The Romance of Words Part 15

The curious word _akimbo_ occurs first in Mid. English in the form _in kenebowe_. In half a dozen languages we find this att.i.tude 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 h.o.m.o_ 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 h.o.m.o_ 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. _ra.s.sis_, 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 extinguis.h.i.+ng 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. _Gluck_, luck.[77] The Old French form _ghelicque_ would correspond to Mid. High Ger. _gelucke_. 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) guardians.h.i.+p, (2) a ward-room, watch-tower, (3) the watch collectively, (4) a watchman. Fr. _vigie_, the look-out man on board s.h.i.+p, 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 subst.i.tute when the supply of papyrus failed.

[64] The "stick" meaning survives in the _yards_ of a s.h.i.+p. _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 superst.i.tious 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 p.r.o.nounced _c.u.mrade_. In the London p.r.o.nunciation 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 _Lummel_, "a long lubber, a lazy lubber, a slouch, a lordant, a lordane, a looby, a b.o.o.by, a tony, a fop, a dunce, a simpleton, a wise-acre, a sot, a logger-head, a block-head, a nickamp.o.o.p, a lingerer, a drowsy or dreaming lusk, a pill-garlick, a s...o...b..ck, 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."