The Romance of Words Part 22

(Cotgrave). _Glamour_ and _gramarye_ were both revived by Scott--

"A moment then the volume spread, And one short spell therein he read; It had much of _glamour_ might."

(_Lay of the Last Minstrel_, iii. 9.)

"And how he sought her castle high, That morn, by help of _gramarye_."

(_Ibid._, v. 27.)

For the change of _r_ to _l_ we have the parallel of _flounce_ for older _frounce_ (p. 60). _Quire_ is the same word as _quair_, in the "King's _Quair_" _i.e._ book. Its Mid. English form is _quayer_, Old Fr.

_quaer_, _caer_ (_cahier_), Vulgar Lat. _*quaternum_, for _quaternio_, "a _quier_ with foure sheetes" (Cooper).

[Page Heading: EASTERN DOUBLETS]

Oriental words have sometimes come into the language by very diverse routes. _Sirup_, or _syrup_, _sherbet_, and (_rum_)-_shrub_ are of identical origin, ultimately Arabic. _Sirup_, which comes through Spanish and French, was once used, like _treacle_ (p. 75), of medicinal compounds--

"Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy _syrups_ of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday."

(_Oth.e.l.lo_, iii. 3.)

_Sherbet_ and _shrub_ are directly borrowed through the medium of travellers--

"'I smoke on _srub_ and water, myself,' said Mr Omer."

(_David Copperfield_, Ch. 30.)

_Sepoy_, used of Indian soldiers in the English service, is the same as _spahi_, the French name for the Algerian cavalry. Both come ultimately from a Persian adjective meaning "military," and the French form was at one time used also in English in speaking of Oriental soldiery--

"The Janizaries and _Spahies_ came in a tumultuary manner to the Seraglio."

(HOWELL, _Familiar Letters_, 1623.)

_Tulip_ is from Fr. _tulipe_, formerly _tulipan_, "the delicate flower called a _tulipa_, _tulipie_, or Dalmatian cap" (Cotgrave). It is a doublet of _turban_. The German _Tulpe_ was also earlier _Tulipan_.

The humblest of medieval coins was the _maravedi_, which came from Spain at an early date, though not early enough for Robin Hood to have said to Isaac of York--

"I will strip thee of every _maravedi_ thou hast in the world."

(_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 33.)

The name is due to the Moorish dynasty of the _Almaravides_ or _Marabouts_. This Arabic name, which means hermit, was given also to a kind of stork, the _marabout_, on account of the solitary and sober habits which have earned in India for a somewhat similar bird the name _adjutant_ (p. 34).

_Cipher_ and _zero_ do not look like doublets, but both of them come from the same Arabic word. The medieval Lat. _zephyrum_ connects the two forms. _Crimson_ and _carmine_, both of them ultimately from Old Spanish, are not quite doublets, but both belong to _kermes_, the cochineal insect, of Arabic origin.

The relations.h.i.+p between _cipher_ and _zero_ is perhaps better disguised than that between _furnish_ and _veneer_, though this is by no means obvious. _Veneer_, spelt _fineer_ by Smollett, is Ger. _fournieren_, borrowed from Fr. _fournir_[107] and specialised in meaning. Ebers'

_German Dict._ (1796) has _furnieren_, "to inlay with several sorts of wood, to _veneer_."

The doublets selected for discussion among the hundreds which exist in the language reveal many etymological relations.h.i.+ps which would hardly be suspected at first sight. Many other words might be quoted which are almost doublets. Thus _sergeant_, Fr. _sergent_, Lat. _serviens_, _servient-_, is almost a doublet of _servant_, the present participle of Fr. _servir_. The fabric called _drill_ or _drilling_ is from Ger.

_Drillich_, "tick, linnen-cloth woven of _three_ threads" (Ludwig). This is an adaptation of Lat. _trilix_, _trilic-_, which, through Fr.

_treillis_, has given Eng. _trellis_. We may compare the older _twill_, of Anglo-Saxon origin, cognate with Ger. _Zwilch_ or _Zwillich_, "linnen woven with a _double_ thread" (Ludwig). _Robe_, from French, is cognate with _rob_, and with Ger. _Raub_, booty, the conqueror decking himself in the spoils of the conquered. _Musk_ is a doublet of _meg_ in _nutmeg_, Fr. _noix muscade_. In Mid. English we find _note-mugge_, and Cotgrave has the diminutive _muguette_, "a nutmeg"; _cf._ modern Fr.

_muguet_, the lily of the valley. Fr. _diner_ and _dejeuner_ both represent Vulgar Lat. _*dis-junare_, to break fast, from _jejunus_, fasting. The difference of form is due to the s.h.i.+fting of the accent in the Latin conjugation, e.g., _dis-junare_ gives Old Fr. _disner_ (_diner_), while _dis-junat_ gives Old Fr. _desjune_ (_dejeune_).

[Page Heading: BANJO--SAMITE]

_Admiral_, earlier _amiral_, comes through French from the Arab. _amir_, an emir. Its Old French forms are numerous, and the one which has survived in English may be taken as an abbreviation of Arab. _amir al bahr_ emir on the sea. Greco-Lat. _pandura_, a stringed instrument, has produced an extraordinary number of corruptions, among which some philologists rank _mandoline_. Eng. _bandore_, now obsolete, was once a fairly common word, and from it, or from some cognate Romance form, comes the negro corruption _banjo_--

"'What is this, mamma? it is not a guitar, is it?' 'No, my dear, it is called a _banjore_; it is an African instrument, of which the negroes are particularly fond.'"

(MISS EDGEWORTH, _Belinda_, Ch. 18.)

Florio has _pandora_, _pandura_, "a musical instrument with three strings, a kit, a croude,[108] a rebecke." _Kit_, used by d.i.c.kens--

"He had a little fiddle, which at school we used to call a _kit_, under his left arm."

(_Bleak House_, Ch. 14.)

seems to be a clipped form from Old French dialect _quiterne_, for _guiterne_, Greco-Lat. _cithara_. Cotgrave explains _mandore_ as a "_kitt_, small gitterne." The doublet _guitar_ is from Spanish.

The two pretty words _dimity_ and _samite_--

"An arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white _samite_, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword."

(TENNYSON, _Morte d'Arthur_, l. 29.)

are both connected with Gk. ?t??, thread. _Dimity_ is the plural, _dimiti_, of Ital. _dimito_, "a kind of course cotton or flanell"

(Florio), from Greco-Lat. _dimitus_, double thread (cf. _twill_, p.

148). _Samite_, Old Fr. _samit_, whence Ger. _Samt_, velvet, is in medieval Latin _hexamitus_, six-thread; this is Byzantine Gk. ????t??, whence also Old Slavonic _aksamitu_. The Italian form is _sciamito_, "a kind of sleave, feret, or filosello silke" (Florio). The word _feret_ used here by Florio is from Ital. _fioretto_, little flower. It was also called _floret_ silk. Florio explains the plural _fioretti_ as "a kind of course silke called _f[l]oret_ or _ferret_ silke," and Cotgrave has _fleuret_, "course silke, _floret_ silke." This doublet of _floweret_ is not obsolete in the sense of tape--

"'Twas so fram'd and express'd no tribunal could shake it, And firm as red wax and black _ferret_ could make it."

(INGOLDSBY, _The Housewarming_.)

_Parish_ and _diocese_ are closely related, _parish_, Fr. _paroisse_, representing Greco-Lat. _par-oikia_ (?????, a house), and _diocese_ coming through Old French from Greco-Lat. _di-oikesis_. _Skirt_ is the Scandinavian doublet of _s.h.i.+rt_ from Vulgar Lat. _ex-curtus_, which has also given us _short_. The form without the prefix appears in Fr.

_court_, Ger. _kurz_, and the English diminutive _kirtle_--

"What stuff wilt have a _kirtle_ of?"

(2 _Henry IV._, ii. 4.)

These are all very early loan words.

[Page Heading: BROKER--WALNUT]

A new drawing-room game for amateur philologists would be to trace relations.h.i.+ps between words which have no apparent connection. In discussing, a few years ago, a lurid book on the "Mysteries of Modern London," _Punch_ remarked that the existence of a _villa_ seemed to be proof presumptive of that of a _villain_. This is etymologically true.

An Old French _vilain_, "a villaine, slave, bondman, servile tenant"

(Cotgrave), was a peasant attached to his lord's _ville_ or domain, Lat.

_villa_. For the degeneration in meaning we may compare Eng. _boor_ and _churl_ (p. 84), and Fr. _manant_, a clodhopper, lit. a dweller (see _manor_, p. 9). A _butcher_, Fr. _boucher_, must originally have dealt in goat's flesh, Fr. _bouc_, goat; _cf._ Ital. _beccaio_, butcher, and _becco_, goat. Hence _butcher_ and _buck_ are related. The extension of meaning of _broker_, an Anglo-Norman form of _brocheur_, shows the importance of the wine trade in the Middle Ages. A _broker_ was at first[109] one who "broached" casks with a _broche_, which means in modern French both brooch and spit. The essential part of a _brooch_ is the pin or spike.

When Kent says that Cornwall and Regan--

"Summon'd up their _meiny_, straight took horse."

(_Lear_, ii. 4.)

he is using a common Mid. English and Tudor word which comes, through Old Fr. _maisniee_, from Vulgar Lat. _*mansionata_, a houseful. A _menial_ is a member of such a body. An Italian cognate is _masnadiere_, "a ruffler, a swashbuckler, a swaggerer, a high way theefe, a hackster"

(Florio). Those inclined to moralise may see in these words a proof that the arrogance of the great man's flunkey was curbed in England earlier than in Italy. Old Fr. _maisniee_ is now replaced by _menage_, Vulgar Lat. _*mansionatic.u.m_. A derivative of this word is _menagerie_, first applied to the collection of household animals, but now to a "wild beast show."

A _bonfire_ was formerly a _bone-fire_. We find _bane-fire_, "ignis ossium," in a Latin dictionary of 1483, and Cooper explains _pyra_ by "_bone-fire_, wherein men's bodyes were burned." Apparently the word is due to the practice of burning the dead after a victory. Hexham has _bone-fire_, "een _been-vier_, dat is, als men victorie brandt."

_Walnut_ is related to _Wal_es, Corn_wall_, the _Wall_oons, _Wall_achia and Sir William _Wall_ace. It means "foreign" nut. This very wide spread _wal_ is supposed to represent the Celtic tribal name _Volcae_. It was applied by the English to the Celts, and by the Germans to the French and Italians, especially the latter, whence the earlier Ger. _welsche Nuss_, for _Walnuss_. The German Swiss use it of the French Swiss, hence the canton _Wallis_ or _Valais_. The Old French name for the _walnut_ is _noix gauge_, Lat. _Gallica_. The relation of _umbrella_ to _umber_ is pretty obvious. The former is Italian--

"A little shadow, a little round thing that women bare in their hands to shadow them. Also a broad brimd hat to keepe off heate and rayne. Also a kinde of round thing like a round skreene that gentlemen use in Italie in time of sommer or when it is very hote, to keepe the sunne from them when they are riding by the way."