Chapter XIII

) is for bold, Leaf is imitative for lief, i.e. dear. Dear itself is of course hopelessly mixed up with Deer... The timorous-looking Fear is Fr. le fier, the proud or fierce. Skey is an old form of shy; Bligh is for Blyth; Hendy and Henty are related to handy, and had in Mid. English the sense of helpful, courteous--

"Oure hoost tho spak, 'A, sire, ye sholde be hende And curteys, as a man of youre estat.'"

(D, 1286.)

For Savage we find also the archaic spelling Salvage (Lat. silvaticus). Curtis is Norman Fr. curteis (courtois). The adjective garish, now only poetical, but once commonly applied to gaudiness in dress, has given Gerrish. Quaint, which has so many meanings intermediate between its etymological sense of known or familiar (Lat. cognitus) and its present sense of unusual or unfamiliar, survives as Quint. But Coy is usually local, from Quy (Cambridgeshire).

Orpwood is a corruption of Mid. Eng. orped, bold, warlike. Craske is an East Anglian word for fat, and Crouse is used in the north for sprightly, confident. To these we may add Ketch, Kedge, Gedge, from an East Anglian adjective meaning lively--

"Kygge, or joly, jocundus" (Prompt. Parv.)--

and Spragg, etymologically akin to Spry. Bragg was once used for bold or brave, without any uncomplimentary suggestion. The New English Dictionary quotes (c. 1310) from a lyric poem--

"That maketh us so brag and bolde And biddeth us ben blythe."

Crease is a West-country word for squeamish, but the East Anglian name Creasey, Cressy, is usually for the local Kersey (Suffolk). The only solution of Pratt is that it is Anglo-Sax. praett, cunning, adopted early as a personal name, while Storr, of Scandinavian origin, means big, strong. It is cognate with Steer, a bull. Devey and Dombey seem to be diminutive forms of deaf and dumb, still used in dialect in reference to persons thus afflicted. We find in French and German surnames corresponding to these very natural nicknames. Cf. Crombie from Crum (