CHAPTER VII

SEMANTICS

The convenient name semantics has been applied of late to the science of meanings, as distinguished from phonetics, the science of sound. The comparative study of languages enables us to observe and codify the general laws which govern sense development, and to understand why meanings become extended or restricted. One phenomenon which seems to occur normally in language results from what we may call the simplicity of the olden times. Thus the whole vocabulary which is etymologically related to _writing_ and _books_ has developed from an old Germanic verb that means to _scratch_ and the Germanic name for the _beech_. Our earliest books were wooden tablets on which inscriptions were scratched. The word _book_ itself comes from Anglo-Sax. _b[=o]c_, beech; _cf._ Ger. _Buchstabe_, letter, lit. beech-stave. Lat. _liber_, book, whence a large family of words in the Romance languages, means the inner bark of a tree, and _bible_ is ultimately from Greek {byblos}, the inner rind of the _papyrus_, the Egyptian rush from which _paper_ was made.[63]

The earliest measurements were calculated from the human body. All European languages use the _foot_, and we still measure horses by _hands_, while _span_ survives in table-books. _Cubit_ is Latin for _elbow_, the first part of which is the same as _ell_, cognate with Lat. _ulna_, also used in both senses. Fr. _brasse_, fathom, is Lat. _brachia_, the two arms, and _pouce_, thumb, means inch. A further set of measures are represented by simple devices: a _yard_[64] is a small "stick," and the _rod_, _pole_, or _perch_ (cf. _perch_ for birds, Fr. _perche_, pole) which gives charm to our arithmetic is a larger one. A _furlong_ is a _furrow-long_. For weights common objects were used, _e.g._, a _grain_, or a _scruple_, Lat. _scrupulus_, "a little sharpe stone falling sometime into a man's shooe" (Cooper), for very small things, a _stone_ for heavier goods. Gk. {drachma}, whence our _dram_, means a handful. Our decimal system is due to our possession of ten _digits_, or fingers, and _calculation_ comes from Lat. _calculus_, a pebble.

[Page Heading: FINANCIAL TERMS]

A modern Chancellor of the Exchequer, considering his budget, is not so near the reality of things as his medieval predecessor, who literally sat in his counting-house, counting up his money. For the _exchequer_, named from the Old Fr. _eschequier_ (_echiquier_), chess-board, was once the board marked out in squares on which the treasurer reckoned up with counters the king's taxes. This Old Fr. _eschequier_, which has also given _chequer_, is a derivative of Old Fr. _eschec_ (_echec_), check. Thus "_check_ trousers" and a "_chequered_ career" are both directly related to an eastern potentate (see _chess_, p. 120.). The _chancellor_ himself was originally a kind of door-keeper in charge of a _chancel_, a latticed barrier which we now know in church architecture only. _Chancel_ is derived, through Fr. _chancel_ or _cancel_, from Lat. _cancellus_, a cross-bar, occurring more usually in the plural in the sense of lattice, grating. We still _cancel_ a document by drawing such a pattern on it. In German _cancellus_ has given _Kanzel_, pulpit. The _budget_, now a document in which millions are mere items, was the chancellor's little bag or purse--

"If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin _budget_, Then my account I well may give, And in the stocks avouch it." (_Winter's Tale_, iv. 2.)

Fr. _bougette_, from which it is borrowed, is a diminutive of _bouge_, a leathern bag, which comes from Lat. _bulga_, "a male or _bouget_ of leather; a purse; a bagge" (Cooper). Modern French has borrowed back our _budget_, together with several other words dealing with business and finance.

Among the most important servants of the exchequer were the _controllers_. We now call them officially _comptroller_, through a mistaken association with Fr. _compte_, account. The controller had charge of the _counter-rolls_ (cf. _counterfoil_), from Old Fr. _contre-rolle_, "the copy of a role (of accounts, etc.), a paralell of the same quality and content, with the originall" (Cotgrave). In French _controle_ has preserved the sense of supervision or verification which it has lost in ordinary English.

A very ancient functionary of the exchequer, the tally-cutter, was abolished in the reign of George III. _Tallies_ (Fr. _tailler_, to cut) were sticks "scored" across in such a way that the notches could be compared for purposes of verification. Jack Cade preferred those good old ways--

"Our fore-fathers had no other books but the _score_ and the _tally_; thou hast caused books to be used." (2 _Henry VI._, iv. 7.)

This rudimentary method of calculation was still in use in the Kentish hop-gardens within fairly recent times; and some of us can remember very old gentlemen asking us, after a cricket match, how many "notches" we had "scored"--

"The _scorers_ were prepared to _notch_ the runs." (_Pickwick_, Ch. 7.)

This use of _score_, for a reckoning in general, or for twenty, occurs in Anglo-Saxon, but the word is Scandinavian. The words _score_ and _tally_, originally of identical meaning, were soon differentiated, a common phenomenon in such cases. For the exchequer _tally_ was substituted an "indented cheque receipt." An _indenture_, chiefly familiar to us in connection with apprenticeship, was a duplicate document of which the "indented" or toothed edges had to correspond like the notches of the score or tally. _Cheque_, earlier _check_, is identical with _check_, rebuff. The metaphor is from the game of chess (see p. 120), to _check_ a man's accounts involving a sort of control, or pulling up short, if necessary. A _cheque_ is a method of payment which makes "checking" easy. The modern spelling is due to popular association with _exchequer_, which is etymologically right, though the words have reached their modern functions by very different paths.

[Page Heading: OFFICIAL TITLES]

The development of the meaning of _chancellor_ can be paralleled in the case of many other functionaries, once humble but now important. The titles of two great medieval officers, the _constable_ and the _marshal_, mean the same thing. _Constable_, Old Fr. _conestable_ (_connetable_), is Lat. _comes stabuli_, stable fellow. _Marshal_, the first element of which is cognate with _mare_, while the second corresponds to modern Ger. _Schalk_, rascal, expresses the same idea in German. Both _constable_ and _marshal_ are now used of very high positions, but Policeman X. and the _farrier-marshal_, or shoeing-smith, of a troop of cavalry, remind them of the base degrees by which they did ascend. The _Marshalsea_ where Little Dorrit lived is for _marshalsy_, marshals' office, etc. The _steward_, or _sty-ward_, looked after his master's pigs. He rose in importance until, by the marriage of Marjorie Bruce to Walter the _Stewart_ of Scotland, he founded the most picturesque of royal houses. The _chamberlain_, as his name suggests, attended to the royal comforts long before he became a judge of wholesome literature.

All these names now stand for a great number of functions of varying importance. Other titles which are equally vague are _sergeant_ (see p. 148) and _usher_, Old Fr. _uissier_[65] (_huissier_), lit. door-keeper, Lat. _ostiarius_, a porter. Another official was the _harbinger_, who survives only in poetry. He was a forerunner, or vauntcourier, who preceded the great man to secure him "harbourage" for the night, and his name comes from Old Fr. _herberger_ (_heberger_), to shelter (see p. 164). As late as the reign of Charles II. we read that--

"On the removal of the court to pass the summer at Winchester, Bishop Ken's house, which he held in the right of his prebend, was marked by the _harbinger_ for the use of Mrs Eleanor Gwyn; but he refused to grant her admittance, and she was forced to seek for lodgings in another place." (HAWKINS, _Life of Bishop Ken_.)

[Page Heading: PARALLEL METAPHORS]

One of the most interesting branches of semantics, and the most useful to the etymologist, deals with the study of parallel metaphors in different languages. We have seen (p. 29) how, for instance, the names of flowers show that the same likeness has been observed by various races. The spice called _clove_ and the _clove_-pink both belong to Lat. _clavus_, a nail. The German for pink is _Nelke_, a Low German diminutive, _nail-kin_, of _Nagel_, nail. The spice, or _Gewuerznelke_, is called in South Germany _Naegele_, little nail. A _clove_ of garlic is quite a separate word; but, as it has some interesting cognates, it may be mentioned here. It is so called because the bulb _cleaves_ naturally into segments.[66] The German name is _Knoblauch_, for Mid. High Ger. _klobe-louch_, clove-leek, by dissimilation of one _l_. The Dutch doublet is _kloof_, a chasm, gully, familiar in South Africa.

Fr. _poison_, Lat. _potio_, _potion-_, a drink, and Ger. _Gift_, poison, lit. gift, seem to date from treacherous times. On the other hand, Ger. _Geschenk_, a present, means something poured out (see _nuncheon_, p. 124), while a tip is in French _pourboire_ and in German _Trinkgeld_, even when accepted by a lifelong abstainer. In English we "ride a _hobby_," _i.e._, a hobby-horse, or wooden horse. German has the same metaphor, "ein _Steckenpferd_ reiten," and French says "enfourcher un _dada_," _i.e._, to bestride a gee-gee. _Hobby_, for Mid. Eng. _hobin_, a nag, was a proper name for a horse. Like _Dobbin_ and _Robin_, it belongs to the numerous progeny of Robert.

In some cases the reason for a metaphor is not quite clear to the modern mind. The bloodthirsty weasel is called in French _belette_,[67] little beauty, in Italian _donnola_, in Portuguese _doninha_, little lady, in Spanish _comadreja_, gossip (Fr. _commere_, Scot. _cummer_, p. 94), in Bavarian _Schoentierlein_, beautiful little animal, in Danish _kjoenne_, beautiful, and in older English _fairy_.[68] From Lat. _medius_ we get _mediastinus_, "a drugge (drudge) or lubber to doe all vile service in the house; a kitching slave" (Cooper). Why this drudge should have a name implying a middle position I cannot say; but to-day in the North of England a maid-of-all-work is called a _tweeny_ (between maid).

A stock semantic parallel occurs in the relation between age and respectability. All of us, as soon as we get to reasonable maturity, lay great stress on the importance of deference to "elders." It follows naturally that many titles of more or less dignity should be evolved from this idea of seniority. The Eng. _alderman_ is obvious. _Priest_, Old Fr. _prestre_[69] (_pretre_), from Gk. {presbyteros}, comparative of {presbys}, old, is not so obvious. In the Romance languages we have a whole group of words, _e.g._, Fr. _sire_, _sieur_, _seigneur_, Ital. _signor_, Span. _senor_, with their compounds _monsieur_, _messer_, etc., all representing either _senior_ or _seniorem_. Ger. _Eltern_, parents, is the plural comparative of _alt_, old, and the first element of _seneschal_ (see _marshal_, p. 90) is cognate with Lat. _senex_. From Fr. _sire_ comes Eng. _sir_, and from this was formed the adjective _sirly_,[70] now spelt _surly_, which in Shakespeare still means haughty, arrogant--

"See how the _surly_ Warwick mans the wall." (3 _Henry VI._, v. 1.)

[Page Heading: LIST--MATELOT]

A _list_, in the sense of enumeration, is a "strip." The cognate German word is _Leiste_, border. We have the original meaning in "_list_ slippers." Fr. _bordereau_, a list, which became very familiar in connection with the Dreyfus case, is a diminutive of _bord_, edge. _Label_ is the same word as Old Fr. _lambel_ (_lambeau_), rag. _Scroll_ is an alteration, perhaps due to _roll_, of Mid. Eng. _scrow_ or _escrow_, from Old Fr. _escroue_,[71] rag, shred. _Docket_, earlier _dogget_, is from an old Italian diminutive of _doga_, cask-stave, which meant a bendlet in heraldry. _Schedule_ is a diminutive of Lat. _scheda_, "a scrowe" (Cooper), properly a strip of papyrus. Ger. _Zettel_, bill, ticket, is the same word. Thus all these words, more or less kindred in meaning, can be reduced to the primitive notion of strip or scrap.

_Farce_, from French, means stuffing. The verb to _farce_, which represents Lat. _farcire_, survives in the perverted _force_-meat. A parallel is _satire_, from Lat. _satura_ (_lanx_), a full dish, hence a medley. Somewhat similar is the modern meaning of _magazine_, a "store-house" of amusement or information.

The closest form of intimacy is represented by community of board and lodging, or, in older phraseology, "bed and board." _Companion_, with its related words, belongs to Vulgar Lat. _*companio_, _companion-_, bread-sharer. The same idea is represented by the pleonastic Eng. _messmate_, the second part of which, _mate_, is related to _meat_. _Mess_, food, Old Fr. _mes_ (_mets_), Lat. _missum_, is in modern English only military or naval, but was once the usual name for a dish of food--

"Herbs and other country _messes_ Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses." (_Allegro_, l. 85.)

With _mate_ we may compare Fr. _matelot_, earlier _matenot_, representing Du. _maat_, meat, and _genoot_, a companion. The latter word is cognate with Ger. _Genosse_, a companion, from _geniessen_, to enjoy or use together. In early Dutch we find also _mattegenoet_, through popular association with _matte_, hammock, one hammock serving, by a Box and Cox arrangement, for two sailors.

_Comrade_ is from Fr. _camarade_, and this from Span. _camarada_, originally a "room-full," called in the French army _une chambree_. This corresponds to Ger. _Geselle_, comrade, from _Saal_, room. The reduction of the collective to the individual is paralleled by Ger. _Bursche_, fellow, from Mid. High Ger. _burse_, college hostel; cf. _Frauenzimmer_, wench, lit. women's room. It can hardly be doubted that _chum_ is a corrupted clip from _chamber-fellow_.[72] It is thus explained in a _Dictionary of the Canting Crew_ (1690), within a few years of its earliest recorded occurrence, and the reader will remember Mr Pickwick's introduction to the _chummage_ system in the Fleet (Ch. 42).

[Page Heading: CUMMER--GREENHORN]

English _gossip_, earlier _god-sib_, related in God, a sponsor, soon developed the subsidiary meanings of boon companion, crony, tippler, babbler, etc., all of which are represented in Shakespeare. The case of Fr. _compere_ and _commere_, godfather and godmother, is similar. Cotgrave explains _commerage_ as "gossiping; the acquaintance, affinity, or league that growes betweene women by christning a child together, or one for another." Ger. _Gevatter_, godfather, has also acquired the sense of Fr. _bonhomme_ (p. 80), Eng. _daddy_. From _commere_ comes Scot. _cummer_ or _kimmer_--

"A canty quean was Kate, and a special _cummer_ of my ain." (_Monastery_, Ch. 8.)

While christenings led to cheerful garrulity, the wilder fun of weddings has given the Fr. _faire la noce_, to go on the spree. In Ger. _Hochzeit_, wedding, lit. high time, we have a converse development of meaning.

Parallel sense development in different languages sometimes gives us a glimpse of the life of our ancestors. Our verb to _curry_ (leather) comes from Old Fr. _correer_[73] (_courroyer_), to make ready, put in order, which represents a theoretical _*con-red-are_, the root syllable of which is Germanic and cognate with our _ready_. Ger. _gerben_, to tan, Old High Ger. _garawen_, to make ready, is a derivative of _gar_, ready, complete, now used only as an adverb meaning "quite," but cognate with our _yare_--

"Our ship-- Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split-- Is tight, and _yare_, and bravely rigg'd." (_Tempest_, v. 1.)

Both _curry_ and _gerben_ must have acquired their restricted meaning at a time when there was literally nothing like leather.

Even in slang we find the same parallelism exemplified. We call an old-fashioned watch a _turnip_. In German it is called _Zwiebel_, onion, and in French _oignon_. Eng. _greenhorn_ likens an inexperienced person to an animal whose horns have just begun to sprout. In Ger. _Gelbschnabel_, yellow-bill, and Fr. _bec-jaune_, we have the metaphor of the fledgling. Ludwig explains _Gelbschnabel_ by "chitty-face," _chit_, cognate with _kit_-ten, being a general term in Mid. English for a young animal. From _bec-jaune_ we have archaic Scot. _beejam_, university freshman. Cotgrave spells the French word _bejaune_, and gives, as he usually does for such words,[74] a very full gloss, which happens, by exception, to be quotable--

"A novice; a late prentice to, or young beginner in, a trade, or art; also, a simple, ignorant, unexperienced, asse; a rude, unfashioned, home-bred hoydon; a sot, ninny, doult, noddy; one that's blankt, and hath nought to say, when he hath most need to speake."

The Englishman intimates that a thing has ceased to please by saying that he is "fed up" with it. The Frenchman says, "J'en ai soupe." Both these metaphors are quite modern, but they express in flippant form the same figure of physical satiety which is as old as language. _Padding_ is a comparatively new word in connection with literary composition, but it reproduces, with a slightly different meaning, the figure expressed by _bombast_, lit. wadding, a derivative of Greco-Lat. _bombyx_, originally "silk-worm," whence also _bombasine_. We may compare also "_fustian_ eloquence"--

"And he, whose _fustian_'s so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad." (POPE, _Prologue to the Satires_, l. 187.)

And a very similar image is found in the Latin poet Ausonius--

"At nos illepidum, rudem libellum, _Burras_, quisquilias ineptiasque Credemus gremio cui fovendum?" (_Drepanio Filio._)

Even to "take the cake" is paralleled by the Gk. {labein ton pyramounta}, to be awarded the cake of roasted wheat and honey which was originally the prize of him who best kept awake during a night-watch.

In the proverbial expressions which contain the concentrated wisdom of the ages we sometimes find exact correspondences. Thus "to look a gift-horse in the mouth" is literally reproduced in French and German. Sometimes the symbols vary, _e.g._, the risk one is exposed to in acquiring goods without examination is called by us "buying a pig in a poke."[75] French and German substitute the cat. We say that "a cat may look at a king." The French _dramatis personae_ are a dog and a bishop. The "bird in hand" which we regard as the equivalent of two in the bush is in German compared advantageously with ten on the roof.

[Page Heading: NAUTICAL METAPHOR]

Every language has an immense number of metaphors to describe the various stages of intoxication. We, as a seafaring nation, have naturally a set of such metaphors taken from nautical English. In French and German the state of being "half-seas over" or "three sheets in the wind," and the practice of "splicing the main-brace" are expressed by various land metaphors. But the more obvious nautical figures are common property. We speak of being _stranded_; French says "_echouer_ (to run ashore) dans une entreprise," and German uses _scheitern_, to strand, split on a rock, in the same way.

Finally, we observe the same principle in euphemism, or that form of speech which avoids calling things by their names. Euphemism is the result of various human instincts which range from religious reverence down to common decency. There is, however, a special type of euphemism which may be described as the delicacy of the partially educated. It is a matter of common observation that for educated people a spade is a spade, while the more outspoken class prefers to call it a decorated shovel. Between these two classes come those delicate beings whose work in life is--

"le retranchement de ces syllabes sales Qui dans les plus beaux mots produisent des scandales; Ces jouets eternels des sots de tous les temps; Ces fades lieux-communs de nos mechants plaisants; Ces sources d'un amas d'equivoques infames, Dont on vient faire insulte a la pudeur des femmes." (MOLIERE, _Les Femmes savantes_, iii. 2.)

In the United States refined society has succeeded in banning as improper the word _leg_, which must now be replaced by _limb_, even when the possessor is a boiled fowl, and this refinement is not unknown in England. The coloured ladies of Barbados appear to have been equally sensitive--

"Fate had placed me opposite to a fine turkey. I asked my partner if I should have the pleasure of helping her to a piece of the breast. She looked at me indignantly, and said, 'Curse your impudence, sar; I wonder where you larn manners. Sar, I take a lilly turkey _bosom_, if you please.'" (_Peter Simple_, Ch. 31.)

This tendency shows itself especially in connection with the more intimate garments and articles intended for personal use. We have the absurd name _pocket handkerchief_, _i.e._, pocket hand-cover-head, for a comparatively modern convenience, the earlier names of which have more of the directness of the Artful Dodger's "wipe." Ben Jonson calls it a _muckinder_. In 1829 the use of the word _mouchoir_ in a French adaptation of _Othello_ caused a riot at the Comedie Francaise. History repeats itself, for, in 1907, a play by J. M. Synge was produced in Dublin, but--

"The audience broke up in disorder at the word _shift_." (_Academy_, 14th Oct. 1911.)

This is all the more ludicrous when we reflect that _shift_, _i.e._ change of raiment, is itself an early euphemism for _smock_; _cf._ Ital. _mutande_, "thinne under-breeches" (Florio), from a country and century not usually regarded as prudish. The fact is that, just as the low word, when once accepted, loses its primitive vigour (see _pluck_, p. 83), the euphemism is, by inevitable association, doomed from its very birth.

[Page Heading: SEMANTIC ETYMOLOGY]

I will now give a few examples of the way in which the study of semantics helps the etymologist. The _antlers_ of a deer are properly the lowest branches of the horns, what we now call brow-antlers. The word comes from Old Fr. _antoilliers_, which answers phonetically to a conjectured Lat. _*ante-oculares_, from _oculus_, eye. This conjecture is confirmed by the Ger. _Augensprosse_, brow-antler, lit. eye-sprout.

Eng. _plover_, from Fr. _pluvier_, could come from a Vulgar Lat. _*pluviarius_, belonging to rain. The German name _Regenpfeifer_, lit. rain-piper, shows this to be correct. It does not matter, etymologically, whether the bird really has any connection with rain, for rustic observation, interesting as it is, is essentially unscientific. The _honey_suckle is useless to the bee. The _slow-worm_, which appears to be for _slay-worm_, strike-serpent,[76] is perfectly harmless, and the toad, though ugly, is not venomous, nor does he bear a jewel in his head.

_Kestrel_, a kind of hawk, represents Old Fr. _quercerelle_ (_crecerelle_), "a kastrell" (Cotgrave). _Crecerelle_ is a diminutive of _crecelle_, a rattle, used in Old French especially of the leper's rattle or clapper, with which he warned people away from his neighbourhood. It is connected with Lat. _crepare_, to resound. The Latin name for the kestrel is _tinnunculus_, lit. a little ringer, derived from the verb _tinnire_, to clink, jingle, "tintinnabulate." Cooper tells us that "they use to set them (kestrels) in pigeon houses, to make doves to love the place, bicause they feare away other haukes with their ringing voyce." This information is obtained from the Latin agriculturist Columella. This parallel makes it clear that Fr. _crecerelle_, kestrel, is a metaphorical application of the same word, meaning a leper's "clicket."

The curious word _akimbo_ occurs first in Mid. English in the form _in kenebowe_. In half a dozen languages we find this attitude expressed by the figure of a jug-handle, or, as it used to be called, a pot-ear. The oldest equivalent is Lat. _ansatus_, used by Plautus, from _ansa_, a jug-handle. _Ansatus homo_ is explained by Cooper as "a man with his arms _on kenbow_." Archaic French for to stand with arms akimbo is "faire le pot a deux _anses_," and the same striking image occurs in German, Dutch, and Spanish. Hence it seems a plausible conjecture that _kenebowe_ means "jug-handle." This is confirmed by the fact that Dryden translates _ansa_, "the eare or handle of a cuppe or pot" (Cooper), by "_kimbo_ handle" (Vergil, _Ecl._ iii. 44). Eng. _bow_, meaning anything bent, is used in many connections for handle. The first element may be _can_, applied to every description of vessel in earlier English, as it still is in Scottish, or it may be some Scandinavian word. In fact the whole compound may be Scandinavian. Thomas' _Latin Dictionary_ (1644) explains _ansatus homo_ as "one that in bragging manner strowteth up and down with his armes _a-canne-bow_."

[Page Heading: DEMURE--LUGGER]

_Demure_ has been explained as from Mid. Eng. _mure_, ripe, mature, with prefixed _de_. But _demure_ is the older word of the two, and while the loss of the atonic first syllable is normal in English (p. 61), it would be hard to find a case in which a meaningless prefix has been added. Nor does the meaning of _demure_ approximate very closely to that of ripe. It now has a suggestion of slyness, but in Milton's time meant sedate--

"Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, stedfast, and _demure_." (_Penseroso_, l. 31.)

and its oldest meaning is calm, settled, used of the sea. When we consider that it is nearly equivalent to _staid_, earlier _stayed_, and compare the equivalent terms in other languages, _e.g._, Lat. _sedatus_, Fr. _rassis_, Ger. _gesetzt_, etc., it seems likely that it is formed from the Old Norman _demurer_ (_demeurer_), to "stay," just as _stale_ is formed from Old Fr. _estaler_ (_etaler_), to display on a _stall_, or _trove_, in "treasure _trove_," from Old Fr. _trover_ (_trouver_).

The origin of _lugger_ is unknown, but the word is recorded a century later than _lugsail_, whence it is probably derived. The explanation of _lugsail_ as a _sail_ that is _lugged_ seems to be a piece of folk-etymology. The French for _lugsail_ is _voile de fortune_, and a still earlier name, which occurs also in Tudor English, is _bonaventure_, _i.e._, good luck. Hence it is not unreasonable to conjecture that _lugsail_ stands for _*luck-sail_, just as the name _Higson_ stands for _Hickson_ (see p. 172).

The _pips_ on cards or dice have nothing to do with apple pips. The oldest spelling is _peeps_. In the Germanic languages they are called "eyes," and in the Romance languages "points"; and the Romance derivatives of Lat. _punctus_, point, also mean "_peep_ of day." Hence the _peeps_ are connected with the verb to _peep_.

The game called _dominoes_ is French, and the name is taken from the phrase _faire domino_, to win the game. _Domino_, a hooded cloak worn by priests in winter, is an Italian word, apparently connected with Lat. _dominus_. French also has, in various games, the phrase _faire capot_, with a meaning like that of _faire domino_. _Capot_, related to Eng. _cap_ and Fr. _chapeau_, means properly a hooded cloak. The two metaphors are quite parallel, but it is impossible to say what was the original idea. Perhaps it was that of extinguishing the opponent by putting, as it were, his head in a bag.

The card game called _gleek_ is often mentioned in Tudor literature. It is derived from Old Fr. _glic_, used by Rabelais, and the word is very common in the works of the more disreputable French poets of the 15th century. According to French archaeologists the game was also called _bonheur_, _chance_, _fortune_, and _hasard_. Hence _glic_ represents in all probability Ger. _Glueck_, luck.[77] The Old French form _ghelicque_ would correspond to Mid. High Ger. _geluecke_. The history of _tennis_ (p. 10) and _trump_ (p. 9) shows that it is not necessary to find the German word recorded in the same sense.

[Page Heading: SENTRY]

The word _sentry_, which occurs in English only, has no connection at all with _sentinel_, the earliest form of which is Ital. _sentinella_, of unknown origin. The older lexicographers obscured the etymology of _sentry_, which is really quite simple, by always attempting to treat it along with _sentinel_. It is a common phenomenon in military language that the abstract name of an action is applied to the building or station in which the action is performed, then to the group of men thus employed, and finally to the individual soldier. Thus Lat. _custodia_ means (1) guardianship, (2) a ward-room, watch-tower, (3) the watch collectively, (4) a watchman. Fr. _vigie_, the look-out man on board ship, can be traced back in a similar series of meanings to Lat. _vigilia_, watching.[78] A _sentry_, now a single soldier, was formerly a band of soldiers--

"What strength, what art can then Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe Through the strict _senteries_ and stations thick Of angels watching round?" (_Paradise Lost_, ii. 410.)

and earlier still a watch-tower, _e.g._, Cotgrave explains Old Fr. _eschauguette_ (_echauguette_) as "a _sentrie_, watch-tower, beacon." The purely abstract sense survives in the phrase "to keep _sentry_" _i.e._ guard--

"Here toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother, Sleep, Forms terrible to view their _centry_[79] keep." (DRYDEN, _AEneid_, vi. 277.)

It is a contracted form of _sanctuary_. In the 17th century it is a pretty familiar word in this sense.[79] The earliest example I have come across is in Nashe--

"He hath no way now to slyppe out of my hands, but to take _sentrie_ in the Hospital of Warwick." (First Part of PASQUIL'S _Apologie_, 1590.)

Fr. _guerite_, a sentry box, can be traced back in the same way to Old Fr. _garir_ (_guerir_), to save. Cotgrave explains it as "a place of refuge, and of safe retyrall," also "a _sentrie_, or little lodge for a sentinell, built on high." It is to this latter sense that we owe Eng. _garret_. In medieval French _guerite_ means refuge, sanctuary--

"Ceste roche est Ihesucrist meismes qui est li refuges et la _garite_ aus humbles."[80]

If French had not borrowed _sentinelle_ from Italian, _guerite_ would probably now mean "sentry"; _cf._ the history of _vigie_ (p. 103), or of _vedette_, a cavalry sentry, but originally "a prying or peeping hole" (Florio), from Ital. _vedere_, to see.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Parchment (see p. 49) was invented as a substitute when the supply of papyrus failed.

[64] The "stick" meaning survives in the _yards_ of a ship. _Yard_ was once the general word for rod, wand. Thus the "cheating _yardwand_" of Tennyson's "smooth-faced snubnosed rogue" (_Maud_, I. i. 16) is a pleonasm of the same type as _greyhound_ (p. 135). _Yard_, an enclosure, is a separate word, related to _garden_. The doublet _garth_, used in the Eastern counties, is of Scandinavian origin--

"I climb'd to the top of the _garth_, and stood by the road at the gate." (TENNYSON, _The Grandmother_, l. 38.)

[65] As Old Fr. _uissier_ has given _usher_, I would suggest that the family names _Lush_ and _Lusher_, which Bardsley (_Dict. of English Surnames_) gives up, are for Old Fr. _l'uis_ (cf. _Laporte_) and _l'uissier_. In modern French _Lhuissier_ is not an uncommon name.

[66] The _onion_, Fr. _oignon_, Lat. _unio_, _union-_, is so named because successive skins form an harmonious one-ness. It is a doublet of _union_.

[67] Perhaps a diminutive of Cymric _bele_, marten, but felt as from Fr. _belle_.

[68] Dozens of similar names for the weasel could be collected from the European languages and dialects. It is probable that these complimentary names were propitiatory, the weasel being an animal regarded with superstitious dread.

[69] Cf. _Prester_ John, the fabulous priest monarch of Ethiopia.

[70] Cf. _lordly_, _princely_, etc., and Ger. _herrisch_, imperious, from _Herr_, sir.

[71] Modern Fr. _ecrou_ is used only in the sense of prison register.

[72] The vowel is not so great a difficulty as it might appear, and we actually have the same change in _comrade_ itself, formerly pronounced _cumrade_. In the London pronunciation the _u_ of such words as _but_, _cup_, _hurry_, etc., represents roughly a continental short _a_. This fact, familiar to phoneticians but disbelieved by others, is one of the first peculiarities noted by foreigners beginning to learn English. It is quite possible that _chum_ is an accidental spelling for _*cham_, just as we write _bungalow_ for _bangla_ (Bengal), _pundit_ for _pandit_, and _Punjaub_ for _Panjab_, five rivers, whence also probably the liquid called _punch_, from its five ingredients. _Cf._ also American to _slug_, _i.e._ to _slog_, which appears to represent Du. _slag_, blow--"That was for _slugging_ the guard" (Kipling, _An Error in the Fourth Dimension_)--and the adjective _bluff_, from obsolete Du. _blaf_, broad-faced.

[73] _Array_, Old Fr. _arreer_, is related.

[74] This is a characteristic of the old dictionary makers. The gem of my collection is Ludwig's gloss for _Luemmel_, "a long lubber, a lazy lubber, a slouch, a lordant, a lordane, a looby, a booby, a tony, a fop, a dunce, a simpleton, a wise-acre, a sot, a logger-head, a block-head, a nickampoop, a lingerer, a drowsy or dreaming lusk, a pill-garlick, a slowback, a lathback, a pitiful sneaking fellow, a lungis, a tall slim fellow, a slim longback, a great he-fellow, a lubberly fellow, a lozel, an awkward fellow."

[75] _Poke_, sack, is still common in dialect, _e.g._ in the Kentish hop-gardens. It is a doublet of _pouch_, and its diminutive is _pocket_.

[76] The meaning of _worm_ has degenerated since the days of the _Lindwurm_, the dragon slain by Siegfried. The Norse form survives in _Great Orme's Head_, the dragon's head.

[77] Some derive it from Ger. _gleich_, like, used of a "flush."

[78] This is why so many French military terms are feminine, e.g., _recrue_, _sentinelle_, _vedette_, etc.

[79] Skinner's _Etymologicon_ (1671) has the two entries, _centry_ pro _sanctuary_ and _centry_ v. _sentinel_. The spellings _centry_ and _centinel_, which were common when the words still had a collective sense, are perhaps due to some fancied connection with _century_, a hundred soldiers.

[80] "This rock is Jesus Christ himself, who is the refuge and sanctuary of the humble."