numerous in some parts of the heavens than in others — most of all, perhaps, in that luminous band passing across the heavens called by the ancients the Galaxy, or Milky Way — through F. and L., from Gr. galaksias (gala, galdktos, milk), akin to L. lac, lactis, milk ; and the Latins called it the Via Lactea, its appearance being somewhat like a stream of milk.
1 Tele, Gr. " at a distance," forms several compounds : telegraph, tele- phone, telepathy (Gr. pathos, feel- ing), thought-reading or mind-read- ing, and teleology, the doctrine of the final causes of things.
1 We have from skopeo, scope, the end which the author of a book had in view — or room or space for action or for our talents, &c. We have kaleidoscope (from Gr. kalos, beautiful, and eidos, an appearance), the name given to an optical toy in which we see an endless variety of beautiful colours and forms ; microscope (from mikros, small), stereoscope (stereos, solid), stethoscope (stethos, the breast), epi- scopacy (from epi, over), the over- seeing of the Church, for the Bishops (episcopal) are the overseers ; and from skeptomai, sceptic, sceptical, scepticism, looking about without making up one's mind. The word horoscope signifies an observation of the heavens, or the time of a person's birth, by which the astrol- oger predicted the events of his life — viz., by the aspect of the stars at the time of birth. It is gener- ally taken for granted that the word comes to us through the F. and L., from the Gr. horoscopos (hora, an hour, and scopeo, to ob- serve) ; but this does not seem to be the case, as the old F. word heur
(masc.) does not signify an hour as F. heure (fern.) does, but fortune, chance, fate, luck ; and the nonchalant Frenchman persists in talking about his bonheur and his malheur, which, of course, most people recognise as being nothing else than a good hour or a bad hour. They have also heureuse, fortunate, and malheureuse, unfortunate ; but when we look more closely into these words we find that they have nothing in common with the feminine heure, an hour, but from F. heur from the L. augurium, augury, which became in the popular L. agurium, whence ailr, eiir, and then it came to be written as it is now, heur, by a false etymology, as if from hora instead of augurium. (See p. 16.)
3 How few think when they use the word calculation that it is de- rived from the L. word calculus, a pebble, because pebbles or small stones were anciently used for this purpose, the word calculus being the diminutive of the L. calx, cakis, lime or chalk, from which we have calcareous, that which contains lime, or has the qualities of lime ; and calcine, which originally means to have a substance like lime, or to burn it as in a kiln, and now generally to reduce anything to ashes.
THE HEAVENLY BODIES. 7
It has been found convenient by astronomers to regard the whole of the visible stars as forming figures, in order that the situation of any particular star may be readily located and described by one person to another. These figures are called constellations, and signify a number of stars taken together — from con, together, and L. stella, a star. The whole expanse of the sky has thus been mapped into forms of men, women, beasts, fishes, and other objects, such as the great bear, Orion, &c.
The twelve consolations are called the twelve signs of the Zodiac, an imaginary belt in the heavens (about eight degrees on each side of the ecliptic), so named from Gr. zodion, the diminutive of Gr. zoon,1 an animal — from Gr. zoo, I live, and zoe, life. The name of Zodiac was given to this imaginary belt because these twelve constellations were named for the most part after animals or living creatures, such as Aries, the ram ; Taurus, the bull ; Gemini, the twins ; Cancer, the crab, &c., which are represented by different signs which do not require the word to be written or printed, as T which stands for Aries, and 5 for Taurus, and so with the others. The word Zodiacal (lit. the circle of animals) is from the Gr. word zodiaJcos, of animals, and kuTdos, a circle, and is generally applied to the luminous tract which is seen above the sun at sunrise or sunset, mostly in the tropics, and supposed to be the glow of meteors revolving round it, and called the Zodiacal light.
Astronomy, which is the law or science of the stars or heavenly
1 From this word zoon we have I the bodies of other animals, and the word zoology (logos, a discourse), absorbing their food. The word
that branch of natural history which treats of animals, describes their structure and habits, and classifies them. According to recent zool-
zoophyte (from Gr. pliyton, a plant) is a term now loosely applied to many plant-like animals, as sponges, corals, and the like. Nitrogen is
ogists, there are in the animal king- ; called azote (a, priv., and zoe, life),
dom six types or plans of structure, according to one or other of which all known animals are formed. The lowest of these types is that of the sub-kingdom protozoa, first animals (from Gr. protos, first, and zoa, animals) — consisting of a transpar- ent gelatinous mass with a nucleus living in water, or in some cases on
without life, because it will not serve for breathing, or as an aid to support life without the oxygen it dilutes ; and thus substances which contain nitrogen are sometimes called azotised (nitrogenous) com- pounds. Entozoa are parasitical animals living inside of (entos) other animals.
8
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
"bodies, from the Gr. astron, a star, and nomos,1 a law, was preceded in its infant stage by Astrology, which was occupied chiefly in foretelling events from the positions of the heavenly bodies (from Gr. astron, a star, and logos,2 knowledge). We have already men- tioned two words for stars, L. stella and Gr. astron, neither of which gives rise to many English compounds, except those men- tioned. The word "star" itself is a general Indo-European word. The English form, ME. sterre, from AS. steorra, is cognate with Ger. stem and L. stella (short for steruld).
Besides having the native word, we have traces of the belief in the evil influences which the stars might exercise in the word dis-
1 From the Gr. word nomos, a law, we have many words, such as antinomian (anti, against), denying that the moral law is binding on Christians, and antinomy, the op- position of one rule or law to an- other rule or law, and autonomy (Gr. autos, self), the power or right of self-government, and Deuteron- omy (Gr. deuteros, second), the second giving of the law by Moses, the fifth book of the Bible, and economy (Gr. oikos, a house) meant originally the management and arrangement of a household, but gradually came to mean the frugal management of a family ; and now it is used for frugality in general, so that when we speak of economy we generally mean thrift, and to economise is to manage money mat- ters so as to effect a saving. Gast- ronomy, not so closely connected with astronomy, perhaps, as the Ald- erman supposed, who, having come somewhat early one evening for one of the great civic feasts, while wait- ing in the street outside the Guild- hall before going in to the great banquet, was accosted by one of his friends as he stood beside the lamp- post with the question, "Are you studying astronomy?" replied, as he thought, cuttingly, "No, I am studying gastronomy." But if his answer was not closely connected with astronomy, it was closely con-
nected with himself, for aldermen are supposed — and with good reason — to be grand masters of the science of good eating, which gastronomy literally means — the art or science of good eating, from Gr. gaster, the stomach, and nomos, a law.
2 The names of a great many sciences end in olpgy. Thus chron- ology treats of time (chronos) ; en- tomology, of insects (entomon) ; etymology, of words (etymos) ; geol- ogy, of the crust of the earth (ge) ; ichthyology, of fishes (ichthus) ; met- eorology, of atmospheric phenom- ena (meteoros) ; mythology, of an- cient fabulous stories (mythos) ; ornithology, of birds (ornis, ornithos); pathology, of diseases (pathos) ; phil- ology, of language generally (philos, fond of) ; physiology, of animals and plants (phusis) ; psychology, of the human soul (psyche) ; theology, of God and divine things (theos) ; zoology, of animals (zoori). We have besides these, from logos, logomachy, a dispute about words (Gr. machd- mai, I fight), apologue, dialogue, decalogue, epilogue, prologue, mon- ologue. We have also apology, a defence or justification of something that has been assailed, and cata- logue, a list set down in order, enumerating particulars for distinc- tion. We have at least three end- ing in alogy — analogy, mineralogy, and genealogy.
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
9
aster (from L. dis, " away from," contrary," and aster, a star), and so with the phrase " ill starred " (from under the influence of an unlucky star, and signifying unlucky). The expression "in the ascendant," too, is self-interpreting, inasmuch as it is a reminder of the belief that whatever star was appearing above the horizon at the time of any one's birth, it had a commanding influence over that person's life. It is not so obvious at first that our common word " aspect " was used also as an astrological metaphor. Aspect is from the L. aspectus, aspicio, to look towards ; and the aspect means the situation of one planet with respect to another, as seen from the earth. The expression, then, " to view " or " to present " a thing under a favourable aspect proves this to be so, the figure becoming a different one when we are said to regard a thing in different aspects. The " aspect " of the heavens is the way in which the planets look at each other and at the earth.
Not less striking is the use of words which imply a direct influ- ence of the heavenly bodies upon the fate of each individual man. The word influence itself, implies a belief in such superstitions, as they refer to the influence of the planets upon our fate, the flowing of their virtue into our lives (L. influere). The old astrologers believed that there escaped from the stars a certain fluid which acted on man and things. Boileau employs the word in its primitive sense, when in his { Art Poe'tique ' he speaks of the sweet influence secretly exercised by the heavens on the poet at his birth. The Italian word Influenza makes allusion to a somewhat analogous belief. Although it is now with us the name of an epidemic catarrh, it was at first supposed to be caused by the planets. It was at one time believed that the star under which a man was born affected his temperament, making him for life of a disposition grave or gay, lively or severe ; and our language perpetuates the memory of this belief. At the same time it presents traces of an obsolete system of physiology which divided the human body into solids, liquids,1
1 Liquid is derived from the L. comes the verb liqueaco, to become
liquidus, from liqueo, liqui or licui, fluid or liquid, to melt, also to
liqutre, to be liquid or fluid — applied grow clear. From liqueo, we have
to the sea and to water generally also liquefy and liquefaction. To
— also to be clear. From it also liquidate debts or demands is to
10
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
and what might be called aeriform substances. Of liquids, there were thought to be four, blood, phlegm, bile, and black bile, or melancholy ; three of these we recognise as matters of fact — but the fourth, the black bile, was purely imaginary. These four liquids were known as humours (humor being the Latin word for liquid), and health was thought to depend on the maintenance of a just proportion among them. This balance or commixture of the humours was known as a man's temperament — i.e., his mixture (from L. tempero, to mix), or as his complexion (from a L. word meaning combination, derived from complectere — con, to- gether, and plecto, to weave or twine). Thus, if a man had more blood than any other humour in his system, he was said to be of a sanguine temperament or complexion (from L. sanguis,1 blood); if more bile, then of a bilious temperament or complexion (from L. bilis, .bile) ; if more phlegm, of a phlegmatic temperament, and if more melancholy,2 or black bile, of a melancholy temperament
settle or adjust them so as to ascer- tain and wind up a business. We speak of the liquidation of the affairs of a company, and the person who does this is called a liquidator. The notion of liquidation is that of making clear, especially the clearing or settling of an account, or adjust- ing the affairs of a bankrupt estate. A liquor is any liquid drink, but especially any drink as beer, wine, &c., containing alcohol. Liqueurs are preparations containing spirits with different fruits, spices, &c. Salts, &c., are said to deliquesce, or to be deliquescent, when they absorb moisture from the air and become liquid. Thus spontaneous liquefaction in the air is called deliquescence. Prolix (L. prolixus, stretching too far, extended, from pro, forth, and lixus (from L. verb liquor), to flow) means that which flows forth beyond bounds. A prolix statement is one of wearisome length and needless minuteness. Warbur- ton speaks of " elaborate and studied prolixity in proving such points as nobody calls in question."
He must have been prolix indeed, who, pleading before a judge for six hours, and apologising for encroach- ing on his lordship's time, brought down upon himself the rebuke — You have not only encroached on my time, but you have actually encroached on eternity !
1 From sanguis, sanguinis, blood, we have not only sanguine, mean- ing ardent, warm, hopeful in tem- perament, but sanguinary, as a sanguinary battle, one in which there has been much bloodshed, and consanguinity, blood-relation- ship, in contradistinction to affinity, which is relation by marriage : as Shakespeare asks, "Am I not con- sanguineous, am I not of her blood ? "
2 A person is said to be hypo- chondriacal — i.e., affected by de- pression of spirits, or melancholy, because in former days the hypo- chondria (Gr. hypo, under, and chondros, cartilage), the viscera that lie under the cartilage of the breast-bone, were supposed to be the seat of the disease. A valetu- dinarian is not much better. The
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
11
(from Gr. melas, melaina, melan, black, and chole, bile). If the temperament or balance of the humours was greatly disturbed, the result was distemper, that is, a variance from the proper mixture.
The names frequently given to different temperaments or dis- positions preserve more than a faint echo of the old belief that the planets governed our physical and moral constitution ; for we speak of a man as being of jovial, martial, saturnine, or mercurial temperament : jovial, as being born under the planet Jove or Jupiter, which was the most joyful star and happiest augury of all ; a warlike person was said to be of a martial disposition, — born, that is, under the planet Mars ; while a gloomy, severe person was said to be saturnine, — born, that is, under the influence of Saturn, or when he was in the ascendant, grave and stern as himself ; while another was called mercurial, or light-headed, as those born under the planet Mercury were accounted to be. A lunatic is the epithet applied to a madman, and generally implies that he is violent and dangerous. The word lunatic is derived from the L. word luna, the moon, and signifies moon-struck, from the belief then prevalent that the moon produced insanity. Both the sun and the moon were supposed to exercise a direct influence on those subjected to their rays, as seen in the words sun-stroke and moon-struck, and in the metrical version of Ps. cxxi. 6 :
" The moon by night thee shall not smite, nor yet the sun by day."
The word mania (from the L. and the Gr. mania, madness) is the same kind of madness as was formerly denoted by the word lunatic, when it was supposed to be connected with the moon. A mono- maniac (Gr. monos, and mania), is one in whom madness exists,
word valetudinarian, which we might naturally expect to mean one in rude and robust health, really has come to signify one in very infirm and delicate health. It is derived from the L. valeo, -ui, -ttum, -ere, to be well or in good health, to be strong in anything, and from the present part, valens we have the
word valiant. The L. valetudo just signified the constitution of the body, health whether good or bad, and latterly bad health, while the L. valetudinarius formed from this signified exclusively one who was sickly or ill, and the word valetu- dinarlum was the L. for a hospital or an infirmary.
12 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
chiefly in one particular subject, such as kleptomania (Gr. Meptes, a thief), a morbid impulse to steal, chiefly useless things, and dipsomania (Gr. dipsa, thirst), a thirst madness. Delirium is just the Latin word for madness, transferred into our own language. Literally it means out of the straight line, or out of the furrow in ploughing, and then out of one's senses. It is composed of the two Latin words, de, out of, and lira, a furrow. It is now applied to those who rave in mind and are disordered in intellect. The special form of it called delirium tremens, or the shaking madness, receives its name from the tremulous condition of the body or limbs which accompany the temporary insanity which is generally caused by habitual drunkenness. The L. tremens is from the verb tremo, to tremble, quiver, or shake. Melancholy, the imaginary fourth humour, has kept its name alive in medical science in melancholia, but the others survive only in popular language, in which we constantly use the old terms to describe different kinds of men, or different states of the mind or body. Thus a man may still be "good-humoured" or in a "bad humour," and we still speak of his bodily or mental disposition as his temperament. When we call a man sanguine, we revert, without knowing it, to the old medical theory that a preponderance of blood in his temperament made him hopeful. Similarly we call a man melan- choly, or phlegmatic, though we do not remember that the ideas we attach to these words go back to obsolete physiology. Com- plexion has a particularly curious history. Originally, as we have seen, it was a medical term synonymous with temperament. Since, however, the preponderance of one or another humour was sup- posed to manifest itself in the natural colour, texture, and appear- ance of the skin, especially of the face, complexion soon received the meaning which we now attach to it. Thus a learned and strictly technical term, of Latin origin, has been rejected from the vocabulary of science, and become purely popular. We have also preserved distemper, specialising it for diseases of dogs and other animals. Temper, however, which was a synonym of temperament, has taken a different course. We use it vaguely for "disposition," but commonly associate it in some way with irascibility. " Keep
THE HEAVENLY BODIES. 13
your temper," " he lost his temper," " ill-temper," show traces of the old meaning ; but in the colloquial " what a temper he has " — i.e., "what a bad temper he has" — the modified adjective idea remains, though no adjective is used, or " he is in such a temper " would never be referred to physiological science by one who did not know the history of the word. But we are not yet done with the history of the word humour. A diseased condition of any one of the four humours might manifest itself as an eruption of the skin, — hence such an eruption is still called a humour in common language. Again, an excess of one of the humours might make a man odd or fantastic in his speech and actions. Thus " humours " took the meaning of eccentric (meaning literally, "deviating from the centre," or having a different centre, Gr. ek, from, and kentron, whence L. centrum, centre), so that a humorous man was what we call in modern slang "a crank." The "Comedy of Errors," of which Ben Jonson is the best exponent, found material in carica- turing such eccentric persons. From this source the word humour has an easy development to that of a keen perception of the " odd " or "incongruous," and we thus arrive at the regular modern mean- ing of the word. It is certainly a long way from humour in the literature sense of " liquid " or " moisture," to humour in the sense in which that quality is so often associated with it, especially dry humour, and the etymology of this dry humour is humeo, to be moist ! Finally, the old physiology, as we have seen, ascribed to the human system certain volatile or aeriform substances, which were believed to flow through the arteries and to be, of a primary im- portance in all the processes of life. These were called spirits (L. spiritus, breath or air), and they fell into three classes, the natural, the vital, and the animal spirits. It is in unconscious obedience to this superannuated science that we use such words and phrases as high, low, good, or bad spirits — "high or low spirited," a spirited horse, a spiritless performance, and that we speak of one who is spontaneously merry as having a "great flow of animal spirits."
But the supposed influence of the stars on the human body, and on different temperaments, must not lead us away from the
14 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
important influence which they were in early ages supposed to exer- cise on human affairs, as is still manifested in many of our words. Not merely were the stars believed to exercise a great influence on the character of those who were born when particular stars were in the ascendant, but they were believed to reveal much regarding the future, to those who were skilled in interpreting the meaning of their conjunction.
We have already referred to the words for stars, stella and aster. But the Eomans had another word for a star — viz., sidus, sideris, pi. sidera, — which also appears in our language, at least in the word "consideration," and those connected with it. It comes from the L. verb considero, having the same mean- ing, composed of the two words, con, with, and sidera, the stars. Now, what is the connection between the stars and con- sideration in its proper meaning of careful, thoughtful, and minute observation and reflection ? This : that in the remote past, the Eomans and others, before making up their minds on any im- portant subject, or before undertaking any important enterprise, used to consult the stars. And in those days the man who said that he wanted to consider, really meant that he wanted to look at the stars, and by examination of their position ascertain whether they were propitious to his undertaking or not. By-and-by, with the progress of civilisation, such superstitious belief in the in- fluence of the stars died out, but the word remained ; and when now we say, and we say it every moment, " Let me consider," or " I must consider this matter," we are no more aware of our men- tioning anything in connection with the stars than I am aware that the ground on which I rest my feet while writing flies through space at the rate of thousands of miles an hour. We could scarcely find a better illustration of the meaning of the word, both in its past and present sense, than in Psalm viii. 3, " When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained," &c. So also in Psalm xli. 1, " Blessed is he that considereth the poor," and in Heb. iii. 1, "Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession," where the idea is not that of a hasty glance
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
15
but of a careful study. Most people, however, instead of con- sidering, conjecture, or form an opinion without full evidence or proof. The L. word conjedura (from conjicio, jeci, jectum, to throw together) is from con, together, and the root iac (as we see in the simple iacio or jacio 1), to throw. Conjecture, then, brings us back to the root iac, and means properly the action of " throw- ing together." At one time superstitious people, before trying to guess at something, used to throw together little stones, dice, or other things of the kind, and according to the way these objects fell they formed their opinions. A superstition this, not so very ancient after all, for we still find people frequently tossing up a shilling or a penny in order to have a basis for their opinion.
At the opposite extreme from conjecture is the word contem- plate, which is in meaning very much akin to consider, and connected with the same observation of the heavens. The L. verb contemplor, from which it is derived, signifies to fix upon a spot for observation, — hence to observe, gaze upon, and with the mind, meditate (meditari, or contemplate). The L. verb contemplor is composed of con, with, and L. templum^ (from Gr. temo, and tempo, to cut off), properly a piece or portion cut off: hence a space in the heavens, or on the earth, marked out by an augur with his staff within which to observe the position of the stars, the flight of birds, &c., his post of observation.
(anguis) was a name given to a ser- pent which was said to throw itself down from the trees upon its prey. In connection with jaculum we have the word jaculari, which means to throw, to dart off ; jaculatorius cam- pus was the field where the youths practised with arrows and spears. From this word jaculari, with the prefix e (out), we have the word ejaculate, which means properly to throw anything out of our breast, — as a short prayer which we speed as an arrow towards heaven.
2 From this we have our word temple — signifying a place cut off, set apart and separated from other places for meditation and contem- plation, chiefly for religious purposes.
1 From jacio, to throw or cast, we have many English words. Water jets out, the stream is a jet, a jetty is a kind of pier ; jut is another form of jet, part of a building, or a cape juts out; abject, cast off; adjective, a word thrown to a noun to modify its meaning ; dejection, ejection, injection, interjection, ob- jection, project, projection, rejec- tion, subject, subjection. Thus, however different in sound and meaning, these all are to be re- ferred to the root iac. This same root we meet with in other words which have an echo in English. Thus we have jaculum or iaculum, which means something to be thrown, an arrow, a dart. Jaculus
16
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
The Augurs, of whom we have been speaking in connection with the position of the stars, were priests of Borne who foretold future events, and interpreted the will of the gods, from the flight and singing and feeding of birds, and from the conjunction of the planets, from the nature of dreams, &c. They are said to have derived the name of Augur from L. avis, a bird, and the root gar, in L. gamre, to chatter (whence garrulous and garrulity), Sans, gir, speech. We still use the word in such expressions as, " it augurs well," or it is of " favourable augury " ; and as the Augurs were consulted before entering on any undertaking, we have still such expressions as the " inauguration of a building " for the opening of it, the making of a public exhibition of it for the first time, the formal commencement. There was a word very similar in origin and meaning — viz., auspex, ids (for avispex), one who fore- tells future events by the flight of birds (from avis, a bird, and o,1 to look at). The Augur and the Auspex originally differed
1 There are few Latin words which have given us more English words than this. We have species, an appearance of a particular kind, a class or order causing the same sensations to our sight ; to specify ; a specimen, that which is seen as a sample ; a spectacle is a show seen by the spectators, and a pair of spectacles are used to enable people to see more clearly. A spectre means an apparition visible to sight. To speculate is to take a view of any- thing with the mind, whence we have speculators, who are generally supposed to take a view according to fancy, instead of being guided by actual realities. The aspect of anything is the view given to us of it, and the word is applied to the countenance as exhibiting the feelings of the mind. Conspicuous is what is clear and easy to be seen — the prefix con implying that all can see it together. On the other hand, despicable and despise, signi- fying what is looked down upon, imply contempt and worthlessness.
Especially denotes what is most prominent and manifest to sight. Inspect means to look into, and an inspector is one who makes an in- spection. Circumspect means look- ing round on all sides, from L. circum, around, on every side. Per- spicuous — seeing through, meta- phorically applied to what is clear and easy to be seen through. A pro- spect is that which is seen spread out before us. Respectable is that which is worth looking back upon. A prospectus is supposed to supply a clear view of the subject of which it treats. A retrospect (from L. retro, backwards) is a review of our past life or anything that has gone before any particular event. To suspect is to mistrust, or to look at secretly, from sub, beneath. Sus- picious persons have a tendency to believe something unfavourable without adequate reason or proof. Respite comes from the same root, through the F., and signifies delay, on the ground of the necessity of looking again into the matter.
THE HEAVENLY BODIES. 17
in their range. The Augur had the more limited range, being con- fined to birds and to the Colleges of the Augurs ; but the Auspex in his range extended to the whole of nature, to lightning and other phenomena, and on public occasions was invited by the highest magistrates, and privately by many persons — and we thus speak of entertainments being held, or exhibitions being given, under the auspices of certain persons whose patronage would be beneficial. We also speak of an auspicious occasion, the word auspicious having gradually come to have exclusively a favourable meaning. The word omen had on the whole much the same signification, but is now more frequently used in an unfavour- able sense. It is a Latin word, and is regarded by some as a contraction for obmen (from Gr. opto, to see) ; by others as a contraction of osmen, that which is entered by the mouth (from os, oris, the mouth) ; while others think it was originally atismen, 11 that which is heard," from audire, to hear. The truth is, any- thing we see, or say, or hear, may be regarded as an omen, from which we may prophesy either good or bad. Gradually, however, it came to signify what was bad, and the word ominous now never signifies what is indicative of good, but only what is predictive of evil. If the omen was seen on the left side, it was regarded as unfavourable, hence sinister (lit. the left side) means unfavour- able. In Elizabethan English an omen from being a sign that foreshadows calamity is sometimes transferred to the calamity that is foreshadowed by the sign, as in Shakespeare's " prologue to the omen coming on." In this word omen, too, we- have the basis of the word abominable. The customary spelling of this word in old writers is abhominable, on the supposition that the true etymology was ab + homine — i.e., "apart from man," "repugnant to humanity," and meant " unbecoming a man," " inhuman." This was favoured by Augustine in one of his sermons. Hence also the independent formation abhominal used by Fuller and others, and in old English books it is often used in a sense corresponding to its supposed origin, nor has it as yet fully recovered its proper meaning. It is one of the many instances where words have been corrupted in orthography, and finally changed in meaning,
B
18 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
in consequence of the adoption of a mistaken etymology. Better scholarship has now restored it to its true orthography, and more nearly to its proper signification. It is evidently regularly formed from the Latin word abominor, itself derived from ab and omen. Abominable accordingly involves the idea of that which in a religious sense is profane and detestable, or, in a word, of evil omen ; and Milton never uses it, or the conjugate noun abomina- tions, except with reference to devilish, profane, or idolatrous ohjects.
We have said that the Auspices were taken from thunder and lightning as well as from other portents in the heavens, and yet how few people of the many who express their surprise by saying they are astonished, or astounded, have any idea that the word means thunderstruck, or struck hy lightning, which the L. word attonitus, from which these are derived, literally signifies, — tonitru being the L. word for thunder. From the same root also comes the word stun, as when we say he was stunned by the fall. To astonish was literally to " thunderstrike," and was once common in the physical sense of stun, as when Fluellen "astonished" Pistol by hitting him on the head with a cudgel. It was also used metaphorically for the extreme of terror or wonder, in paralysis of the faculties for the moment. A man who was astounded was in a kind of trance. But the word has gradually lost its force, and nowadays it is hardly more than an emphatic synonym for " to surprise " or " to excite wonder." The wonders excited by lightning then, however, were as nothing compared with the wonders excited by lightning now, when under the modern name of electricity it has become the great heating, lighting, communicating, and moving power of the world, for the electric flash which precedes the thunder is really the same substance as that by which we flash our messages, drive our cars, and light our hoiises and our streets. It was called elec- tricity from the Greek word electron, amber, because it was in amber that the property of attracting and repelling light bodies was first observed.
Portents, lit. stretching towards, from L. portendo, to stretch
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
19
forth (pro, forth, and tendo,1 to stretch), are signs indicating the future — which betoken or presage. They differ from omens, how- ever, in coming of their own accord, unlocked for, having never been classified into a science. Comets, for instance, were formerly unexpected visitors. They are heavenly bodies with eccentric orbits and luminous tails. These tails gave them their Greek name, Jcometes, long-haired, from Gr. home, the hair. They were then termed prodigies, that is, things thrust forward beyond the common order of nature — from prodigo (pro, forward, and ago,2
1 From tendo, tetendi, tensum, ten- der e, to stretch, we have to tend, to move or incline to move in a certain direction. We tender, put out, that is formally offer in pay- ment or satisfaction the amount of a debt or demand. A tender (for an attender) also means a small vessel attending a large one, carrying stores. A tendon is the sinew or hard end of the muscle which binds it to the bone. We speak of the tension or strain of a cord and of the tension or elastic force of the air. A tent is a portable lodge covered with canvas, and stretched and sustained by poles. To attend is to wait or follow upon another, so as to render him service. To tend a child is to take charge of it, to wait upon it. The sick require attendance, and a great man's attendants wait upon him. We attend, or give our attention, to a subject when we direct our minds specially to it. We are also said to pay our attentions to a person. We look or listen attentively. To contend is to strive, but in con- tention there is some contravening force, while in striving the upper- most idea is effort. Some men have contentious tempers. To distend is to expand or stretch out hollow bodies, and we speak not only of distension but of ex- tend and extension. A body is extensible in length as well as in bulk. The degree of its extension
is called its extent. We have also extensive, and intend, intention, and intent. There is also an intendant, or one who has the charge or oversight of some public business. Intense means strained to an extreme, and so with in- tenseness, intensity, and intensify. Ostensible, and ostentatious, and ostentation (from ostendo). To pretend is to put forward what is false, and a pretence is what is so put forward. We may make pretensions which are not well founded, and in this sense a man may be said to be pretentious. To subtend is to extend under, or be opposite to. To superintend is to have the care or oversight of. We have superintendents of the police or of public works, and we speak of a superintending Providence.
2 From ago we have active, agents, agile, counteract, enact, exact, prodigal, transact, — and from the frequentative of this verb, agito, we have agitate, cogitate (to think deeply), co, to- gether, and agito, to put a thing in motion. React is that which acts back again. Actuary, from the same word, but through low L. actuarius (one who writes deeds, from L. actus, done), now one who specially deals with the calculation of probabilities. The name is often applied to the manager of a savings bank, or to the manag- ing director of an insurance office.
20
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
egi, actum, agere, to do or drive). All prodigies were then evil portents, and especially those which expressed more directly the wrath of the gods. To presage, as the word implies, is very different Prcesagio (L.) is to foresee by sagacity (L. prce, before, and sagio, to perceive quickly), or from a knowledge of the laws of nature. Presages are such circumstances as a sage, or wise man, knows from experience to be the usual forerunners of cer- tain events. Prognostics are presented signs, by which a coming event may be rationally foretold or prognosticated, such as the symptoms by which an experienced physician judges of the re- covery or the approaching death of his patient. The judgment formed from these symptoms is, in medical language, the prog- nosis of the disease (Gr. prognosis — pro, before, and gnosis,1 know- ledge, from gignosco, to know).
The only other heavenly bodies of which we require to say anything are included among the portents, and are called meteors or shooting stars. They are minute bodies, which fall with pro- digious velocity from space into our atmosphere, and, after becom- ing incandescent 2 through the friction of the air, descend either as dust or sometimes as meteoric stones. The word meteor is Gr., and signifies literally that which is suspended in the air, ineteoron (from meta, beyond, and eora, anything suspended — from aeiro, to lift). Some of these meteors are called igneous, or fiery, such as falling stars, which ignite — that is, take fire (from L. ignis,
1 We have from this Greek word gnosis — gnostics (the philoso- phical dreamers of first century, and diagnosis (from dia, thor- ough), the thorough knowledge of what the disease is ; physiog- nomy, the discernment of man's natural disposition ; as well as gnomes, those imaginary beings residing in the interior of the earth, who were supposed to be able to reveal secret treasures. A gnome means also a misshapen dwarf. A gnomon is the style or pin of a dial, which by its shadow shows the hour of the day. It also
means an astronomical pillar to show by its shadow the height of the sun, &c., and also a figure in geometry, like a carpenter's square. 2 From candeo, to shine, to be white, to inflame, we have candid, meaning clear and open, and can- dour, which can bear the light and itself shines brightly, — both words being used in a metaphorical sense. Hence also candles, that give light, and a chandler, who makes or sells them. We have also the word can- didate, as we shall see later on, be- cause candidates among the ancient Romans wore a white toga.
THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
21
a fire) — when they fall into our atmosphere. And so we keep up the Latin word in English when we call by the name of the ignis fatuus (ignis, fire, and fatuus, foolish) the luminous meteor that flits about in the air a little above the surface of the earth, chiefly in marshy places or near stagnant waters, familiarly called Will-o'- the-Wisp and Jack-o'-Lantern, — applied also to anything fanciful, unreal, or unattainable.
22
CHAPTEE III.
THE EARTH.
WE have spoken of what takes place when meteors encounter the atmosphere of the earth, and we may at this stage make the transit from the other stars to earth itself, passing slowly through the intervening space, being led from meteor to meteorology, to which it has given its name. No doubt meteorology at first in- cluded meteors, but in more recent times it has come to signify the science which treats of the atmosphere and its phenomena. The atmosphere is the air that surrounds the globe (from Gr. atmos, air, and spJiaira, a sphere, ball, or globe), and is the name given to the gaseous envelope which surrounds the earth, and which by the action of gravity presses heavily on its surface. This pressure is one of its most important properties, especially in its influence on the human frame. This atmosphere is believed from experiments which have been made to extend to about a hundred miles around our earth, although at that distance it may have a density of only a millionth part of that which prevails at the earth's surface. It is this height of atmosphere that gives the sky the blue colour which it presents in the clear sunshine. The empyrean is a name which is occasionally given to the sky, but it is applied by poets chiefly to the highest heavens, where the ancients imagined the pure element of fire subsisted. The word is formed from the Gr. empyros, in fire (em, en, in, and pyr,1 fire),
1 From this Gr. word pyr, fire, we have pyrometer, an instrument for measuring the temperature of bodies under fierce heat ; pyre, a pile of wood to be set on fire at a funeral ; pyrotechnics, the art of making fire-
works (from Gr. technikos, artistic, from Gr. tecfine, art) ; also anti- pyrine, which, as its name indi- cates, is a medicine which was first employed as an anti - febrile agent.
THE EARTH.
23
which last word is also the origin of " fire " itself. The sky is now generally understood by the welkin — but originally it signified the cloudy sky. It was called in AS. the wolcen, clouds, — closely resembling the Ger. wolke, a cloud. In ME. it is spelt icelkene in * Piers Ploughman.' As meteorology has now so much to do with weather, clouds play a very important part, and as in our island the weather is very variable, our forefathers were not indebted to any other quarter for the words weather and clouds. But the L. has supplied nebula, from the Gr. nephele, signifying little clouds, from which we have nebular, describing not only diffused gas- eous matter, but the faint misty appearance in the heavens produced by a group of stars too distant to be seen singly. We speak of the nebular hypothesis, and we have in common use the word nebulous for misty, hazy, vague. Meteorology concerns itself with heat and cold, and with the dryness or moisture of the atmosphere. Heat is received and conveyed by one body to another, and by some more readily than others, and so we speak of good and bad conductors of heat. A con- ductor is the person or thing which conveys or conducts, from L. con, together, and duco,1 to lead. Heat conveyed by one solid body to another is said to be conducted, but if conveyed through liquids such as water, it is said to be diffused, from the L. verb fundo, fudi, fusum, fundere,2 to pour, to melt. Heated bodies in the atmosphere are said to give off the heat by radiation (from L. radio, iare, to send out rays from, L. radius, a spoke). As sub- stances having a black rough surface radiate heat, so smooth and polished surfaces are said to reflect it, that is, throw it back (from
1 Duco, duxi, ductum, duc8re — to lead, is a very prominent word in our language. We have a duct along which anything is conveyed. Gold is ductile, easily drawn out in lines or threads ; a duke, a leader ; abduct, aqueduct, conduct, deduct, induct, educate, educe, intro- duce, produce, production, reduce, seduce, subdue, traduce, viaduct.
2 We have from fundo, to pour or melt, to found, to form by pouring liquid metal into a mould, we have type-founders, cannon-founders. To
fuse is to melt by heat. We have confound and confuse, diffusion, effusion, infusion, profusion, refund, refuse, suffuse, transfuse, to pour a healthy man's blood into another man's veins. We have also futile (L. futilis) from the ancient past participle of fundo — viz., futus. It signifies originally what easily runs out, as a vessel from which the water runs out ; then applied to a man who speaks at random, whose talk is worthless ; and then in gen- eral means, of no effect or use.
24
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
L. re, back, and flecto,1 to turn), and this is called both as regards heat and light the angle of reflection, as the angle at which it falls on any surface is called the angle of incidence, from L. incido, to fall upon (from in, and cado).2 When the heat of a body is much less than our own natural heat, and therefore not perceptible to our senses, it is called latent heat, that is concealed heat, from L. latens, pres. part, of lateo, to be concealed, or to be hidden. In such circumstances it can be made manifest by various means. It may be produced by friction, i.e., by the forcible rubbing of one body against another — from L. frictus, a rubbing, from frico, fricui, fricatitm or frictum, fricare, to rub. It may be produced by percussion, that is, striking one body forcibly against another — from L. percussio, a beating, from L. percutio, cussi, cussum, cutere, to strike (from per, through, and quatio? quassi, quassum, quatere, to shake violently). It may also be produced by compression — from L. compressio, from L. comprimo, compressi, compressum, comprimere, to press closely together (con, and premd).* It may also be produced chemically, that is, by the peculiar action of certain bodies upon one another, as water on burnt lime, or as half- dried hay or grass, when put together in stacks, frequently becomes so hot as to take fire. This is called spontaneous combustion,
1 From flecto, flexi,flectiim,flecf$re, to bend, we derive flexible, what is capable of being bent ; inflexible, deflect, inflection, reflect, reflex, circumflex, the mark over a letter or syllable is so called as " bending round in form " ; genuflexion is a bending of the knee (L. genu, the knee).
2 Cado, cecidi, casum, cadSre, to fall, gives us cascade, casual, accident, accidence (in grammar), coincide, decay, deciduous, incid- ence, incident, an occasion.
3 We have from these verbs, to quash, to crush summarily, to put an end to, concussion, discussion, percussion, also rescue, probably as men are rescued from impending danger or immediate evils, as from robbers and drowning, that is, they are delivered by active exertions
(OF. rescourre, from L. re-excutere ; excutere, to take away by force — ex, out, and quatZre, to shake or dust, to set free from danger or restraint).
4 From premo, we have the press, in the sense of the printing press. We speak of the pressure of weights. We have the print of a foot in the sand. We may be depressed, which cannot be expressed, but we make an impression. We may suffer op- pression, but we repress our feelings, or suppress them altogether. We can compress, as of matter in a book, and we say that elastic bodies are compressible. Sometimes our emotions are irrepressible. A re- primand is a severe reproof. To sprain (F. tpreindre, L. exprimere) is to overstrain or twist the muscles or ligaments of a joint.
THE EARTH.
25
spontaneous, from spons, spontis, free will, and comburo, to consume by burning (L. con, and uro, to burn). One effect of heat is said to be the repulsion of the particles of bodies, that is, a pushing away from one another — from L. repello, to drive back, to repel or repulse, from pello, pepuli, pulsum, pellere,1 to drive. Hence a greater degree of heat than bodies receive in their ordinary state expands them (from expando, pansi, pansum, pandere, from ex, out, and pando,2 to spread) ; while a less degree of heat contracts them (from L. con, together, and traho,5 traxi, tractum, trahere, to draw). The rays of heat, like those of light, can be concentrated, as all know who have used a lens of glass, concentration being the bringing to a common centre, from L. con, with, and centrum, the centre ; while a focus is the point where the rays meet and cause great heat (from the L. focus, a hearth) ; and a lens is so called from its likeness to a lentil seed, from the L. lens, lentis, a lentil.
With reference to cold, as indicated by frost and snow, sleet and ice, these words are all root words themselves, and cannot be traced farther back, with the exception perhaps of avalanche, the name given to a mass of snow and ice sliding down from a mountain and destroying trees and herds and cottages — from F. avaler, to slip down, from L. ad, to, and vallis, a valley. The degree of heat in the atmosphere is called temperature, from tempero, to regulate; and to ascertain this correctly, a thermometer is em- ployed (Gr. thermos, heat, and Gr. metron, a measure). When it falls to "0" it is said to be at zero, the F. and L. word for nothing; or a cipher, from Arab zifr. This word has risen in
1 From pello, pidsum, and its frequentative, pulsare, to beat, we have the word pulse, as when we speak of the beating of one's pulse, compel and compulsion, dispel, expel and expulsion, impel and impulse, propel, repel and repulsion.
2 From pando, to spread, we have expand, expansion, expansive, ex- pansibility, and expanse, signifying a wide extent of space or body. Spawn, too, the eggs of fish or frogs, is probably from the OF.
espandre, to shed or scatter about. 3 From this verb and its deriv- ative tractare, to handle, we have a trace, and we may be tractable. We may read a treatise in a train. We may be attracted by abstrac- tions. We may contract, or we may be distracted, especially by the extraction of our teeth. We may protract a speech, and yet retract nothing that we have said. In arithmetic we have the rule of subtraction, and the number to be subtracted is called the subtrahend.
26 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
estimation. Originally sifr, an Arabic translation of the Sanscrit name sunya, empty or void, it came, both in Indian and Arabian arithmetic, to be the symbol of " nought " or nothing (0) \ but gradually it came to be the name given to all the Arabian numerals, so that to " cipher " came to signify to use the Arabic numerals in the processes of arithmetic, or to work the elementary rules of arithmetic. It is now also frequently used figuratively, mean- ing a person of no importance or value, a nonentity, a mere nothing. This, I suppose, was what a woman who was cursed with a drunken nonentity of a husband meant when she de- scribed him as a perfect siphon. It was the truth she spoke (although not the truth she meant), for siphons are chiefly used for drawing liquids off casks, etc. To measure the weight of the atmosphere we employ a barometer (from Gr. baros, weight) ; an aneroid barometer is the air barometer, consisting of a small metallic box, nearly exhausted of air and easily acted upon by the ex- ternal pressure of the atmosphere (from Gr. a, without, neros, wet, moist, and eidos, form) ; and to measure the degree of moisture in the atmosphere the instrument employed is called a hygrometer (from Gr. hygros, wet) ; while an anemometer (from Gr. anemos, the wind) is an instrument for measuring the force and velocity of the wind. Wind is the air in a state of motion, and beyond the land and sea breezes (F. brise, a cool wind ; It. brezza) there are the Trade Winds, which blow for months at a time from east to west, so that mariners can take advantage of them in their voyages and render them of great service to trade. The word trade probably comes from the F. traite, signifying transport of goods, from L. tracto, frequentative of traho, to draw (see p. 25). Monsoons are periodical winds of the Indian Ocean, blowing in the same direction for half the year. The word comes, through F. or It., from Malay, musim (from the Arab mawsim, a time, or season). The Harmattan (an Arabic word) is a hot, dry, noxious wind which blows periodically from the interior of Africa ; and the Sirocco is a hot, moist, and relaxing wind from the south-east, in S. Italy and adjacent parts (It. sirocco, Sp. siroco, Arab schoruq, from scharq, the east). There are also hurricanes (from an
THE EARTH.
27
American-Indian word), probably imitative of the rushing of the wind; and tornadoes, violent hurricanes in tropical countries, signifying a hissing or whirling (like our whirlwind) — Sp. from tornar, and that from the low L. tornare. In connection with the atmosphere we have still to mention climate, which includes heat, moisture, elevation, prevalent winds, &c., especially as these affect health. The word comes through F. from the L. clima, -atis, from the Gr. klima, klimatos, a slope, and all these from Gr. Tdimo, to make to slope, or to incline. Clime is poetical for climate.
Leaving the atmosphere and coming fairly down to earth, let us notice the circle bounding the view where earth and sky appear to meet, which is called the horizon, both in F. and L. — from the Gr. horizon, bounding ; from Gr. horizo,1 to bound, to limit ; from Gr. horos, a limit or boundary.
We are now to speak of the planet with which we have most concern — viz., the Earth, or the world which we inhabit.
The word world is sometimes applied to the universe, then we speak of "the whole world"; but most frequently, and most correctly, it is confined to our world. This perhaps has suggested the etymology which has found favour with some — viz., that which derives it from the past participle of the verb to whirl, and holds that whirled expresses both its roundness and its movement on its own axis. But the wh in whirl (as in the corresponding Gothic words) is radical, and would not have been represented in AS. by w, as in woruld, weoruld, world. Besides this, the word world is older than the knowledge among. the Gothic tribes of the spherical form, or of the rotation, of the earth. A still more conclusive argument against this etymology is the fact that the AS. woruld, the IceL verold, did not mean the earth, the physical, but the moral, the human world, the L. sceculum. The most probable etymology of world seems to be wer, a man (cognate
1 From this we have the word horizontal, on a level, on a line with the horizon, the opposite of perpen- dicular, from the L. perpendiculum, a plumb line, from perpendo (per, through, and pendo, to weigh) ; so
vertical (L. vertex, verticis, the head, that around which anything turns or is turned — from verto) ; hence the pole on which the heavens are supposed to revolve, and thus perpendicular to the horizon.
28
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
with L. vir, a man), and uld, signifying age or time ; lit. " a generation of men," and so its first use in English is in the sense of "an age of men," or a generation.
The equator is a line drawn on a terrestrial globe, at equal distances from the two poles, and dividing it into two equal parts — from L. cequatis, from cequus,1 equal. A zone, fro. Gr. zone, es, a belt or girdle (zonnumi, to gird). "An embroidered zone surrounding her waist " — Dryden. The five zones are five great divisions of the earth, one torrid, two temperate, and two frigid (L. frigidus, fwmfrigus, oris,2 cold), are bounded by lines parallel to the equator. The torrid zone — from L. torreo,3 to roast, parch —
1 From ceqmis, a, um, even, equal, fair, we have many words. We speak of an equable rate of move- ment, of equability, or uniformity of operation, or of temper. We speak of social equality. We equal- ise burdens, taxes, &c. Equal and even are applied to what is smooth or level. An equation is a mathe- matical statement of an equality, and equanimity (L. animus) means an unruffled temper. An equi- angular triangle means that which has all its angles equal ; an equi- lateral (L. latus, fateris, a side) triangle has all its sides equal. Equilibrium (from libra, a balance) means equality of balancing weight; two weights are in equilibrium when they balance each other. Equipoise and equiponderance mean equality of weight, and also the equipoise and tranquillity of the common- wealth. The spring or vernal equi- nox (L. nox, iioctis, night) is about the 21st March, the autumnal about the 23rd September. Equitable means just, impartial, according to equity, having the idea of supple- menting the imperfections of the law. Equivalent means of equal worth ; we give a man an equivalent for something that we owe him. To use a word in an equivocal sense is to use it in a way which may
admit of two meanings. Adequate means literally made equal to; it then comes to signify what is fully sufficient for some practical or moral purpose. We speak of the adequacy of the supplies to the expenditure. We say the means were quite in- adequate for the end proposed. We speak of unequal numbers, but of their inequality. Iniquity (lit. in- equity) denotes a gross violation of the right of others, and we speak of an iniquitous war.
2 From frigus we have, besides frigid, frigidity, as when we speak of the frigidity of a man's manner or style. A hawk ruffling its feathers from feeling chilly was said to frill (OF. frilkr, to shiver for cold), hence frill has come to mean a ruffle or plaited band of a garment. A refrigerant is a medicine which cools, abates, or allays heat. Certain salves are lenitive and refrigerant. To re- frigerate is to make cool. We speak of a refrigerative treatment. A refrigerator is an apparatus for cooling liquids or for condensing hot vapours into liquids.
3 From torreo, torrui, tostum, tor- rere, to roast or parch, we have toast, scorched bread. A torrent is a raging (boiling) stream, as a torrent of water or of molten lava.
THE EARTH.
29
means the zone parched with heat, and is between the two tropics, the broad belt of earth over which the sun is vertical during some part of the year. The tropics themselves are two circles, one on each side of the equator, 23° 28', where the sun seems for a day or two to stand still (solstice) and then to turn, as it were, after reaching its greatest declination north or south — from Gr. trepo, I turn, and tropes,1 a turning.
The surface of the earth is divided into Water and Land. The word Geography (from Gr. ge, the earth, and graphe, a de- scription) includes both of these ; but Topography is not so wide in its range as geography (Gr. topos,z a place, and grapho, I describe), meaning rather the description of a particular place,
1 From tropos, turning, we have a trope, a word or expression turned from its literal or original sense. Metaphors are tropes. Thus Horace is using a trope when he calls the State a ship. The foundation of all parables is some analogy or simili- tude between the tropical or allusive part of the parable and the thing intended by it. A trophy was a pile of the arms of the vanquished which the victors raised on the battlefield as a monument of the enemy's turning. We have the word tropic in combination, in such words as allotropic (from allos, another, and tropos, a conver- sion or change). Allotropy is the term employed to denote the fact that the same body may exist in more than one molecular condition and with different physical char- acteristics, as when we speak of the allotropic condition of oxygen.
2 From topos, a place, we have the topics of Aristotle and the loci (from locus, which also signifies a place) of Cicero, or communes loci, commonplaces, as we say, not as being of little value, but of frequent occurrence, commonplace truths or questions which the orator was directed to consider or to ask in
order to procure materials for his speech — such as who, what, where, by what means, why, how, when? And so a topic is also the subject of some discourse or composition, the matter treated of. Medical men speak of a topical remedy, or of a remedy topically applied— that is, of a remedy applied to a partic- ular part of the body. Then we have the word Utopia, literally, a place situated nowhere (Gr. ou, not, and topos, a place), the name given by Sir Thomas More to his oook published in 1516. It was written in L., and not rendered into Eng- lish till a generation later. The tale of Utopia is put into the mouth of a seaman, ana is prefaced with an account of the circumstances in which More is supposed to have heard it. Utopia was an imaginary island, and the utmost perfection of laws and of social arrangements was enjoyed ; and he contrasted this ideal or model of Utopian per- fection with the defects of the States of his own time. We now speak of a scheme as Utopian, which proposes to bring about a state of ideal perfection which, in man's imperfect state, would be found impracticable.
30
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
as a city, a town, a tract of country, including notices of every- thing connected with the locality.1
The Antipodes — L. from the Gr. anti, opposite to, and pous, podos, a foot, meaning feet opposite — those living on the other side of the globe, and whose feet are thus opposite to ours.
1 From locus, a place, we have local, confined to a place, locality, the neighbourhood ; to locate, to settle in a place. Locomotion, mov- ing from place to place. To allo- cate, to place to, to give each his share or part. To collocate is to place or set along with something else. To dislocate is literally to put out of its place, to put out of joint. One's arm, wrist, or ankle may be dislocated. We speak also of the dislocation of the geological strata, as, e.g., of the beds of coal, and of things being in a state of confusion and dislocation. From
this word also we have locus in the sense of place, as when a preacher proposes to treat of a subject in the first place, in the second place, and in the third place ; for it is said that among the Romans, when discourses and speeches were not so often read from MS. as now, speakers, to arrange their ideas, grouped them together in different parts of the wall before them, and they said in the first place, when they were to speak of what was contained in what they called the first place, of the wall in front of them, and so on.
31
CHAPTER IV.
THE WATER.
THIS occupies about three-quarters of the earth's surface. That part which separates the land from the water is called the coast, the side of the land next to the sea, or the side of the sea next the land, — derived probably through OF. costa (now F. cote), from L. costa, the rib or the side, and in English meaning the seaside. The word ocean comes from Oceanus, the fabled son (in the myth- ology of the heathen poets) of Coelus and Vesta, who, marrying Tethys, the goddess of the sea, became the father of all the rivers and fountains. There is, strictly speaking, but one ocean, although it is usual to reckon five, more or less connected. Only two, how- ever, have names requiring explanation. The Atlantic seems to have been so called (for no better reason than for its size and strength) from Mount Atlas in the north-west of Africa, which, how- ever, was called after the heathen god of that name, who was represented by the ancient poets as sustaining the world on his shoulders. On this account, too, a collection of maps of the different parts of the world bound together is called an Atlas. The Pacific Ocean (L. pax, pacis, peace, and facia, to make) is the name given to the ocean between Asia and America, called peaceful by Magellan in 1521, in consequence of the calm and delightful weather he experienced while navigating its surface after rounding Cape Horn.
A smaller extent of water is called a sea, and two of the names given deserve notice. The Mediterranean (from L. medius, middle, and terra, earth or land) is so called from its position, as it were, in the middle of the land of the Old World. The Archipelago is
32 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
the name given to the chief sea of the Greeks, or the JEge&n Sea (from Gr. arche, chief, and peldgos, the sea), but now used for any sea abounding in small islands.
One of the most remarkable features of the sea is the tide, being the AS. word tid, which meant time, the moment when anything happened ; and is now applied to the time of the ebbing and flow- ing of the sea, hence called the tide. (In composition we have still Whitsuntide, and eventide for eventime; and betide or be- times, that is, happen.) Early and late were formerly called tideful and lateful. As the word is evidently cognate with Ger. Zeit, time, and Zeitung in Ger. signifies " news," there can be little doubt that our word tidings comes from the same AS. root.
Closely connected with the sea is the river, for " all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full." One of the chief reasons why the sea is not full to overflowing, is the evaporation which is continually taking place from the surface of the oceans, rivers, and lakes; for when water is passing from the liquid to the gaseous or invisible form, it is said to turn into vapour, or to evaporate (from L. e, off, and vaporo, from vapor, vapour). When the air has received as much vapour as it is capable of holding in the invisible form, at any given temperature, it is said to be satu- rated or filled to excess (from L. satur, full, akin to L. satis, enough). The etymology of river is somewhat doubtful. It is usual to derive it from L. ripa, the bank of a river, but there is also a L. word rivus which signifies a river, and the two words have got confused. I think that the word ripa originally signified, not the river itself, but the rivet's bank. There is good reason for believing that the word ripa comes originally from the base rip, to rend asunder, and that the river is occasioned by the rift which has been made between the banks through which it runs into the ocean ; for rivers are formed and run through these fissures (L. fissura, from findo, fidi, fissum, findere, to cleave) and clefts in the mountains, when these have been riven asunder. In this connec- tion it is worth noting that the low L. verb adripare (ad, to, and ripa, the bank), which meant at first to reach the bank of the river or to touch the shore, was originally a nautical term, and
THE WATER. 33
was used only with reference to the arrival of a boat at the bank of the river, or at the shore ; but when the word was adopted by the French, they altered it into amver, and after using it for more than a century with reference to boats or sailing vessels, they widened the meaning so as to include all arrivals of any kind or at any place, whether by land or by sea, using it in a far wider sense than we use the word arrive, so that in a French book which lies before me the author speaks of the cold arriving through the window. Yet another word finds its origin and explanation here, the L. word rivales (from rivus, a stream), and originally it meant pertain- ing to a stream or brook ; but after meaning those who had the same stream in common, it gradually came to signify (both in Latin and English) competitors. There is no necessary connection in thought between the two meanings ; but as rivales, even in Latin, came to mean neighbours who got water from the same stream, or persons who lived on opposite sides of a stream, there were often in times of scarcity contentions for the use of it. It is used in this sense in the Eoman digest which discusses the contests that often arose between such persons respecting their riparian (ripa) rights. But this connection between the two meanings is a mere matter of history. It does not affect us to-day. We do not think of brooks when we speak of rivals in politics, love, or business. Neither do we, even in a book on Etymology, and in discussing such a word as that on which we are at present engaged, think, until we are reminded, that derivation is literally drawing from a river (from L. de, down from, and rivus, a river), as when we speak of the derivation of English words from Latin.
It is more convenient, as well as more natural, when speaking of water and the ocean, to refer to all those matters connected with navigation which enable us to make the ocean the great highway of nations, so that " seas but join the countries they divide." Navi- gation has been described as the act, science, or art of sailing ships, from the L. verb navigo, to go in a vessel or ship, to sail, to steer — from navis,1 a ship, and ago, to drive. While we have many words
1 From navis, a ship, and nauta, word as nausea, which means prop- a sailor, we have such an unlikely erly sea-sickness, and then strong
34
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
taken from the Latin word for ship, we have comparatively few taken from the Latin word for sea, mare,1 The first vessel ever constructed for floating on the waters of which we have any record was Noah's ark (from L. area, a chest or coffer). Amazement has often been expressed that so large a vessel as the ark should have been able to bear the winds and storms of the deluge (this word comes from L. diluvium, from diluo — dis, away, luo,z to wash). The German word for deluge, Sundflut3 — i.e., sinflood — is far more expressive than ours. But we find no mention in the Scriptural account of tem- pestuous wind and dangerous rolling seas. The waters rose gradu- ally and floated the ark, so that it went on the face of the waters ;
disgust and loathing. Patients may nauseate food as well as medicine. " The trifles wherein children take delight grow nauseous to the young man's appetite." Nautical names relating to ships and seamanship. ' The Nautical Almanac ' contains tables necessary for steering. Naval architecture is the science of ship- building. The nave of a church is the body of it, called by the Ger- mans the ship (schiff), from the analogy which likens the Christian Church to a ship. Cook and Anson were distinguished navigators. A sea or a river is navigable when ships can sail upon it. The navy is the whole of the ships of war belonging to a country. An aero- naut (aer, the air, and nauta, a sailor) is one who navigates the air in a balloon, to circumnavigate is to sail round. The circumnaviga- tion of the earth proves that it is a globe ; what is circumnavigable is of a round form.
1 From mare, -is, the sea, we have marine, belonging to the sea, such as marine plants, &c. We speak of a marine — i.e., a soldier who serves on shipboard though he is not a sailor — a mariner is a seaman. Maritime often means bordering on the sea, or pertaining to man's sea life, to the sea as navigated by man. We speak of maritime law,
maritime enterprise, and mari- time people. Submarine means under the sea, transmarine across the sea, and ultramarine (L. ultra, beyond), a blue colour deriving its name from the lapis lazuli, a stone of great beauty, originally brought from beyond the sea, from Asia.
2 From luo, lui, luere, to wash, we have ablution, a formal washing, as in religious rites, and we also speak of our daily ablutions. Alluvium is earth, gravel, &c., deposited from water, as the meadow land beside rivers ; it forms alluvial soil. To dilute any strong liquid is to weaken it by mixing with water ; a diluent is a substance used for diluting ; too much dilution of the gastric juice weakens its power. Diluvial is generally used of deposits on the surface. The antediluvian world was that which existed be- fore Noah's flood. To pollute means the defiling of a stream, and we speak of the pollution even of holy places or of the mind.
3 According to Kluge, sund has no connection with siinde, English sin, but is the modern form of the old High German sin, which was used only in composition, and signi- fied universal, ahvays, ever ; so that sundftut is merely the present-day form of the old High German sin- vluot, a great universal overflowing.
THE WATER. 35
and it had no masts or sails on which winds, if there were any, could act. The human family, when they came out of the ark, on the site where, as all traditions say, the ark rested, might have spread for ages from that spot without having any occasion for another such vessel, so that although the memory of the deluge and of the ark remained among all nations, yet the form of it was forgotten, as well as its real use. We find the beginning of these naval structures among savage nations to have been a long plank, rounded at the ends, on which they got astride, and crossed the river or floated out to sea. The catamaran, a Tamil word, Jcatta- maram, signifying " tied logs," is used by the natives of India and Brazil, and on the coast of Coromandel, particularly at Madras, where the surf (probably from L. super, above, the foam made by the dashing of the waves being on the surface) rages with great violence, sometimes running more than a quarter of a mile up the beach. It would be impossible for European boats to live in it. The natives, however, construct a catamaran, a raft of three or five logs of wood from eight to twelve feet long, the middle log being always longer than the rest. These are firmly lashed together, and without top, sides, or any protection the natives go boldly off to the ships in the roads during the severest weather through the foaming surf. The construction of a raft (from Icel. rapp, from rafter, and Dan. raft, a pole) is one of the first and easiest improvements on the mere plank. This is effected by tying a number of planks or beams together so as to make a sort of floor on which goods may be removed or persons conveyed across a river; and in our own day, even in cases of shipwreck, the raft is often the only mode of escape, and the crew sometimes are obliged to lash themselves to the raft to prevent them being washed off and drowned. The ex- pression lash is the seaman's term for tying themselves fast to the raft. The noun " lash " by itself signifies merely a rope or cord, and it may be used either for whipping or tying. Perhaps the next grad- ation in shipbuilding was the canoe, from the Sp. canoa, which, like the F. canot, is from the Caribbean canaoa, signifying a boat made of the trunk of a tree hollowed out by fire or by hatchet, or of bark or skins, and shaped into something like a boat. These canoes made
36
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
of skins are somewhat like those which were observed in Britain by Julius Caesar, and which are still used on the Severn, in Shrop- shire, and in Wales. Indeed the name which has been given them, coracles, is Welsh. They consist of a sort of large wicker basket covered with a horse's hide or with oilcloth. They hold only one man, and are useful for fishing in rivers. The name is derived from the Welsh corwgl, from corwg, anything round • Gael, curach, a wicker boat. When we speak of boats, however, we mean something put together with much greater skill These are of different shapes, sizes, and names, according to the work for which they are intended. Such as ply * on the river Thames, and are used only for the conveyance of persons, are called wherries, probably a corruption of ferry, influenced by whir. A ferryboat is a boat for carrying or conveying passengers over a water (from the AS. ferian, to convey, faran, to go ; Ger. fahre, a ferry, from fahren, to go or carry). By a boat we generally understand an open vessel without any deck. When very large, as for the conveyance of coals from the shipping, they are called barges or lighters. A barge, how- ever, was originally a pleasure or state boat (from the OF. barge, low L. bargia). " The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne," &c. (Shakespeare). A lighter is so named because it is used for lightening (unloading) and loading ships. Until the exten- sive use of steam and electricity it was the characteristic of boats to be propelled by oars, the word boat being the AS. bat, Dut. boot, F. bat -eau, and Gael, bata, while oar is the AS. ar, cognate with the Gr. er, essein, to row, amph-er-es, two-oared. The verb to row is the AS. rovan, and IceL roa. The rudder is the instrument by which the boat is rowed or steered, which originally was by an oar working at the stern (Ger. ruder, an oar). The row-lock is the contrivance on the wale of a boat to hold the oar in rowing. The wale (from AS. icalu, the mark of a stripe or blow, Sw. waT) signified originally the raised streak left by a
1 This word ply, signifying in nautical phraseology to make regu- lar passages between two ports,
conies through the F. plier, to bend or fold, from L. plico, to bend.
THE WATER. 37
stripe, then a ridge on the surface of cloth, and afterwards the plank which goes along all the outer timbers of a ship's side. The name of gunwale is now given to it whether there be guns or not.
It was a great step in the art of conveying themselves by water carriage to add a sail (AS. segel, and so also in almost all Teutonic tongues). In all probability Daedalus was the inventor of the sail. He was confined by Minos, King of Crete, and according to the poets he made himself wings and flew away ; but the truth is that he invented the sail, and so escaped in his boat. His son Icarus, not managing his sail so cleverly, was drowned. Nature, however, may have given Daedalus the hint of the sail from the Nautilus, Argonaut, or sailor-fish, which is a shell-fish found in the Medi- terranean and in the Indian Ocean, and usually at the bottom of the sea, yet is able to rise to the surface, which it is fond of doing in calm weather. The shell is so thin that it is called the paper Nautilus. It lies on its back floating on the water. It employs some of its arms as oars to make progress, but if a gentle breeze arises it raises two of them upright, and extending them, spreads the membrane between them into a sail, which catches the wind ; its other arms hang out as a rudder to steer it the way it wishes. " Learn from the little Nautilus to sail, spread the thin oar and catch the driving gale." Nature also gives other hints, for the fins (from L. pinna) of a fish would suggest the use of a propelling power, and its tail the advantages of a rudder ; as Pope says in the lines just before these already quoted, " The art of building from the bee receive, learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave."
A galley (having eight oars) received its name apparently from the sword-fish, which the Greeks called galeotes, which indeed it somewhat resembles with its long projecting beak, which is con- trived on purpose to bore into the enemy's vessels. We have also a brig, a two-masted square-rigged vessel, the word being originally a contraction of brigantine, a small light vessel, so called from brigand, a robber (F. from It. brigante, from briga, strife), because such a vessel was used by pirates. The name of pirate is given to one who attempts to capture ships at sea, a sea-robber (from
38
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
the F. pirate), from G. peirates, from peira,1 a trial or attempt. Buccaneer was a name originally given to the pirates in the West Indies, during the seventeenth century, who plundered the Spaniards chiefly. The F. boucaner, to smoke meat, came from the Caribbean boucan, a wooden gridiron. The title was originally bestowed by the natives upon the French settlers in Hayti who hunted animals for their skins and sold the smoke-dried carcases to the Dutch. These Frenchmen were therefore said to exist by boucaniering, and when subsequently the Spaniards laid claim to the whole of the "West Indies, a large number of English and French adventurers proceeded to the Spanish Main to enrich themselves by plundering the Spaniards as their lawful right. The word schooner is said to have been coined in New England from the prov. Eng. scoon (Scot, scon), to make a flat stone skip along the surface of the water, for a " schooner " is a sharp-built swift-sailing vessel, generally two-masted. The word mast, which denotes the long upright pole which sustains the yards, rigging, &c., in a ship, is from the AS. maest, which signifies the stem of a tree, Ger. mast, F. mat. A lugger is a small vessel with two or three masts and a running bow- sprit, and is so called because it has one or two long or lug sails, — a lug sail being a square sail bent upon a yard that hangs obliquely to the mast, or it may be from the Dut. logger, a slow ship, from log, slow. The bowsprit is the boom or spar projecting from the bow of a ship, — the bow being the curving forepart of a ship, and the sprit, from the AS. sprest, a pole. A pinnace is a small vessel with oars and sails; it is literally a pine -wood boat — F. pinasse, from It. pinassa and L. pinus, a pine. A cutter is a small swift vessel with one mast and sharp bows that cut the water, hence the name. A hoy is a large one-decked boat, commonly rigged as a sloop (from Dutch heu, Flemish hut). Sloop is a light boat, a one - masted cutter - rigged vessel, from Dutch sloepe. A
1 From the Gr. peira, an attempt, we have not merely pirate but piracy and piratical, and also an em- piric, one who confines himself to applying the results of a limited observation and experience, — one
who is narrowly and blindly experi- mental without due regard to science and theory, which is regarded as empiricism, and quack doctors are those who prescribe empirical rem- edies.
THE WATER. 39
smack is a vessel used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade (from AS. mace, Dut. smak, Ger. schmacke), perhaps from Icel. snakr, Eng. snake. A scull was a name given to a small boat propelled by one man working an oar from side to side in the stern without raising the blade from the water. It was, perhaps, originally applied to the short light oar employed by working the oar from side to side like a fish's tail. Judging from the analogy of the OF. gache, an oar, gachei; to row, compared with gacher, to rinse linen in the stream, a more probable origin may be found in the element " scull " preserved in scullery, the place for rinsing dishes, Scandinavian skol, to splash, and applied to the dashing of the waves or of heavy rain, Icel. skola, to wash. The metaphorical use of the word scull was very severely made by Douglas Jerrold, when a young litterateur. A scribbler in ' The London Journal ' or ' Family Herald ' of the period came up to him and said : " "We ought to be better acquainted, Jerrold." "Why?" said Jerrold. " Because we are both literary men, — both in the same boat, you know." " That may be," said Jerrold, " but we use very different sculls ! " The word harbour itself is very interesting. It seems to have signified originally a shelter, or a lodging. "We have in Icelandic herbergi, a harbour, a lodging, in OF. herbej'ger, to harbour, to lodge, in OH. Ger. hereberga, a lodging, a harbour. "Where we read now in the Authorised Version, " I was a stranger and ye took me in," Wycliff rendered " I was harbourless and ye harboured me." Also a camp, from heri, an army, and bergon, to shelter (and in this connection the German herberge, a harbour- shelter, travellers' rest, or inn, the Italian albergo, and the F. auberge ought not to be overlooked), and naturally it came in course of time to lose the meaning of sheltering or providing a lodging for travellers by land, and to be almost exclusively employed, as it is now, for a port or haven for ships. We have, however, a remark- able reminiscence of the original meaning in the word harbinger, which is now generally used in the sense of a forerunner or a precursor of any one or anything, as when we speak of the cuckoo as the harbinger of spring. It came to acquire this meaning from the fact that the word herberger, both in German and Dutch, was
40
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
one who was sent on beforehand by his master to look out for lodgings for him, and so to announce his arrival — in Germany, one sent forward to provide quarters for a regiment or an army, — and so from the rather humble origin of being used to denote one who goes in quest of lodgings for another, we find it as a grand poetical term in Milton and Dryden, the former of whom in his ' Paradise Lost ' says, " And now of love they treat, till the evening star, love's harbinger, appeared," while the latter, in the ' Good Parson,' speaks of " Lightning and thunder, Heaven's artillery, as harbingers before the Almighty fly." When a vessel is in the dock for repairs we can have a very much better view of her than when she is sailing on the ocean. The graving dock is the dock into which a ship is taken to have her bottom cleaned (the word dock comes to us through the O.Dut. dokke, a harbour, and low L. doga, a ditch, a canal, from Gr. doche, a receptacle, an enclosed basin into which a ship may be lifted or placed for repairs, and the word graving comes from the low Ger. greve, the refuse of lard, and to grave a ship was originally to smear the hull with graves, for which pitch is now employed). Here also the process of caulking goes on, i.e., the stuffing oakum (as if pressed with the foot) into the seams of a ship to make it watertight — through the OF. cauquer, from L. calcare, to' tread under foot, from calx,1 the heel. The word oakum which we have just used is the name given to old ropes untwisted and teased into loose hemp, for caulking the seams of ships, and is supposed to come from the AS. word acumba, aecemba, from cemb, that which is combed, from cemban, to comb. The word dock itself in this sense signifies a basin for ships, into which the water can be admitted or shut off at pleasure. It is described by Bailey as a pond where the water is kept out by great floodgates till a ship is built or repaired, and then opened to let in the water to float or launch her. It was probably to these floodgates that the word was first applied. We have lock, a sluice or floodgate, and docke, applied to the tap by which the water in
1 From calx, the heel, we derive the word inculcate, for to inculcate is literally to press in with the heel
We inculcate principles of conduct, rules of right and wrong, by frequent admonitions and exhortations.
THE WATER. 41
a fish-pond is kept in, or let off. The hull of a ship, meaning the frame or body of it, is supposed to be derived from the AS. hulu, a husk, as of corn, the outer covering of anything ; but certainly there is a mighty difference between the body and the husk, and the resemblance to a pea-shell does not seem a very likely figure to have given a designation to the body of a ship. It is of the hull or shell of the ship that we generally use the phrase to spring a leak, which means to open or crack to such an extent as to allow the passage of water. The word leak is from the Icel. leka, to drip, to leak, so in Dut. we have lekken, and Ger. lecken, a hole, or other defect, which permits the passage of a liquid. It signifies both to run, drop, dribble, and also to let through, leak. Not only do they say "the vessel leaks," " the ship leaks," but " the water leaks " ; " lekkende ogen " are streaming eyes. In Norse leka is " drop," and logr is " moisture," usually "lake," hence lake = L. locus, is implied. I think the word hull has a certain connection with the Dutch hoi, a ship's hold, and with the word hulk, which signifies the body of a ship, and originally a large merchant ship (from the low L. hulka), from the Gr. holkas, a ship which is towed, from helko, to draw. It is worth noting that the plural, when it has the article prefixed, " the hulks," means old ships used as prisons where some of the worst prisoners were confined, and I am reminded that there are really no conditions or positions in which self-righteousness may not flourish. A clergyman was preaching in the hulks one Sunday for a friend, to a set of the greatest scoundrels he had ever seen in his life ; and after the service was over, one of the prisoners said to him, " I have to thank you for your excellent sermon ; to my mind it had only one fault, but it was a very serious one, — you didn't seem to leave any room for good works in the matter of salvation " ! In the dock we have a good opportunity of seeing the keel, that part of the ship which extends along the bottom from stem to stern, and supports the whole frame ; and so im- portant is it that the AS. word from which it comes is the word ceol, which signifies a ship. The old torture known on shipboard as keel-hauling consisted in hauling a man under the keel of a ship by ropes from the one side to the other. Bilge-water is that
42 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
which collects through leakage or otherwise in what is called the bilge of a ship — that is, the bottom of a ship's hull or that part on either side of the keel which has more a horizontal than a per- pendicular direction, and upon which the ship would rest if aground. That water becomes disgustingly foul and noxious. The word "bilge" is very probably a corruption of bulge, though like French, and indeed bouge in French still means bilge, with reference both to a cask and to a ship. The helm is the instrument by which a boat is rowed or steered, which originally was an oar working at the stern (AS. rotJier, Ger. ruder, an oar). I am very much inclined to accept Home Tooke's derivation of the stern of a ship, from the past participle of the old verb styran,1 to move, which we now write in English differently, according to its different applications, to stir, or to steer ; so that the stern of a ship is literally the moved part of a ship, or that part by which the ship is moved or steered. It is the same word and has the same meaning, whether we say a stern countenance or a moved countenance — i.e., moved by some passion. The anchor is a hooked iron instrument which holds the ship by sticking into the earth (F. ancre, from L. anchora, from Gr. angkyra, from angkos, a bend, from the root angk, bent). There are various kinds of anchors : the most important are the sheet-anchor, the largest anchor on the ship, shot, or spread out (AS., sceat, scete, from sceotan, to shoot, to extend); the best bower, so called because it hangs at the bow, or curving forepart of the ship. The binnacle is the box in which the compass is placed on shipboard; it was formerly spelt bittacle, and I find it so spelt in a military dictionary which lies beside me, pub- lished in 1759. Bittacle comes from the Portuguese bitacola — from L. habitaculum, a dwelling-place, from Tiabito, to dwell. The word compass itself probably comes through F. compos, a word from low L. compassus (con, together, and passus, a step, a way, a route). Now the mariner's compass goes round in a
1 The same participle gives us also the following substantives, store and stour : store being the col- lective term for any quantity or
into one place together ; and stour, formerly much used, meaning moved or stirred, was applied equally to dust, to water, and to men, all of
number of things stirred or moved : them easily moved.
THE WATER. 43
circle, and what we call " compasses " is an instrument consisting of two movable legs for describing circles, &c. The two names starboard and larboard are very significant. Starboard is the right- hand side of the ship to one looking towards the bow, and signifies literally "the steering side"; the AS. is steor-bord, from steoran, to steer. Larboard is an obsolete naval term for the left side of a ship looking from the stern, — now by command of the Admiralty superseded by the term port, to prevent the mistakes caused by its resemblance in sound to starboard. The etymology is uncertain, but I think it is most likely that it comes through the Belgic lever- bord, from L. hevus, the left. At sea it is often necessary to ascertain the depth of water, and this is done by sounding by means of a line and plummet, through the F. sonder, to sound — from the low L. subundare, to put under the wave, from L. sub, under, and undo,,1 a wave. The plummet is the weight of lead hung at the end of a line to sound the depth of water, and this piece of lead is called a plummet, from the F. plombet, diminutive of plomb — from L. plumbum, lead. The word pilot, the name given to one who conducts ships in and out of a harbour, along a dangerous coast, is of uncertain origin, but the more likely is that it comes through the OF. pilote, a pilot, from the Dutch peil-loot, from peilen, to sound, and loot (Ger. loth), lead — a sounding lead, literally, one who conducts a vessel by the sounding-line. Ballast is that which is placed in a ship to keep it steady when there is
1 From unda, originally a wave, &c. The Goodwin sands were
and afterwards water in general, caused by an inundation of the sea.
but in motion, and its diminutive, To redound is to come back as a
tindula, a little wave, we have un- consequence, to contribute ; we
dulate, to move up and down as j speak of something redounding to
waves. The sea undulates. Sound , one's glory. Redundancy is an
is propagated by the undulations of excess of supply, a superfluity in
the air. There is also an undula- some special things. "When an
tory movement of standing corn author is redundant, mark those
when the wind blows. Abound passages to be retrenched " (Watts),
and abundance express large sup- : It is remarkable too that the Revised
plies of anything. We speak of Version of the New Testament in
abundance of food, and of a super- altering the word abundance, in
abundance of words. To inundate Mark xii. 44, into superfluity,
is to overflow with water, but we should still have taken a word
also speak of a country being inun- which refers to the flowing of
dated with vagrants, publications, I water.
44 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
no cargo. It is the etymology of the first syllable of the word about which there is any difficulty. It is generally agreed that the second syllable, last, is a load. The Danish bag-last has been understood as signifying a back-load, the load which a ship takes on board to steady her on her return voyage when she has dis- posed of her original cargo. It has been suggested that ballast was so called because the ballast was stored more in the after-part of the ship than in the front, so as to tilt up the bows. But the ballast was never stored mainly in the stern of the vessel, nor has the after-part of a ship ever been spoken of as the " back." Both theories, however, are founded on a mistake, for it has been found that bag-last is a modern form, having always been written ballast in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The truth seems to be that the original form of the word is to be found in the language of the Netherlands and low German, from whom we have taken many of our nautical terms. Now bal in Old Dutch signifies useless, bad, as in bal ded, a misdeed, balmenden, to act as an unfaithful guardian, bal hoorig, hard of hearing ; and in this way we may explain ballast as an unprofitable load, the worthless load that is taken on board merely to steady the ship. The verb to scuttle is used in cases where a ship has been sunk intentionally — strictly speaking, by cutting holes in it. The noun scuttle originally meant the openings or hatchways of a ship, and after- wards a hole through the hatches or in the side or bottom of a ship, from OF. escoutille, a hatchway, and mod. F. ecoutille, but I can find no trace of either word in any French dictionary except that of Cotgrave. Bunting, the thin worsted material of which flags are made, is the same word as the West of England bunting, which means the sifting of flour, the open fabric used for the purpose having been found appropriate for the making of flags. The truth of Wedgwood's explanation seems to be established beyond question by the fact that the F. etamine is applied as well to the thin open tissue of which sifting or bolting cloths are made, as to the material of a ship's flag, and Littre' explains etamine as a nautical term, applied to the material out of which flags are made. A flag is said to have received its name from the Dutch flaggeien,
THE WATER.
45
to flag or hang loose, also applied to the sound which is made by loose broad surfaces flapping in the wind, — and a flag is such a piece of cloth fastened by one edge to a staff, in order that it may be conspicuous as an ensign floating in the wind. Quarantine is the word originally employed for the forty days during which a ship arriving at port l was kept from all intercourse with the shore if she were suspected of being infected with any contagious disease (through F. quarante — from L. quadraginta, forty, from quatuor, four). The Admiralty is the board of commissioners for the ad- ministration of naval affairs, from the admiral, a naval officer of the highest rank (from F. amiral — from Arabic amir, a lord, a chief).
Commodore, the commander of a squadron or detachment of ships, and sometimes the leading ship of a fleet of merchantmen, is usually regarded as coming from the Spanish comendadm; which has an altogether different signification, while the Spanish word is regarded as coming from the L. commendo, which in late L. is said to signify command. Of this I have found no evidence ; but it is a corruption of the Portuguese capitao mor, or chief captain, a phrase precisely equivalent to our own term. We owe, in fact, more to Portuguese than to Spanish etymology,2 and it is remarkable that many words now current almost over all Europe, and popularly supposed to be of African or East Indian derivation, are really native Portuguese. Thus fetishism or feticism, the low idolatry and sorcery of Western Africa, now so commonly used in
1 Port comes to us through the F. port — from L. portus, a port or harbour ; from it we have probably the words opportune and importun- ate, examples of marine terms of which the original signification is more or less forgotten : opportune is that which leads into the port (F. opportun — from L. opportunus, fit, convenient, from ob, over, against, and portus, the harbour), well-timed, seasonable, convenient, hence opportunely and opportunity; importune, on the other hand (OF. importun, importunate — from L. im- portunus, inconvenient, troublesome,
from L. in, not. or without, and portus, the harbour), means ori- ginally hard of access, hence un- seasonable, inopportune, and to im- portune is to be unreasonably and unseasonably urgent, as those in distress are pressing their re- quests by very pertinacious and obstinate and vexatious means, and so we have the importun- ate widow, and importunity in prayer.
2 Cargo and embargo are cer- tainly Spanish, trade and traffic probably so, but these stand almost alone in our vocabulary.
46 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
all parts of Europe to signify the most debased and superstitious material worship, and generally thought to be an African word, is only the Portuguese feitico, sorcery or witchcraft, which is prob- ably derived from the L. fascinum, a bewitching, or, as some think, from veneficium, a poisoning, a preparation of magic potions, then witchcraft, and so palaver, a council of African chiefs.
Our word voyage was formerly used (as it still is in French) for any journey, whether by sea or land, but now only a journey by sea. It has come to us through the French, from the L. via, a way, which became in F. voie, a way. The etymology of via is uncertain, some deriving it from the L. eo, ivi, Hum, ire, to go, and others from veho, to carry (see vehement and vehicle). The L. via gives us also the word viaticum, which in classical L. signi- fied provisions for a journey, whether of meat or money, although in medieval L. it came to signify a street; while in the Eoman Catholic Church it is used to denote the sacrament administered to dying persons. From the same root also we have devious, what separates from the road ; obvious, originally what went before, and now generally what is found on the road, or lying in the way, what is self-evident, or which may be seen or known at the first glance ; while to obviate a difficulty is to remove it out of the way ; pervious means what there is a way through — as glass is pervious to light, while boots and shoes should be impervious to moisture.
Argosy is the name which is given to a merchant ship richly laden, and for long supposed to have taken its name from Argos, but now believed to be a corruption of Ragusan, the national designation of the vessels employed in the commerce of the import- ant port of Ragusa in Dalmatia.
It will be more convenient to take the names of fishes here, when speaking of the element in which they live, instead of wait- ing till we speak of the animal kingdom generally.
THE WATER. 47
FISHES.
The perch is so called from its dusky colour, F. perche, from L. perca, and Gr. perko, from perkos, dark -coloured, spotted. The gurnet or gurnard is supposed to be so called from the sound it makes when it is taken out of the water, through OF. gournauld, and Gr. grogner, from L. gi'unnio, to grunt. The haddock is a sea fish of the cod family, with the name possibly connected with the Welsh hadog, prolific, from had, seed ; but more probably from low L. gadus, a cod, from Gr. gados, and the diminutive termination ock. Herrings, which appear in great shoals and vast multitudes, derive their name on this account from the Ger. Tieer (AS. and Ger. haering), an army or multitude, instead of being as supposed a corruption of L. halec, fish pickle, a kind of brine ; for it does seem a little absurd to derive the name of a fish from what happens to it after it is dead. This would make the name some- what prophetic. The mackerel bears a considerable resemblance to the herring, but is easily distinguished by its spotted appear- ance. The word comes to us through the OF. mdk&rel (F. ma- quereau], probably from L. macula, a stain or spot, and so meaning the spotted one, whereas the herring is in this respect immacu- late. Lamprey, ME. laumprere, OF. lamprere (F. lamproie). The source is low L. lampetra, lamprey, in a vulgar form lam- preda, from L. lambo,1 to lick, and petra, a rock. The limpet clings to bare rocks, whence its name, from L. and Gr. lepas, a bare rock, from Gr. lepo, to peel. Salmon are probably so called from salio, to leap, from their leaping obstacles on their way from the sea. On many rivers there are little waterfalls, which on this account bear the name of the salmon leap. The leviathan is the name given in Scripture to a great aquatic monster, and is the Hebrew word livyathan, a name referring to the coiling of a serpent. Ps. civ. 26 we have heard read thus : " there is that 'lively thing '(!) which thou hast made to play therein."
1 The only word we derive from as descriptive of a flame which lambo, Iambi, lambZre, to lick, is plays or glides lying on the the word lambent, used by jpoets surface.
48 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
The Mollusca, or shell -fish, are described by their name. They are soft pulpy animals, have no bones, but consist of a soft substance — L. molltiscus, from mollis, soft. Of the mollusca we mention only two, the oyster and the barnacle. The oyster is a well-known bivalve shell-fish — OF. oestre (F. huitre), from L. ostrea, and Gr. ostreon, an oyster, from osteon, a bone. The barnacle also is one of the mollusca : its shell consists of five pieces, of which two are large valves somewhat resembling those of a mussel, two smaller pieces are jointed to these near the point, and one unites the valves along the back edge. These cover the whole of the mantle. They are abundant in our seas, and fix themselves in preference on wood, so that a piece of timber which has been for a short time floating in the ocean is almost sure to be partly covered with them; and ships' bottoms, if not protected by copper, are rendered so foul as greatly to impede their sailing. To the species common on our own coasts was once attributed the wonderful faculty of changing into a goose. The strange tales about this creature have arisen from a tissue of blunders. The L. bernacula is a small limpet, and bernacula (Port, bernaca, F. barnache) is the Scotch solan goose. Both words being corrupted into barnacle, it was natural to look for an identity of natures in the two creatures, and so it was given out that the goose was the offspring of the limpet. Gerard in 1636 speaks of " broken pieces of old ships on which is found certain spume or froth which in time breedeth into shells, and the fish which is hatched therefrom is in shape and habit like a bird."
Eesembling these in many respects are the Radiata, so called from their figures being generally branched or radiated. We take only one specimen — viz., the Medusa or sea fly. This name was in all probability given to the common kinds of jelly-fishes, from the likeness of their tentacles to the snakes on Medusa's head. The legend is that Medusa, the chief of the Gorgons, famous for her hair, presumed to set her beauty above that of Minerva, so the jealous goddess converted her rival's hair into snakes, which changed to stone any one who looked thereon.
49
CHAPTEE V.
LAND.
THE Land occupies about one -fourth of the earth's surface, and that surface is very unequal. In some cases there are plains but little above the level of the sea, in others there are hills and lofty ranges of mountains. Extensive plains are known as steppes in the south - east of Europe and in Asia (in Russia stepj) ; as prairies, extensive meadows or tracts of land without trees (F. from low L. praturia, meadow land, from the L. pratum, a meadow, while meadow itself, originally a place where grass was mown, is derived from the AS. word moed, to mow, allied to the L. meto, to mow) ; pampas, vast plains in South America (from the Peruvian word pampa, a field or plain) ; savannahs, vast meadows in the west of North America, from the Sp. savana, or sdbana, a bed, sheet, or meadow — from L. sabanum, from Gr. sabanon, linen cloth.
Very elevated land is called a mountain, from L. mons, montis. Some mountains have openings, or craters, at the .top. Crater is Latin as well as Greek, signifying originally a bowl — that is, a large, deep vessel, in which the ancients used to mix wine, and poured it thence into smaller vessels, as we do into glasses. Pliny uses the word for the mouth of a volcanic mountain. The word in Gr. comes from Jeerannumi, to mix, and was called a goblet x originally, because things were mixed in it. The burning mountain received the name of volcano from Vulcan, or Volcan,
1 Goblet, — from the P. gobelet, a diminutive of the low L. gubellus, which again is a diminutive of L.
cupa, a barrel, vat, or cask — from which also we have our words cooper and cup.
50
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
the god of fire, who was supposed by the ancients to have his forge under Mount Etna or Mount Vesuvius, engaged in forging thunderbolts for Jupiter, both being, as they have been, and still are, remarkable for such eruptions. The word " eruption " comes from the L. word eruptus, broken out, or burst (also from e, out of, and ruptus,1 rent asunder, forcibly thrown out, as from a volcano).
The largest portion of land is called a continent, not from containing many countries, but from L. continens or continuus, holding together, uninterrupted, not broken up by seas. The L. continens is the pres. part, of contineo — from teneo, tenui, tentum, tenei-e,2 to hold. Portions of land which are small in comparison with the seas that surround them are called islands, an island being a general term for a piece of land surrounded by water. The present spelling, or misspelling rather, leads to a wrong idea of its origin. The introduction of s into the word is quite a modern innovation. In the earlier versions of the Scriptures, and in the Revised Version as first printed in 1611, it is spelt " iland," which came from the AS. igland, compounded of ig, an island, and land, land, and so we still have in Dutch
1 This word ruptus is the past participle of; the L. verb rumpo, rupi, ruptum, rumpere, to break, burst, or rend. A rupture is the bursting of something from within, as when a blood-vessel is ruptured. Abrupt means steep and sudden. A sharp rock is sometimes called abrupt, as if it had been broken off sharp, and an abrupt manner is one which breaks off short. Bank- rupt is one whose bench is broken and all his money scattered. We have corrupt (cor, and ruptus, broken), to turn from a sound to a putrid state, as when fruit is broken, and then tainted or vitiated, and so we have corruption and incorruption, &c. Disruption (dis, asunder), the act of rending asunder, or a great split. An in- terruption (inter, between) is really a bursting or breaking in, and,so
stopping the progress of anything, as interrupting a conversation. An irruption (from ir, into, and rumpo, to break, or burst) is a bursting or breaking into, as a sudden or vio- lent bursting in of the sea, or a sudden invasion or incursion, as of an enemy.
2 From teneo we have derived many words, — tenacious, tenant, tenure, tenet, tenor (of his way), abstain (to hold from), appertain (to belong to), contain (to hold with or in), contentment, con- tinual, countenance (the contents of the face, the whole features taken together), detain, entertain (originally spelt with i for first letter — inter, between, — a holding together of two persons), pertinent, maintain (might and main, with manus, hand), obtain, retain, sus- tain.
LAND. 5 1
and German, eiland. The AS. ig is from a root which appears in AS. ea, and L. aqua, water, so that the word meant originally "water-land." The spelling was changed, and the s introduced, because it was supposed to be derived from the Latin word for an island, insula, as if our English word were a hybrid formation from the OF. " isle " and the English " land." The truth is that the OF. isle, which is still used by us in poetry, was derived from the L. word insula, an island, but the French have dropped the s, spelling the word now Me, while we have retained the s; or rather, we have substituted the OF. form " isle " in poetry for the "He" or "iyle" which Eobert of Gloucester and other early Eng- lish authors wrote, at a time when the only French orthography was "isle." We have the word again in peninsula, the name given to land so surrounded by water as to be almost an island (from L. pene, almost, and insula) ; while isthmus is the name given to the narrow neck of land which connects two large portions. Isthmus is the L. form, the Gr. isthmos, signifying a passage or a step, allied to ithma, a step, from root of Gr. eimi, to go. From this word also comes the familiar name Isthmian, used in connection with the famous games, which were celebrated in the Isthmian sanctuary on the north-east shore of the Isthmus of Corinth.
52
CHAPTER VI.
THE MINERAL KINGDOM
is composed of various kinds of rocks, earths, metals, and other substances. The rocks are divided into stratified and unstratified rocks. The stratified are arranged in beds or layers, whence their name, from L. stratum, the thing spread or laid (from verb sterno, stravi, stratum, sternere, to spread one thing upon another, to strew). The unstratified are those which are not so laid, but are always in huge irregularly shaped masses. These latter are the lowest, and constitute the basis or floor on which all the others rest. They have a hard crystalline and sparkling appearance. Four sub- stances enter into their composition : mica (through Sp. and F. mica, from L. micare, to sparkle, to glitter), quartz (from Ger. quarz, a name applied by them to rock-crystals), felspar (Ger. feldspafh, rock-spar, from feld, a field, and spath, a spar), and horn- blende, which is found in Syenite granite (Syenite, so called from Syene in Upper Egypt, where it is abundant, and granite, so called from its granular appearance and composition — granum, a grain). The name hornblende itself is German. Then horn means horn, and blende, that which blends, from blenden, to dazzle, descriptive of its hornlike cleavage and peculiar lustre, or so named from blind, because it contains no ore. Asbestos is another variety of hornblende, and signifies incombustible, what cannot be consumed by fire (Gr. asbestos — a, privative, and sbestos or sbcstikos, consum- able = without being consumed). Marble is the chief "sparkling stone " for taking on a good polish. The word comes through the F. marbre, from L. marmor, marble, from the Gr. marmaros, from marmairo, to sparkle or flash. Akin to this is alabaster, whose
THE MINERAL KINGDOM. 53
Gr. name aJabastron is said to have been derived from a town of that name in Egypt. Porphyry receives its name from its purple- and- white colour. It comes through the F. and L., from the Gr. porphyrites, a purple-coloured stone, from porphura, the purple fish, or purple (L. purpura).
The Primary Eocks are so named from being the first formed of the stratified rocks and immediately above the unstratified. They partake generally of the same hard and crystalline character. Indeed one of these rocks called gneiss is so like granite as hardly to be distinguishable from it. The name is the German for a kind of granite which differs from granite in presenting a foliated appear- ance. Clay slate, closely allied to this, is capable of being cloven into thin slices, and is thus fitted for being used for the roofing of houses and other purposes. The word slate comes from OF. esdat, a splinter, OH.Ger. schlizan, to split. But foliated rocks (i.e., con- sisting of thin layers) like these are not termed slates but schists (Gr. schistos), derivable from Gr. schizo, I split, F. schiste. Above these, yet still in the Primary or Palaeozoic division (Gr. palaios,1 ancient, and zoe, life), we have the Carboniferous or Coal Measures, and immediately above these what used to be called the New Red Sandstone, but now the Permian system, from its extensive developments in the district of Perm in Central Eussia. We rather regret the change, as out of it, in the famous quarry of Craigleith, was got the stone of which the city of Edinburgh was built, and to which its beauty is in great measure owing. At the top of the Secondary Group we have the Oolitic and the Cre- taceous, the former so called from one particular kind of bed which is termed oolite, from the Gr. don, an egg, and liihos, a stone, resembling as it does the roe or eggs of a fish, and sorne-
1 Palaeontology, the science which treats of the ancient life of the earth as seen in fossil plants and animals, from Gr. palaios, and onta, existing things. These ancient plants and animals are called fossil because they are dug out of the earth, the word coming through the F. fossile and L. fossilis, dug up, from L. fodio, fodi, fossum, fodSre,
to dig. The name is not given in consequence of their being changed into a stony consistence — where this is the chief feature it is called a petrifaction (through F. pttrifica- tion, from L. or Gr. petra, a rock, and factus, done or made, of facio, I make), the process of changing into stone, and also the thing petri- fied.
54
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
times called roe-stone in consequence. The Cretaceous, which lies uppermost in the second group (cretaceus, chalky, from L. creta, chalk), is composed of lime or chalk. In them we have caverns in which the drippings from the roof form stalactites and stalag- mites,— the stalactites (from Gr. stalaktos, trickling or dropping, from stalasso, I fall or distil in drops) are the icicle-like incrusta- tions of carbonate of lime which often hang from the roofs of caverns and fissures; while the stalagmites (from Gr. stalagma, a drop, from the same root) are the incrustations which cover the floor of the cavern and rise up towards the roof, so that not infrequently the stalactites and stalagmites meet together and form pillar -like masses. The Tertiary Rocks are those that lie immediately above the diluvial clay and alluvial sand and vege- table soil. Both diluvial and alluvial come from the L. word luo, to wash, the former referring to great accumulations or deposits of earth, sand, &c., brought together by the action of great bodies of water, and the latter to small accumulations of such deposited anywhere by the ordinary operations of nature (see p. 34).
Among the metals x properly so called we have copper, named from the low L. cuper, from L. cuprum, a contraction of cuprium ces, Cyprian brass, because the Eomans obtained copper first in Cyprus. Brass, in AS. brces, is from braze, to harden by fire. In Swedish braza is fire, and in Icelandic signifies solder, a fusible metal cement which unites metals through fire. Solder literally signifies to make solid, OF. solider and solder, modern F. souder, from L. solidare, to make solid, from solidus, solid. Quicksilver (quick in the sense of living, and silver) is the familiar term for fluid mercury, in allusion to its mobility and silver- white colour. Properly speaking, the word alloy is given to the mix- ture of any of the precious metals with an inferior, as for instance in our British coinage, where our sovereign is 91*66 gold and
1 The word medal, which now means a reward of merit of some kind, received its name from the material of which it was composed — viz. , a piece of metal (L. metallum,
metal). At first it signified a coin of very small value, struck or cast with an inscription, and afterwards something different from the current coin (F. mtdaille, from It. medaglia).
THE MINERAL KINGDOM. 55
8'33 copper; a shilling 92'5 silver and 7'5 copper; and a penny 95 copper, 4 tin, 1 zinc. In jewellery gold is represented by carats : 24 carat is pure, 22 carat contains 22 parts of gold and 2 of other metals. The word alloy is said to be composed of the two OF. words a loi, from L. ad legem, according to law, mean- ing to mix metals for coin according to rule, or according to law : now we use it as meaning to mix evil with good, to mingle pleasure and pain ; and when we speak of what is unalloyed we mean what is unmixed, pure, as when you occasionally hear of unalloyed happiness, or without alloy.
Passing from the precious metals to the precious stones, we have the diamond, the hardest of all substances, through F. diamant, from Gr. adamas, a hard stone (a, not, and damao, I subdue), what cannot be broken, tamed, or subdued. Garnet, a precious stone resembling the grains or seeds of the pomegranate (F. grenat, from L. (pomum) granatum = grained apple, from pomum, an apple, granum, a grain). The ruby is so called from its colour — red, from L. words signifying redness, rubes from iiiber, red. The amethyst is a bluish-violet variety of quartz of which drinking-cups used to be made, which the ancients supposed prevented drunkenness. The Gr. word is amethystos, compounded of a, privative, and methys, to be drunken, from methu, wine, and Sans, madhu, from which we have mead and methylated spirit. When quicksilver or mercury is mixed with any other metal it is called an amalgam- ation, or an amalgam. It has been supposed to come through the F. malgamer, from the Gr. word malakos, soft, tender, deli- cate, and Gr. malagma, softening or softness, by transposition of mcdagma into malgama, meaning a soft mixture ; but it has been suggested that the word comes from the two Gr. words ama gamem, to marry together, with an expletive I'. A jewel (in ME. jowel and jueT) is supposed to come from OF. jouel (whence Ger. juwel, Dut. guweeT). The present F. word is joyau ; all this is from the L. type gaudiale, from gaudium, joy. The remarkable thing is that our word joy has the same root as jewel ; for joy in ME. was joie from the F. joie, joy, the source of which is the
56 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
same word gaudium. I think to connect the word joy with the L. jocale rests on a false relation to jocus, a game ; and I cannot see anything but what is most appropriate in speaking of a jewel as a joyful thing, or as a great joy to the possessor, a thing of beauty being a joy for ever.
CHAPTEE VII.
THE VEGETABLE1 KINGDOM.
THE word Botany, from the Gr. botane, a plant, is the name given to the whole vegetable kingdom, for a plant is the word applied to a sprout of any kind, however insignificant, while at the same time inclusive enough to take in trees, which are plants having a single trunk. The vegetable kingdom is so extensive that only a few specimens of the more important names can be given ; and without distinguishing specially by classes or otherwise the differ- ent trees, shrubs, flowers, or fruit, it will on the whole be more convenient to take them in alphabetical order after a few prelim- inary remarks on some points connected with trees themselves.
Trees, when grown in large numbers on uncultivated land, are called a forest. This word has come to us through the OF. forest (F. foret), from the low L. foresta, which in medieval writers means the open fields, as oppposed to the parcus (park) or walled-in " wood," from L. forestis, out of, not shut, from L. foris, out of doors (from fores, doors), meaning that it was out, or away from, the cultivated district. From this word also comes our word foreign, through the F. forain, and the It. word forestieri, foreigners or outsiders. The word wood, or " a wood," is generally applied
1 The word vegetable, which comes from the L. vegetabilis, was not even in Latin originally con- fined to what belonged to plants, or what we term vegetables. It merely signified animating, invigor- ating. The L. word veyeto, are, sig- nifying to make lively, to strengthen, from L. vegeo, to make lively (ap-
parently from the same root as vigeo, to flourish, to thrive), has very grad- ually come to be confined to plants exclusively, and from it, in this sense, we have vegetation, vegeta- rian, and we speak of plants requiring heat in order to vegetate, and figur- atively we apply the word to people when they lead an idle, stupid life.
58 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
to a collection of growing trees, but of small extent, and in a neighbourhood more generally cultivated than that of a forest. But wood, AS. ivudu, is applied also to the solid part of trees — the wood, and afterwards to trees cut or sawed. The terms wood or timber, though in reality distinct, have often been con- founded. Timber, from the AS. tiiribran, to build, designates properly wood for building purposes (the cognate Ger. word zimmer signifies both a building and an apartment). Ligneous (from the L. lignum, wood) is a more scientific word than woody, with which in this usage it is otherwise synonymous. It is inter- esting to call to mind the original L. word for forest, silva or sylva. I think it was usually employed to describe the wildest forests, and in neighbourhoods most remote from the homes of men, although the word sylvan, which comes from it, is generally used for the more beautiful as well as tranquil aspects of wooded scenery, — sylvan glades and such like. Yet from this L. word silva we have derived our word savage, through the F. sauvage, which, however, in OF. was written salvage, from, the L. silvaticus (in the seventh century written salvaticus). A savage man was originally a native of a wild uncultivated country, whose inhabit- ants were unacquainted with the arts of civilised life, and with it we are carried back to the time when, as Dryden writes, " wild in woods the noble savage ran," — so that savage is wild, as through being more applicable to animals it reminds us always of ferocity.
A garden of fruit trees, especially of apple-trees, is called an orchard, from the AS. orceard and octgeard (Goth, aurtigardo, a garden), probably an adoption of the L. hortus, with the h mute, as in the It. orto. The Goth, aurtja, gardener, and the OH. Ger. orzon, to cultivate, point also to the L. hortus. The ch of our English word is owing to a fusion of t and g (OE. ort, and geard, garden). Yard and garden are also worth comparing. Arbor, the Latin for tree, seems to have been originally another form of herba, and was in its primary use applied to everything that had sprung up, grown, or vegetated ; but in its more restricted meaning it came to signify a tree — that is, a perennial plant with a simple shoot or stem, which, after rising from the root to a greater or less height,
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 59
spreads out its branches and leaves. I am not sure, however, that it has given us an arbour, which, although covered with branches by trees, plants, &c., is supposed to be a contraction of harbour, a shelter. The stem, when cut off from the root and disencumbered of its top branches, is called the trunk, and the same name is given to the body of a man considered separately from the head and limbs. It comes from the L. trunco, to lop off the branches of a tree. To prune a tree, however, is very different from truncating it. It is not to cut down the shrub or tree, but merely to lop off such superfluous shoots or boughs as might injure its growth, or interfere with the quality or quantity of its fruit. The origin of the word to prune is rather uncertain. It is usual to derive it from the F. word provigner, which means to cut slips from the stock of a vine for the purpose of planting them and forming new stocks ; but our word to prune has no relation to the utility of the slips. The word graft is applied to the small branch used in grafting, by inserting it into another tree of a different kind, — and the word comes from the L. graphium, a style or pencil, which the inserted slip resembled, from the Gr. grapho,1 to write. The trunk of a tree after rising to a certain height from the root separates or breaks itself into divisions, each of which is called a branch. The word branch certainly was derived from the F. branche (in Breton, branca), as in Italy and Spain, and there can be little doubt, I think, that the F. branche was derived from the L. brachium, the arm. But a direct derivation from brachium is inadmissible. It is necessary for this to have h.ad a L. form brancia. Diez believes that the word branca belonged to the low Latin language, and alleges various reasons for thinking so ; while Neumann, founding on the German zw&ig, a branch, which is a
1 No Greek word supplies us with more English words than grapho, to write. It gives us a graphic descrip- tion even in a paragraph, while biography (bios, life), geography (ge, the earth), bibliography (biblos, a book), ethnography (ethnos, a race), hydrography (hydor, water), litho- graphy (lithos, stone), photography (phos, light), topography (topos, a
place), typography (tupos, a type), are all formed in part from grapho. Graphite is a form of carbon, called also plumbago or black - lead, used chiefly in the manufacture of pencils. A para- graph is a marginal mark set to call attention, or generally to indicate a new division or change of subject.
60
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
diminutive of zwei (two), in consequence of the idea of bifurcation,1 proposes for the Latin branca the etymology of bi-ramica (bis, two, and ramus, a branch). Ramus is much more frequently used than brachium in Latin, but it has few compounds in English beyond ramify and ramification, through the F. ramifier, from the L. ramus, and facio, I make.
Acacia is the name given to a class of thorny leguminous plants, from the Gr. ake, a sharp point.
Acanthus is another prickly plant, from the same root, and Gr. anthos, lit. the prickly plant.
Aconite — in English, monkshood, from the shape of its flower — receives its name from the Gr. word akoniton, signifying without a struggle, alluding to the deadly virulence of its juice, which is said by an old writer to be the most hasty of all poisons.
Acorn, the fruit or seed of the oak, was in AS. cecern, in Goth. akran, used originally for any fruit of the field (Goth, dkrs, a field), but afterwards in its present limited sense. The present spelling is possibly owing to the supposition that it was compounded of oak and kern or corn, seed, which indeed may be the case.
Amaranth, from the Gr. amarantos, unfading (from a, privative, and maraino, to waste away), is the name given to a genus of richly- coloured flowers which last a long time without withering. The original species was one which, from the quality of reviving its original colour when put in water, was much used by the ancients for winter chaplets.
Anemone, from Gr. anemos, the wind, — lit. the wind-flower, either because some of the species live in exposed situations, or because it was believed that it never opened but when the wind blew.
Artichoke comes directly from the Italian articiocco, probably from Arabic ; the last syllable was formerly pronounced chock, but has been latterly re -spelt and re -pronounced under the influence of the verb to choke. A still better example of popular etymology
1 Bifurcation, a dividing into two (from L. bifurcatus, two - pronged, from bis, twice, and furca, a fork),
forked, separated into two heads or branches.
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 61
is seen in Jerusalem artichoke, which has nothing to do with Jerusalem, but is compiled from It. girasole (turning to the sun), the sunflower which gyres or turns round with the sol, sole. This sort of artichoke, however, has as little to do with the holy city as Jordan almonds have to do with the sacred river. Jardyne almaunde, as the word was at one time spelt, is merely the almond of the jardyne or garden. I suspect that along with the disap- pearance of Jerusalem from the artichoke will disappear the supposed appropriate name given to the puree made from it — viz., Palestine soup.
Asparagus has not fared much better at the hands, or in the mouths, of those who had to pronounce it, or to eat it. The cause is ignorance of its origin in the Gr. word asparagos (from a, privative, and speiriosthai, to sow), because it grows many years without being sown, continually seeding itself. The learned knew that it was the Greek word borrowed intact, and the fact that it had no relatives in English made no difference to them, for they associated it with the Greek. To the unlearned, however, who knew nothing of its origin, it was an English word like any other ; and their minds unconsciously attempted to associate it with some other word or words with which they were familiar. It was long enough to be a compound. Its last syllable sounded like a slovenly pronunciation of grass. There were already many plant names in which grass was the last syllable. A is easily lost, and sparrow is vulgarly sparra. The result was mentally sparrow-grass — a form which immediately satisfied the popular conscience. True, the plant had nothing to do with sparrows, but one cannot have every- thing in this world. What has dog-grass to do with dogs 1 In general this sort of etymologising is easily satisfied. Half a loaf is better than no bread. Walker, in his celebrated Pronouncing Dictionary, says, " This word is vulgarly pronounced sparrowgrass. It may be observed that such words as the vulgar do not know how to spell, and which convey no definite idea of the thing, are frequently changed by them into such words as they do know how to spell, and which do convey some definite idea. The word in question is an instance of it, and the corruption of this word into
62 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
sparrowgrass is so general that asparagus has an air of stiffness and pedantry."
Belladonna, It., lit. beautiful lady, is the name given to the deadly nightshade, so called according to Tournefort, &c., from its berries, known in France as guines de cotes, being used by the Italian ladies as a cosmetic. Kay also says it was called belladonna from the increased brilliancy it gave to the eyes.
Bent-grass is the name given to any wiry or rush-like grass near the sea-shore, such as usually grows upon a bent — i.e., common or other broken ground, as "Poor men bickered on the bent" ("Chevy Chase"), and preserved in Scotland to this day. The name of the grass seems to have been taken from the place of growth, as in the case of heath, brake, or briar. Under the name of bent are comprised Agrostis vulgaris and Triticus junceus.
Borage, a name given to a genus of plants in consequence of the roughness of their foliage, from late Latin burra, a shaggy garment.
Burnet, from F. brunette, brown, from the dark -brown colour of its flowers.
Butcher's broom, the common name given to Ruscus aculeatus, a long-growing shrub. The whole plant was gathered by butchers, and made into besoms for sweeping their blocks and their shops, and hence has received the name of butcher's broom.
Cabbage. There is good reason for believing that this comes, like the German Jcappus, from the L. caput, the head.
Carline thistle (Carlina vulgaris), from F. carline, Sp., It., and mediaeval L. carlina, reported to be from Carolina, from the Emperor Carolus Magnus, Charlemagne, because it was said to have been divinely shown to him as a safeguard against the plague.
Chestnut, a nut or fruit enclosed in a prickly case, not from chest, as might be supposed, but through the OF. castaigne, from L. castanea, Gr. kastanon, from Castan in Pontus where the tree abounded. Its use as slang for a stale joke or story — an old "Joe," something frequently said or done before — originated in America, but by whom is not certain. Lord Halket in 'Notes
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 63
and Queries' says, "I first heard the -word in 1882 in a theatrical chop-house (Brown's) in New York : the explanation given to me by Mr Brown — once a well-known member of Wallack's company — was, ' Chestnut, because it is old enough to have grown a beard,' alluding to the prickly, bristly husk of the nuts."
Cinnamon is the Hebrew ginnamon, which is borrowed from some other Eastern tongue. The older English form is cinnamom, from L. cinnamomum, itself from the Hebrew. But this English form was made even by scholars who were familiar with Hebrew and thought cinnamon erroneous.
Clematis, a climbing plant, from Gr. Jclematis, from Jdema, a twig or vine branch, is popularly called travellers' joy, and Tenny- son in " Aylmer's Field " describes a hut as being " parcel-bearded with the traveller's joy." The French name of the plant is viorne, which is derived from the L. arburnum. This in botanical Latin having become viorna, was interpreted by old Gerarde, the herb- alist, 1597, as standing for viam ornans, as if the plant which decks the wayside with its flowers so cheers the traveller on his journey that it has become " the traveller's joy." His own account of his ingenious invention is as follows : " It is commonly called viorna, quasi vias ornans, of decking and adorning ways and hedges where people travel, and thereupon I have named it The Traveller's Joy" (Herbal, i. 739).
Coltsfoot, the usual name given to a plant with large soft leaves, from the resemblance they bear to the shape of a colt's foot before it has been shod. The botanical name is tussilago, the cough -dispeller, from the two L. words tussis, a cough, and ago, I dispel or drive away, because it was believed to be very efficacious in removing coughs. It is used in medicine for this purpose under the name of coltsfoot rock, and in Scotland it is still occasionally smoked for a cough, instead of stramonium, and is called by the common people dishelago, which is merely a corruption of tussilago.
Columbine is the English name for plants such as Aquilegia vulgaris or common columbine, the inverted flower of which has some resemblance to five pigeons clustered6together, — the L. word
64 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
for pigeon is coluniba. The L. name aquilegia comes from aquila, an eagle, and has been given to it because its nectaries bear a fancied resemblance to an eagle's claws.
Currant, said to be so named from Corinth, and applied first to a small kind of raisin or dried grape imported from the Levant, and afterwards to the fruit of several garden shrubs.
Daffodil is a variant of affodil. The initial d has not been satisfactorily accounted for. It has been variously suggested as due to childish or playful distortion, as in Ted for Edward; to final d of and, "fennel an(d a)ffodil"; to union of the Dutch or Flemish article, as de affodil ; and to French d , as in flew d'asphodele. As in English the word has gained a letter, in six- teenth-century French it sometimes lost one (see Littre^ asphodele). Affodil and its popular variants, daffodil, daffadilly, were origin- ally and properly the asphodel. Then, by popular misconcep- tion, due apparently to the application to both plants at their first introduction into England of the fanciful name Laus Tibi, it was applied, especially in the popular variations, to species of narcissus, &c. Botanists, after resisting this misapplication, compromised the matter by retaining affodil for the asphodel, while daffodil was restricted in popular use to the yellow narcissus or yellow daffodil of English fields and gardens. The form daffodilly perhaps origin- ated in the name of lily, so frequently applied, at least in Scotland, to the white narcissus, there called the white lily.
Daisy, from OE. doges cage, or eye of day, in allusion to the appearance of the flower, and to its closing its ray so as to conceal the yellow disc in the evening and opening it again in the mor- ning. As Leyden writes (1803), "Scenes of Infancy," 1. 291 —
" When evening brings the merry folding hours, And sun-eyed daisies close their winking flowers."
Dandelion, originally written dent du lion by Douglas in his translation of the ^Ineid, being the French words for " tooth of the lion," as in L. dens leonis, so called from the toothed and jagged outline of the leaves. The botanical term Leontodon is from the Gr. leon, a lion, and odous, odontos, a tooth. It is called in
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 65
Scotland dandelion, and so spelt without any thought of its meaning.
Devil's bit. The name given to the plant Scdbiosa sticcisa (from succido, to cut off), in consequence of the root having the appear- ance of having been cut off. It is a translation of the medieval L. morsus diaboli, the devil's bite, and in Ger. Teufel's Abbitz. According to Gerarde in his Herbal, the devil bit it for envy, because it was a plant whose root had so many good qualities and was so beneficial to mankind. However this may be, it has no good qualities now, although the flowers are very attractive.
Drosera, or sundew, receives its name from the Gr. drosys, the leaves being covered with red hairs which exude drops of a viscid fluid, especially when the sun is shining, when it appears as if tipped with dew.
Dwale is the name frequently given to the deadly nightshade, from the stupefying and poisonous effects of a draught of that plant, — probably from the Scandinavian. In Dan. dvale, dead sleep.
Eglantine. The name given by Milton in " L' Allegro " to the sweet-briar, and by botanists to other species of rose as well, whose branches are covered with sharp prickles. The word is from the French. The OF. is aiglent, possibly from the L. word acidentus, prickly (from acus, a needle, and suffix lentus). In L. we have aculeus, a sting or prickle.
Elm. At one time spelt Ulrtw (e), showing that the Ger. ulme and the Dutch olm are all due to the influence of the L. word ulmus.
Feverfew. In the seventeenth century the word was spelt feuer fue, showing more clearly its origin and meaning. It was adapted from the late L. febri-fuga, a febrifuge, an herb good against fevers (from feber, febris, a fever, and fugare, to drive away.)
Fritillary, the English name of the Fritillana Meleagris, a plant which grows in moist meadows in east and south of England. The name is derived from the L. fritillus, a dice-box, or the table
E
66 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
or board on which men played chess or draughts, with square chequers — the name referring to the chequered markings on the corolla, not to its shape, as usually supposed.
Fumitory. This name comes from the OF. fumeterre, adopted from medieval L. fumus terrce, the smoke of the earth, because it springeth out of the earth in great quantity as smoke doth ; or rather, because the smoke of it was believed by the ancient exorcists to have the power of expelling evil spirits.
(Jean, the name of the wild cherry, both tree and fruit. The name, used now chiefly in Scotland, is of unknown origin, and can be traced no farther back than to the F. guigne, which in the fourteenth century was spelt guine, and is now not unfrequently spelt with us guean.
Geranium, from Gr. geranos, a crane, because the fruit resembles the beak of that bird. English name, Crane's-bilL
Gillyflower, a popular name for " the stock," &c., so called from its clove-like smell, is a modern corruption of an older word, which is variously spelt in earlier writers gyllofer, gillorer, gelever, gelofer, gilofer, &c., — all through F. giroflee, girofle, derived through L. caryophyllum, possible Gr. karyophyHon, the clove-tree, from Tcaryon, a nut, and phyllon, a leaf. Many old writers further transform gillyflower into July-flower, with reference to the fact of its blossoming in that month !
Gooseberry is a word whose etymology is very perplexing, although it seems so simple ; but it does not seem to have any connection with goose. The oldest form of the word gooseberry is in an old French grammar of 1532, where it is supposed to stand for gors, or gros-berry, for we find groser, a gooseberry, in Turner in 1548. I think the origin is either the word gors (gorse), from the connection between the whin, as it is called in Scotland, the prickly shrub generally called gorse in England, while the berry distinguishes it from gorse, which has no berries but only pods ; or the word grose, for great or coarse, as it is both larger and coarser than other berries, especially from the hairs with which it is covered.
Heliotrope means literally a turning towards the sun (from Gr.
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 67
helios, the sun, and trope, a turning), the name given to a popular garden and window-flowering plant, but properly given to the turn- sole or sunflower.
Kale or kail, the northern form of cole ; and as kail was long the chief constituent of dinner in Scotland, the word was often, and still is occasionally, used for the meal itself.
Knapweed was originally knop-weed, from the hard, roughly - mounted head or involucre.
Lettuce, from L. lactuca, from L. lac, milk, so called on account of its milky juice.
Loosestrife, just the translation of the botanical name Lysi- machia (lusis and mache, the loosing of strife). Pliny says the name was given after a certain King Lysimachus, but nevertheless in deference to the popular notion that if it were laid on the yoke of oxen when they quarrelled it would quiet them.
Nasturtium, cress, received its name from the L. nasus, a nose, and tortus, twisted or distorted, " a distorted nose," on account of the pungent properties of the plant inducing many to twist or writhe their nose when they smelt it.
Parsley — F. persil, from L. petroselinum, from Gr. petroselinon, from petros, a rock, and selinon, a kind of parsley.
Primrose, literally the first rose, F. prime rose, L. prima rosa (from primus, first), the name given to an early spring flower, very abundant in our woods and meadows.
Ranunculus — this name has been given to the crowfoot, from the L. word rana, a frog, as frogs frequent the places where such plants grow.
Rosemary> literally sea-spray, the name given to a small ever- green plant of a pungent taste, which usually grows on the sea- coast. It has no connection with a rose, or with the Virgin, but is composed of two L. words, ros, dew, and marinus, from mare, the sea.
Samphire, the name given to Crithmum maritimum, the sea samphire, a perennial plant, fleshy, small, salt, and pungently aromatic in flavour, with stems about a foot high, grows on rocky sea-shores and cliffs, near Dover, notably below what is called
68 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
Shakespeare's Cliff, from the description which he gives of it in "King Lear," IV. i., where he says, —
" There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep," &c. ;
and when standing on its summit, he says, IV. vi., —
" How fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low ! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles : half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade ! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head," &c.
The leaves of the herb were used as an old-fashioned pickle, and they are still sold in the London shops, but there are many plants generally preferred for the same purpose. It is also called the herb of St Peter, and the word samphire is supposed to be a corruption of French Saint Pierre, and the resemblance in pro- nunciation is more clearly seen when the word is spelt, as in Smith's 'English Flora' and elsewhere, "sampire."
Saxifrage, the name given to a genus of Alpine plants generally found growing in rocky places, gradually wearing away the rocks and stones from which they find nourishment, and so were named saxifraga, or stone-breakers, from L. saxum, a stone, and frango, to break. Some think that they have received the name because at an earlier period they were believed to be useful for dissolving stones in the bladder.
The Tansy — the true tanacetum, and not the senecio or ragwort, — a little aromatic plant with small yellow flowers, has received the name of tansy, which signifies literally "the immortal plant," from the length of time during which, after being pulled, its flowers retain their shape, fresh appearance, and smell, from the F. tanaisee, through late L., from Gr. athanasia, immortality.
Wormwood is the name given to the bitter plant absinthe. A very common intoxicating drink, under the name of absinthe in France and of vermuth in Germany. There is good reason for believing that the word was originally written wer-mod, so that the
THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 69
theories about its having been originally werm-od, from the root of warm with affix od, from having been originally taken to warm the body, is entirely erroneous, and that Professor Skeat's idea is correct that the word is to be analysed as wer-mod — i.e., ware- mood, or mind -preserver, a name due to a primitive notion that the plant, like hellebore, was a specific for mental diseases, being derived from AS. warian, to protect, and mod, the mind. Similarly, Ger. vermuth, from weliren, to protect, and muth, the mind. That some such belief existed is evident from Tusser's saying, in his 'Husbandry,' published 1580, that "It is a comfort to the heart and brain," and Burton, in his 'Anatomy of Melan- choly,' says that it was " much prescribed, especially for hypo- chondriac melancholy." It has also been employed as a vermifuge, and this seems to have suggested both the wrong spelling and the wrong division of the word.
Before leaving the vegetable kingdom, there are two words intimately connected with it of which something should be said. These are flower and fruit. The word flower (from L. flos, floris) signifies like the L. word (1) a flower or blossom, and (2) the best of anything. Our word flour comes from the same root, and was originally spelt in the same way, so that in Dr Johnson's Dictionary of 1753 there is no such word as flour, but he gives as one of the senses of flower, " the edible part of corn, meal." The original spelling of the word was flour, which con- tinued to be occasionally used in all senses until 1700, though flower, introduced in the fifteenth century, was latterly the pre- vailing form. Flower and flour are now unquestionably two words, with slightly different pronunciations. The word fruit comes through the F. fruit, from • the L. fructus (originally enjoy- ment of anything — from fruor, fructus, to enjoy), which soon came to signify profit or advantage arising from the produce of land and trees — that is, fruit. The connection between it and frugality, which comes from the same root, is shown on p. 305.
70
CHAPTEE VIII.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Animal, from anima, breath (from Gr. ao, breath. — i.e., air exhaled and inhaled, and then the vital principle).
This kingdom embraces the whole of that department of natural history which treats of animals, and is called zoology, from Gr. zoon, an animal, and logos, a discourse. It is arranged in two divisions, each distinguished by some broadly marked peculiarity of structure. The divisions are — first, vertebrata, literally, back- boned animals, from L. vertebra, the backbone ; second, inverte- brata, without a backbone.
THE FIRST DIVISION, VERTEBRATA,
is subdivided into four clases : (1) mammalia, or suck -giving animals, from L. mamma, the breast ; (2) aves, birds, from L. avis, a bird; (3) reptilia, reptiles, from L. reptilis, from L. repo or serpo, to creep or crawl ; and (4) pisces, fishes, from L. piscis, a fish. Each of these is again subdivided into orders.
Class 1. Mammalia
embraces nine orders — (1) Bimana (having two hands), from L. bis, twice, and manus, the hand, is the term applied to the highest order of mammalia, of which man is the type, and the only species. Few persons of the present day will assert that "men have four legs by nature, and 'tis custom makes them go errone-
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 71
ously upon but two." For not only are they infinitely pre-eminent by their high and peculiar character and power of mind, but stamped with a bearing lofty and dignified, with "far nobler shape, erect and tall, god-like erect, with native honour clad." "We therefore propose to keep man entirely distinct, and to consider him after we have finished the merely animal kingdom.
(2) Quadnunana (having four hands), from L. quatuor,1 four, and manus, a hand. This order includes the monkey tribe. Its members are remarkable for the resemblance they bear to the human race, and I cannot but think that in the different names given to these belonging to this order we have more references to men than have been generally recognised. Most philologists content themselves with showing that the word ape was in AS. apa, and in Dutch and Icel. aap and api, in Ger. a/e, in Gr. Jceposo, in Sans. Itapi, a monkey. Skeat explains that the loss of the initial k is not remarkable in a word which has had so far to travel, as it is commonly supposed that the same loss has taken place in the case of Sans, kam, to love, as compared with L. amare. Max Miiller notes that the Heb. koph, an ape (IK. 10, 22), is not a Semitic word, but borrowed from Sanscrit. The Sans, kapi stands for kampi, from kamp, to tremble, vibrate, move rapidly to and fro. Baboon is said to be from the F. babuin, a little ape, but that the remoter origin is obscure ; while monkey is supposed to come from O.It, monna, the nickname for an old woman, an ape, a contraction of It. madonna, mistress. These learned etymologies seem to have all missed the point, for I think these three different names of ape, baboon, and monkey are all names, nicknames if you choose to regard them as such,
1 From quatuor we have quad- rangle, a square surrounded by buildings, a quadrant, the fourth part of a circle, or an arc of 90 degrees, quadrate, squared, quad- ratic, belonging to a square, quad- rille, a game of cards played by four, also a dance made up of sets of dancers having four couples each (through It. quadrylia), quadroon
(F. quarteron), the offspring of a mulatto and a white person, so called because their blood is one-fourth black, quadruped, a four - footed animal, quarter, the fourth part, quaternion, a file of four soldiers, quaternions, a kind of mathe- matical investigation, so called because four independent quantities are involved.}
Y2
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
arising from a certain likeness which these creatures bear to the human species. The word ape, for instance, seems to be merely a varied pronunciation of the Gothic word aba, a man; while baboon is the sort of augmentative of babe, as if we were to say a large child ; while monkey I regard as the diminutive of man, or tnon as it was often spelt — so that monkey would signify the mannikin — a sort of double diminutive, as the word donkey is dun (as regards its colour) and ik + ie, and so here mon-ik-ie. While the Latin simius signifies an ape, and is said to come from simiis, pug- nosed, I think it may be yet possible, through some presently missing link, to associate it with similis, like, so that everything connected with the nomenclature of this order would connect it some way or other with a similarity to man. The name orang- outan is said to come from Malay outan, signifying wild, and orang, man, "the wild man." The lemur is also found under this order, it is closely allied to the monkey, but it prowls about only at night, hence its name lemur, which is the Latin for a ghost — lemures being the general name for the departed spirits of men.
(3) Cheiroptera (hand- winged animals), from Gr. cheir,1 the hand, and pteris, a wing, for they have a pair of wings, formed by an extension of the skin over the very elongated fingers of the fore legs, and connected also with the hind legs. The bats belong to this order ; the name probably comes from beat, from the beat- ing of their wings, — an etymology rather confirmed by what we are told of the vampire bat.
This name of vampire has been given to the bat from the rather vamped-up story of the vampire, who is said to be a dead man who returns in body and soul from the other world and wanders about the land doing mischief to the living. He sucks the blood of persons asleep, and these persons become vampires in their turn. The vampire lies as a corpse during the day, but by night, especi-
1 From cheir, the hand, we have surgeon (from F. chirurgien), one whose business it is to heal dis- eases and injuries of the body by manual operations (Gr. ergon,
work), such as cutting, bandag- ing. Surgery is thus a medical art ; a surgery is a place where such surgical operations are per- formed.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
ally at full moon, wanders about. Sir Walter Scott, 'Rokeby,' iii. 2, 3, alludes to the superstition, and Lord Byron in his ' Giaour ' says —
" The first on earth as vampire sent, Thy corse shall from the tomb be rent, Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race.:!
(4) InsectivSra (insect -devourers), from insedum, and voro — insectum from inseco (of in, into, and seco,1 to cut), so that an insect is literally cut into — as with the body cut in the middle, and voro,2 avi, atum, are, to devour. Under this order are included the moles and the hedgehogs. The word mole is an abbreviated form of molde-warp, the mould-caster, from ME. molde, mould, and ME. werpen, to cast, from the little heaps of mould which the small animal casts up as he burrows in the ground. The mowdie- warp is still a common name for the mole in Scotland. The hedgehog is so called from his living in a hedge and having a likeness to a hog or pig. It was at one time much more frequently called the urchin, a name which is now generally confined to boys, and to sea-urchins. But urchin was not an inappropriate name for the hedgehog, inasmuch as the word comes through the F. herisson — 'from the L. ericius, their name for hedgehog.
(5) Carnivora (flesh -devourers), from L. caro, flesh,3 and voro, to devour. These are divided into two tribes — (1) the planti- grade, and (2) the digitigrade. (1) The plantigrade walk on the sole of the foot, from L. planta, the sole, and gradior,* to walk ;
1 From seco, seem, sectum, secare, to cut, we have section, sectional, sect, bisect, dissect, intersect, vivi- section— the dissection of animals yet alive for scientific purposes.
2 Voro, to swallow up greedily, gives us devour, voracious, voracity, carnivorous, flesh-eating, gramini- vorous, grass-eating, insectivorous, insect - eating, and omnivorous = animals that eat all kinds (omnia], both animal and vegetable sub- stances.
3 From this word caro, carnis, we have carnage, carnal, carnation, a flesh - coloured flower, carnival, a farewell to flesh (carni vale), or a solace to the flesh (levdmen), being just before Lent, carrion, dead, putrefying flesh, a charnel house contains carcases. Incarnate means embodied in flesh.
4 From gradior, gressw, gradi, to step, walk, or go, or rather from gradus, a step or degree, from which it is derived, we have not merely
74
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
and (2) the digitigrade, that walk on their toes, L. digitus,1 finger or toe, and gradior, to walk. Of the plantigrade the best known species are the bear (AS.), the racoon, a carnivorous animal of ]STorth America, valuable for its fur, — the word is a corruption of F. raton, a diminutive of rat, a rat. The badger is said to be a corruption of bladger (through OF. bladier, from low L. bladarius, a corn-dealer, from bladium, corn), because the badger was popularly believed to store up corn. (Whether he really does so is on etymological grounds a matter of indifference.) It has come as a verb to signify to pester or worry, especially by superior numbers. This is in allusion to the ancient custom of
grade, but gradient, the rate of ascent when a railroad is not quite level. Gradual means proceeding step by step, as a gradual increase of knowledge, a gradual descent. Men acquire a fixed character gradually. We graduate scales, thermometer, &c., that is, we mark the degrees upon them. To grad- uate also means to take or be ad- mitted to a degree in a university, or some professional incorporated body. An aggressor is the person who begins a quarrel ; an aggres- sion leads to hostility. War is aggressive on the part of those who begin it. A congress is an as- sembly for settling affairs. To degrade is to reduce to a lower level, moral or social. We speak of the lowest degradation of human nature. Art is degraded when it is only regarded as a trade. Degree means extent, step, or rank, as a degree of a circle, or of the earth's circumference, a degree of excel- lence, an Oxford, Cambridge, Edin- burgh, or Aberdeen degree. To digress is to turn aside from the main subject in writing or speak- ing : and we often make a digres- sion. Egress means going out, ingress, entrance into, or going in. An ingredient is that which enters into the composition of some mix- ture : we speak of the ingredients
of a cup of tea. Progress is motion onwards ; to progress is to go on- ward, to make progress. A pro- gressive state is opposed to a retrograde or stationary one. A progression is a regular and con- tinued increase or decrease of mem- bers, or a movement of the parts in harmony. To retrograde is to move backward. The state of the Arts in the Dark Ages was a retrograde state, and continued to be retrogressive for some centuries. A child may transgress the com- mand of a parent. "The way of transgressors is hard." " Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
1 From digitus, a finger or toe, we have the English word digit, literally a finger, a finger's breadth, or f -inch. Then from the habit of counting with the fingers, any one of the nine figures ; we have also digital, pertaining to the fingers, from the L. digitalis — the beautiful plant called in English foxglove, or perhaps more correctly the folk's-glove, the " folk " being the fairies, and the poetical idea being that these are their gloves that grow on that lovely plant. We have also digitate, consisting of several finger - like sections, and digitigrade, walking on the toes.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 75
badger-baiting. A badger was kennelled in a tub, where dogs were set upon him to worry him out. When dragged from his tub the poor creature was allowed to retire to it again, till he had recovered from the attack. This was repeated several times. Badger-baiting was at one time a common exhibition at the licensed bear-gardens, for the amusement of those who could not pay for the expenses of bear-baiting. The Puritans were accused of objecting to bear-baiting, not so much because it gave pain to the bear, as because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Baiting in this sense is from the Icel. beita, from the root of to bite, and to bait an animal originally meant to provoke it by inciting dogs to bite it. " Drawing the badger " originally meant draw- ing the badger out of his tub by means of dogs — figuratively it means extracting with difficulty something which you are anxious to know and which another is unwilling to tell. But to "over- draw the badger" is now "to overdraw one's bank account," as in Hood's poem of " Miss Kilmansegg," —
" His checks no longer drew the cash, Because, as his comrades explained in flash, He had overdrawn his badger."
In many parts of Scotland the badger is called a brock, from its black and white streaked face. In Gaelic broc is a badger (from breac, speckled). In Scotland, too, we use the adjective broket, meaning spotted, variegated, striped, white -faced. The glutton also is plantigrade, and receives his name from his voracity, through the F. glouton, from L. gluto, from glu, to eat to excess.
Among the Digitigrade group of the order of Carnivora, some of the most significant names are those of the Cat tribe, such as the lynx, the leopard, the panther, and the cat. The lynx, proverbial for its piercing eyesight, was a fabulous animal. Its sight was said to be so penetrating that it could see even through opaque bodies. But the cat-like animal now called a lynx is not remarkable for keen-sightedness. The name is the same in Gr. and L. lynx, probably from Gr. lyke, light, and so called rather
76 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
from its Irright eyes. Leopard is made up of the two Latin words, leo, a lion, and pardus, a pard, or panther, with which it is often confounded, "bearded like the pard."
The word " cat " is found in a very much similar form in at least a dozen languages, such as Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, Arabic, Turk- ish, and late Latin. It has not given rise to many other words in English. It has originated the word catkin, from the resem- blance between the loose cluster of flowers growing on willows and a cat's tail. The grass, Phleum pratense, is called cat's- tail grass, from the very striking resemblance which that grass bears to it. The phrase cat -o'- nine -tails, a whip with nine lashes, evidently had reference to the nine lives of a cat, and implied that whoever was subjected to it would be lashed within an inch of his life. We have also the expression of a cat's-paw, applied to the slight ripple on the water during a calm, and indicating a storm, — the phrase is the relic of a superstition that cats were witches or demons in disguise. Of course the phrase " to make a cat's-paw of" is in allusion to the fable of the monkey, which wanted to get from the fire some roasted chestnuts, and took the paw of the cat to extract them from the hot ashes. The kitten is in Middle English Tcyton, a diminutive of cat. In Scotland a kitten is still called in many quarters a kitling, and the Scotch pronunciation of the word for tickling has the same sound, "kitlin'." On one occasion the precentor had a cold and hoarse- ness, which interfered so much with his singing that when he came into the vestry after the service the minister said to him, " What was the matter with your voice to - day, George 1 " George replied, " I had a kitlin' in my throat, sir ; " to which the minister answered, " I'm glad that was all, for it sounded to me like a big Tarn cat ! " An old cat is often called a grimalkin — originally greymalkin. It is supposed by some that malkin is from the Teut. mal, from the L. macula, a spot — usually a spot which disfigures, although not necessarily, for Cicero speaks of a horse with its white spots] as " equus maculus albis." The general belief is that malkin is an old diminutive of Moll and Mary, and was used to designate a mop, as well as a scullion
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
77
(a servant so called from working in the scullery), a kitchen wench Now this word wench, from the AS. wende, a maid, connected with Welsh gweine, to serve, soon came to signify a low, coarse drab of a woman, so that grimalkin, as applied to an old cat, is not a complimentary expression. The name of puss, although derived originally from the sound made by what is called the spitting of a cat, has come to be both its familiar and its affectionate name. From the original Latin word for cat, felis, we have the word feline, signifying what pertains to the cat — that is, to tigers, lions, &c., and as many as are of the cat kind. It may not be out of place before leaving the subject of cat and kitten to mention that Kit- Cat has no connection with either cat or kitten. The Kit-Cat Club was the name of a London club formed in 1688, which met in the house of Christopher Cat, that being the name of the pastrycook who supplied the nmtton- pies, and after whom the club was named. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted forty-three por- traits of the club members for Jacob Jonson, the secretary, whose villa was at Barn Elms, and where latterly the club was held. In order to accommodate the paintings to the height of the club room he was obliged to make them three -quarter -lengths, hence a three-quarter portrait is still called a Kit -Cat. The only opportunity which most of us have had of seeing the more formidable specimens of the feline tribe is that which is fur- nished by a menagerie. This word, which is now associated in our minds with the place where foreign or wild beasts are kept, comes to us through the F. from the L. mansionaticum, pro- nounced first masinatico, and then became maisnage. Mansion- aticum is a derivative of mansionem, F. maison, a house, and the F. verb menager, to look after, administer, or manage everything connected with the house. The word menagerie was applied not so much to domestic administration as to the management of cattle on a cattle farm, and afterwards both in French and English exclusively to a travelling show of wild and foreign animals, also a collection of them kept for the purpose of exhibition.1
1 Manage also comes to us from the Latin through the French, and
although sometimes confounded in spelling with menage, has really
78 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
Leaving the Felidce, or cat tribe, we now come to the Canidae, or dog tribe, from L. canis, a dog, including all those whose type is the common dog. It is remarkable, though, that the name of dog does not occur in AS., but we find dog in Dutch and dogge in German. I do not think that dogs had been at an early period held in very high esteem in our country, for the words and phrases into which it enters are not generally complimentary : dogged, as applied to all the animals of this tribe, is in one sense compli- mentary, and certainly appropriate enough; but when you use it in a metaphorical sense, dogged means sullen, like an angry dog. Dog cheap, again, does not mean cheap as dogs' meat, as is gener- ally taken for granted, but as dogs themselves, showing the low estimate which, even pecuniarily, was formed of them. Doggerel, in regular measures in burlesque poetry, is named from dog, in contempt. The word is found first in Chaucer : the host objects to "Sir Thomas" as rym doggerel, using the term, however, as a kind of quotation — "this may well be rym doggerel" — i.e., "this must be the rhyme doggerel that I have heard tell of." Dog -Latin is bad Latin, or perhaps mongrel Latin, or, as mongrel signifies, of a mixed breed. The dog's letter, meaning the letter R, from the sound made by the dog in drawing up its nose and uttering a sound between its teeth, like the rough pronunciation of the letter r, nar, nar, this we call snarl or growl. Probably dodging, signifying shifting, scheming, tricky, comes from the way in which a dog wanders in his courses and eludes your vigilance when he wishes to escape your notice, so that he may well be regarded as the original "artful dodger."
Dogmatism, which almost every one knows has no connection with this animal, was cleverly and punningly associated with it in Douglas Jerrold's answer to the question, What is Dogmatism1? "Puppyism come to its full growth," this latter word signifying con- ceit in young men ; while a puppy is the common name given to a
nothing in common with it, the F. being manege, which signified literally the handling or managing of a horse (L. manus, the hand),
and then it came to signify the careful and skilful treatment of anything, such as a house, or affairs in general.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
79
very young dog, sometimes called a whelp. The word hound was originally applied to the dog generally, from the AS. hund, and the term greyhound has no reference to the colour, but is in reality the Icelandic word grig, a dog, the whole word meaning doghound. It is akin to the Gr. kuon, kunos, and to the L. canis, dog. From both of these we have derivations in English. From kunos1 we have cynic and cynical, meaning doglike, surly, snarly, contempt- uous ; while from L. canis, a dog, we have canine, like or pertain- ing to a dog ; while the word kennel is through the OF. chenil, and low L. and It. canile, a place where dogs are kept — from canis, a dog, a house or coop for dogs. The words dog, hound, whelp, puppy, and cur, are all terms of contempt when applied to men. The word cur, as applied to a worthless degenerate dog, is said to come from the Dan. kurre, from its growls, or, as we some- times say, gurring. This is probable enough. It may have been, however, that it came from the word curtail, originally, perhaps, curt-tail, from the word curtus, short, and the F. tailler, to cut. According to the old Forest Laws, dogs which did not belong to the lord of the manor were ordered to be mutilated by having their ears cropped or their tails shortened. These were at one time called curtals, or curtal dogs. It may have been in course of time that the word as well as the tail was shortened, and cur, instead of curt, became the name for a dog. In writing thus of cur and dog, I am reminded of the now obsolete verb condog, which is generally believed to be a whimsical imitation of the word concur, although no evidence has been found of its actual origin. There is a tradition that when Dr Adam Littleton was completing his Latin-English Dictionary, published in 1678, he
1 From kunos we have also cyno- sure, which signifies literally the dog's tail (from Gr. kuon, kunos, a dog, and oura, a tail), which is the name given to the constella- tion called the Lesser Bear, or rather to the three stars composing the tail of it, the last of the three being the pole star, or north star, as we often term it, and which, speaking generally, is the centre of
attraction to the magnet. It was the star by which seamen used formerly to steer, and consequently for which they were on the outlook. And so it has come to mean anything which strongly attracts our atten- tion, or which becomes a centre of attraction, as when Milton says in "L' Allegro," "where per- haps some beauty lies, the cynosure of neighbouring eyes."
80
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
employed an amanuensis, who wrote at his dictation, and when they came to concurro, the amanuensis said " to concur, I sup- pose, sir]" "To condog, I suppose, sir," was the Doctor's reply, and accordingly " condog " was set down. I had always been sceptical of the truth of that story, but now on looking whether the word is given in Murray's English Dictionary, I find the word "condog" with a reference to the tradition I have quoted; but for all that, the story must have been a pure fiction, for we find instances of the use of the verb in Lyly's Galatea, published in 1592 ; in Cockeram's Dictionary, 1623 ; in Heywood's Eoyal King, 1637; and in the News Letter of 1649; and last of all in Littleton's English Dictionary, 1678, "concurro, to concur, to condog."
I have said that the association of dog with different words generally gives them a degraded or inferior character, whether animals or plants : the only exception is in the astronomical world, where the dog -star, otherwise called Sirius or Canicula (from L. cants, a dog), is the brightest and apparently the largest of the fixed stars ; and the dog-days are the forty days, twenty before and twenty after the day on which the dog -star rises at the same moment as the sun, sometime between the 3rd of July and the llth of August. These were called dog-days, and being the hottest season of the year it was supposed that these were so named because on these days dogs frequently went mad. This madness of a dog is called hydrophobia (Gr. hudor,1 water, and
1 From Gr. hudor, hudatos, water, we have the word dropsy (origin- ally spelt hydropsy), being an un- natural collection of serous (watery) fluid in the body, as in dropsical diseases of the head, the abdomen, or the cellular tissue. Hydraulics (from Gr. aulos, a pipe or tube) is the science of the motion of fluids (through pipes or tubes). Hydro-
dynamics treats of force (Gr. dyna- mics) applied to fluids. Hydro- statics relates to the pressure and equilibrium of non - elastic fluids like water. Hydrogen is a very light gas, forming about one-ninth
part of common water. Hydro- pathy, water - cure. The hydra was a fabulous water serpent said to have been killed by Hercules. A new head had always up to his time grown on when the old was cut off: hence some evils are spoken of as many - headed hydras. A hydrant is a machine for discharg- ing water. A hydatid is a watery cyst or vesicle, sometimes found in animal bodies, fromhudatos (the geni- tive of hudor, water). Hydrangea, literally " the water vessel," so called from the cup - shaped seed - vessel (anggeion, a vessel).
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 81
phobos, fear), from the unnatural dread of water which the animal manifests, especially if the disease results from the bite of another mad dog. A very clever answer was given by a Scotch clergyman who, when asked by a gentleman if he knew why Sirius was called the dog-star, replied, " I suppose it is because it is a Skye terrier " (i.e., a sky-tamer). The names given to the different kinds of dogs are very interesting. This name terrier comes from L. terra, the earth, because he pursues animals to their earth or burrow. The spaniel, which was once believed to be of Spanish origin, received its name on that account (from old Ger. espagnol, F. epagneul, spaniel). A poodle was long supposed to be so called because it waddled after its master, or looked fat and clumsy on account of its thick hair, being allied to the low Ger. word pudeln, to waddle, — used of fat persons and short-legged animals ; but it has been pointed out that the poodle is neither peculiarly fat nor short-legged, neither has he a waddling gait. He is properly a water dog, and a more satisfactory origin of the name may be found in the Dut. poedele, to puddle in water, whence poedel-hond, a poodle or rough water dog. Probably the word puddle (any small pool of muddy water) has the same origin, or from putteln, puhteln, to paddle with the hands in water, while to puddle clay is to make it up with water, and we have the Ger. pudel, signifying nass, wet thoroughly.
Among the Canidae or dog set, and certainly among the most ferocious of the carnivora, we must include the hyaena, as having more points of resemblance than of difference. This bristly-maned brute, however, is so named from its likeness to the sow, for its L. and Gr. name hyaina, literally sow-like, comes from the Gr. hys, a sow.
Very different in many respects from all the carnivora of which we have spoken, yet as being carnivorous to be included among them, are the amphibious tribe of the Phocidae. This word phocidae comes from the L. phoca, or Gr. phoke, a seal, and in- cludes what are called the seal family. They are called amphibi- ous, as capable of living both on land and under water (from Gr. amphi, both, and bios, life). The English word seal is only slightly changed from the AS., Icel., and old Ger. forms of th-s
p
82 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
word. One of the family is the walrus, literally the "whale horse," from the Ger. wall-ross (wall, a whale, and ross, a horse), and generally called by us the sea-horse. The other name which is applied to it — viz., that of morse — is from the Russian word for the walrus — viz., morjs.
(6) Cetacea (animals partaking of the character of the whale), from Gr. Jceton, a whale. The English word is AS. hwael, sup- posed without much reason to come from AS. hwelan, to rush or roar (Ger. is wallfisch), the largest of sea animals, or of all living creatures. Other members of this order are the dolphin (Gr. delphin, L. delphinus) : the word has assumed the form it has in our language through the OF. daulphin. The dolphin is the fish so famed in classic story as the friend, and, as far as he could be, the companion of man. When Arion was doomed by the sailors to be thrown into the sea, a dolphin, charmed with the music of his funeral-song, received him on its back and bore him safely to Sparta. It was for this proof of philanthropy (of which, however, he furnished no subsequent example) that, as some say, the dolphin was placed among the stars, along with his friend Arion or Orion, who exhibits one of the noblest constellations in the heavens. Others say the dolphin was placed in the sky because his fondness for music made him the favourite of Apollo, who assumed the shape of that fish when conducting Castalius and his colony from the island of Crete. A temple was erected to Apollo Delphinus, and the Delphinia were feasts which the inhabitants of uEgina held in honour of the god. The dolphin was therefore a sacred fish, and the ten stars in that constellation, first observed by the early astronomers, were considered as a representation of Apollo and the nine Muses. The Greek delphax signified a pig or young swine, and delphin meant not only a dolphin, but also a large lump of lead, or of iron, which was thrown upon an enemy's ship for the purpose of sinking it. This was called pig-lead or pig- iron ; and, strangely enough, we still talk of pig-iron, which has with us received that name because it is made to flow, when melted, in channels called pigs, branching from a main channel the sow. The grampus, a very large voracious fish of the
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.
83
same family, is a corruption, after passing through many languages, of the L. grandis piscis (grandis, great, and piscis, a fish). The porpoise, or porpess, OF. poiyeis, signifies literally the hog -fish. The Germans call it me&r-schicein — that is, sea-swine, sea-hog. The name comes originally from L. porcus, a hog, from. its hog- like appearance in the water, or from the fact that when its food is scarce it dives, and, like the hog, burrows for sea-worms in the sand.
(7) Rodentia (gnawing animals), from rodens, rodentis, pres. part, of L. rodo,1 to gnaw, are so called because they are furnished with teeth which do not directly cut or tear, but file through or gnaw what they are disposed to eat The powers of the common mouse in eating its way through hard wood are only too well known. They are divided into seven families, of which the best known are the Sciuridae, or squirrel tribe, from L. sciurus, a squirrel, in . Gr. skiouros (from skia, a shade or shadow, and oura, a tail — lit. shadow-tail), because they shade themselves with their tails. The dormouse is so called from L. dormire, to sleep (from which we have also dormant and dormitory), and mus, a mouse, because it goes to sleep in winter, or hibernates, from L. hiberna, winter quarters (from hiems, winter). While it resembles the squirrel in its tail, it is like a mouse in its dentition ; and the marmot in all probability derives its name, not, as has almost been taken for granted, from It. marmotto, from L. mus, a mouse, and mons, montis, a mountain (signifying literally a mountain -mouse), but from the F. marmotter, to mutter, from the peculiar muttering sound which they make when they are feeding. This derivation is confirmed by the German name for the marmot, murmel-thier — " the murmuring animal."
The Muridae, or the mouse family, are so called from the L. mus, muris, a mouse : it is literally the stealing animal, as we find it called in Sans, musha (applied also to a rat), possible
1 Rodo, rosi, rosum, rodtre, gives us not merely such words as rodents and rodentia, but cor- rode, to eat or waste away. Acids are corroding or corrosive
substances. Rust is a sort of cor- rosion. Erosion means the eating or wearing away. Cancer erodes the flesh. The action of glaciers is erosive.
84 SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
root, mus, to steal, as seen in Sans, mush, to steal. The word rat is more suggestive of the animal's gnawing than of its thieving peculiarities. It is called raet in AS., cognate with Ger. ratte and Gael, radan, but probably all allied to the L. word we have con- sidered above — viz., rodo, to gnaw. This also seems the idea in the Scotch word "rottan." The word rat has also come to be used figuratively for a renegade through self-interest, as rats are said to desert a falling house or a sinking ship ; and so we find it used in politics to express a deserter, and among trades unionists a workman accepting lower than the union rate, or working when his mates have struck ; and so the verb to ratten has been formed, and is used in the sense of to destroy tools and appliances, to intimidate fellow workmen (or masters), to lock out employees, or engage non-union (or free) labour.
The family of the Hystricidae are recognised at the first glance by the stiff and pointed quills with which they are armed, the Gr. name of hystrix being derived from the two Greek words hys, a swine, and thrix, hair or bristles. It is the Porcupine family, a name which is corrupted from the OF. porc-epin, " the spiny hog," and from L. porcits, a pig, and spina, a spine, expressive of the pig-like aspect and grunting voice of these animals, as well as of their spiny covering.
The last family of the Rodentia is the Leporidse, from the Latin name for the typical members of this group — viz., lepus, leporis, a hare. Its AS. name is hara. There was an old English verb to hare (from the OF. harier), to frighten, so as to make one run heedlessly or wildly, like a hare. In another spelling it was to harry, which was the precursor of the modern verb to hurry. Hurry is haste, either in flight or in other active motions, accom- panied with that confusion of mind which attaches to a timid animal fleeing -from its pursuers. It is characteristic of a person having such a habitual temperament that we call him hare- brained, or harum-scarum, like a scared hare. The AS. form stands for an older form, Jiasa (s and r being often interchange- able), as shown by the Dut. haas, Ger. hose, and Sans, hasa, a hare, lit. a jumper, — all the forms being from a root has, to
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 85
jump, to move along by leaping, and so connected with the English •word haste. Haste and hurry are, then, words of kindred origin which have taken different departments of the language. Among dogs we have those called harriers, because they are employed in chasing hares. Some children are born with the upper lip cleft in two, which from its similarity to that of a hare is called a hare-lip. The Ger. word is hasen-scharte — i.e., a hair-notch or slit ; and in some parts of Scotland it is called a hairshaw or hareshaw, being a corruption of hare-schard, as being a gap, fissure, or shard, like the lip of a hare. The word leveret signifies a young hare under a year old, through the OF. levrault and mod. F. lievre, from L. lepus, leporis. The word rabbit existed in ME. in the form of rabet, and although it is alleged that no reason can be shown for that name being given to it, yet I think a fair etymology would be from the Hebrew rabbe, to multiply, from their great fecundity. The Welsh rabbit is not only not a dis- tinct species of rabbit, but is of an entirely different genus, being, according to Trench and others, a corruption of rare-bit ; but until the archbishop made the suggestion no evidence was produced of rare-bit having been ever so used. Since that time, however, some superfine restaurateurs have displayed their learning by admitting " Welsh rabbits " into their mentis, but in the bills of fare of mere eating-houses it is still vulgar rabbit. It is the name for a dish of toasted cheese, and is supposed to have originated, like many other slang expressions, from some dainty article of food which it was humorously supposed to equal or surpass.
(8) Edentata (animals without front teeth), from the L. e, out of, or without, and dens, dentis, a tooth. Theirs is the negative agreement of " no incisor teeth." Of these animals the armadillo is the chief. It derives its name from the Sp. diminutive of armado, armed (from L. armdtus), because its body is armed with a tesselated shell or scales fitted together into squares, like stones in a pavement (from L. tessella, dimin. of tessera, a square piece). The sloth belongs to this order, and from his tardigrade or tardy steps (L. tardus, slow, and gradus, a step) it is seen how well he deserves his name — viz., from the slowness of his movements.
86
SIGNIFICANT ETYMOLOGY.
Sloth signifies literally " slowness," and should be pronounced long, in order to feel the full significance of the word. With the order of the Edentata terminates the series of the unguiculated, or clawed, true mammalia — from L. unguis, a nail or claw, and claw being connected with cleave, to stick to, or hold on.
(9) Pachydermata (thick-skinned animals), from Gr. pachys, thick, literally firm, from root pak, and Gr. derma, dermatos, the skin. These are divided into three groups: (1) Proboscidea ; (2) true PachydermSta ; (3) the Solidungula. (1) The Proboscidea, or literally "the front feeders," of which the elephant is the repre- sentative. The elongated nose or proboscis comes from the Gr. proboskis, from pro, in front, and bosko (L. pasco), to feed. The name of elephant is also from the Gr. elephas, elephantos, supposed to be from the Heb. elepli or aleph, an ox ; for the Gr. alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, comes from Heb. aleph, an ox, which in its original shape resembled an ox's head. (2) The true Pachy- dermata,— the first family of these is that of Suidae, the pig kind, from L. sus, a sow. Of swine in general we have already spoken, and we select as a representative the hippopotamus, or river horse, from Gr. hippos,1 a horse, and potamos, a river. Among the true pachydermdta is certainly to be included the rhinoceros, an animal with a very thick skin and two horns on the nose — hence the name, Gr.