The Romance of Words Part 25

The verb _tattoo_, to adorn the skin with patterns, is Polynesian. The military _tattoo_ is Dutch. It was earlier _tap-to_, and was the signal for closing the "taps," or taverns. The first recorded occurrence of the word is in Colonel Hutchinson's orders to the garrison of Nottingham, the original of which hangs in the Nottingham City Library--

"If any-one shall bee found tiplinge or drinkinge in any taverne, inne, or alehouse after the houre of nyne of the clock at night, when the _tap-too_ beates, he shall pay 2s. 6d." (1644.)

_Cf._ Ger. _Zapfenstreich_, lit. tap-stroke, the name of a play which was produced some years ago in London under the t.i.tle "Lights Out."

Ludwig explains _Zapfenschlag_ or _Zapfenstreich_ as "die Zeit da die Soldaten aus den Schencken heimgehen mussen, the _taptow_."

_Ta.s.sel_, in "_ta.s.sel_ gentle"--

"O, for a falconer's voice, To lure this _ta.s.sel_-gentle back again."

(_Romeo and Juliet_, ii. 2.)

is for _tercel_ or _tiercel_, the male hawk, "so tearmed, because he is, commonly, a third part less than the female" (Cotgrave, s.v.

_tiercelet_). The true reason for the name is doubtful. The pendent ornament called a _ta.s.sel_ is a diminutive of Mid. Eng. _ta.s.se_, a heap, bunch, Fr. _tas_. _Tent_ wine is Span. _vino tinto_, _i.e._, coloured--

"Of this last there's little comes over right, therefore the vintners make _Tent_ (which is a name for all wines in Spain, except white) to supply the place of it."

(Howell, _Familiar Letters_, 1634.)

The other _tent_ is from the Old French past participle of _tendre_, to stretch.

The Shakesperian _utterance_--

"Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, And champion me to the _utterance_."

(_Macbeth_, iii. 1.)

is the Fr. _outrance_, in _combat a outrance_, _i.e._, to the extreme, which belongs to Lat. _ultra_. It is quite unconnected with the verb to _utter_, from _out_.

[Page Heading: WRONG a.s.sOCIATION]

We have seen how, in the case of some h.o.m.onyms, confusion arises, and a popular connection is established, between words which are quite unrelated. The same sort of a.s.sociation often springs up between words which, without being h.o.m.onyms, have some accidental resemblance in form or meaning, or in both. Such a.s.sociation may bring about curious changes in sound and sense. _Touchy_, which now conveys the idea of sensitiveness to _touch_, is corrupted from _tetchy_--

"_Tetchy_ and wayward was thy infancy."

(_Richard III._, iv. 4.)

The original meaning was something like "infected, tainted," from Old Fr. _teche_ (_tache_), a spot. The word _surround_ has completely changed its meaning through a.s.sociation with _round_. It comes from Old Fr. _suronder_, to overflow, Lat. _super-undare_, and its meaning and origin were quite clear to the 16th-century lexicographers. Thus Cooper has _inundo_, "to overflowe, to _surround_." A French bishop carries a _crosse_, and an archbishop a _croix_. These words are of separate origin. From _crosse_, which does not mean "cross," comes our derivative _crosier_, carried by both bishops and archbishops. It is etymologically identical, as its shape suggests, with the shepherd's _crook_, and the bat used in playing _lacrosse_.

The prophecy of the pessimistic _ostler_ that, owing to motor-cars--

"_'Osses_ soon will all be in the circusses, And if you want an _ostler_, try the work'uses."

(E. V. LUCAS.)

shows by what a.s.sociation the meaning of _ostler_, Old Fr. _hostelier_ (_hotelier_), has changed. A _belfry_ has nothing to do with _bells_.

Old Fr. _berfroi_ (_beffroi_) was a tower used in warfare. It comes from two German words represented by modern _bergen_, to hide, guard, and _Friede_, peace, so that it means "guard-peace." The triumph of the form _belfry_ is due to a.s.sociation with _bell_, but the _l_ is originally due to dissimilation, since we find _belfroi_ also in Old French. The same dissimilation is seen in Fr. _auberge_, inn, Prov. _alberga_, which comes from Old High Ger. _hari_, an army, and _bergen_; _cf._ our _harbour_ (p. 2) and _harbinger_ (p. 90). _Scabbard_ is from Old Fr.

_escauberc_, earlier _escalberc_, by dissimilation for _escarberc_, from Old High Ger. _scar_, a blade (_cf._ plough_share_), and _bergen_. Cf.

_hauberk_, guard-neck, from Ger. _Hals_,[118] neck.

[Page Heading: WRONG a.s.sOCIATION]

The _b.u.t.tery_ is not so named from _b.u.t.ter_, but from _bottles_. It is for _butlery_, as _chancery_ (see p. 88) is for _chancelry_. It is not, of course, now limited to bottles, any more than the _pantry_ to bread or the _larder_ to bacon, Fr. _lard_, Lat. _laridum_. The _spence_, aphetic for _dispense_, is now known only in dialect--

"I am gaun to eat my dinner quietly in the _spence_."

(_Old Mortality_, Ch. 3.)

but has given us the name _Spencer_. The _still-room_ maid is not extinct, but I doubt whether the _distilling_ of strong waters is now carried on in the region over which she presides. A _journeyman_ has nothing to do with _journeys_ in the modern sense of the word, but works _a la journee_, by the day. _Cf._ Fr. _journalier_, "a _journey man_; one that workes by the day" (Cotgrave), and Ger. _Tagelohner_, literally "day-wager." On the other hand, a _day-woman_ (_Love's Labour's Lost_, i. 2) is an explanatory pleonasm (cf. _greyhound_, p. 135) for the old word _day_, servant, milkmaid, etc., whence the common surname _Day_ and the derivative _dairy_.

A _briar_ pipe is made, not from _briar_, but from the root of heather, Fr. _bruyere_, of Celtic origin. A _catchpole_ did not catch _polls_, _i.e._ heads, nor did he catch people with a _pole_, although a very ingenious implement, exhibited in the Tower of London Armoury, is catalogued as a _catchpole_. The word corresponds to a French compound _cha.s.se-poule_, catch-hen, in Picard _cache-pole_, the official's chief duty being to collect dues, or, in default, poultry. For _pole_, from Fr. _poule_, cf. _polecat_, also an enemy of fowls. The _companion_-ladder on s.h.i.+p-board is a product of folk-etymology. It leads to the _kampanje_, the Dutch for _cabin_. This may belong, like _cabin_, to a late Lat. _capanna_, hut, which has a very numerous progeny. _Kajuit_, another Dutch word for cabin, earlier _kajute_, has given us _cuddy_.

A _carousal_ is now regarded as a _carouse_, but the two are quite separate, or, rather, there are two distinct words _carousal_. One of them is from Fr. _carrousel_, a word of Italian origin, meaning a pageant or carnival with chariot races and tilting. This word, obsolete in this sense, is sometimes spelt _el_ and accented on the last syllable--

"Before the crystal palace, where he dwells, The armed angels hold their _carousels_."

(ANDREW MARVELL, _Lachrymae Musarum_.)

Ger. _Karussell_ means a roundabout at a fair. Our _carousal_, if it is the same word, has been affected in sound and meaning by _carouse_. This comes, probably through French, from Ger. _garaus_, quite out, in the phrase _garaus trinken_, _i.e._, to drink b.u.mpers--

"The queen _carouses_ to thy fortune, Hamlet."

(_Hamlet_, v. 2.)

Rabelais says that he is not one of those--

"Qui, par force, par oultraige et violence, contraignent les compaignons trinquer voyre _carous_ et _alluz_[119] qui pis est."

(_Pantagruel_, iii., Prologue.)

The spelling _garous_, and even _garaus_, is found in 17th-century English.

[Page Heading: FOOTPAD--PESTER]

It is perhaps unnecessary to say that a _maul-stick_, Dutch _maal-stok_, paint-stick, has nothing to do with the verb to _maul_, formerly to _mall_,[120] _i.e._, to hammer. Nor is the painter's _lay-figure_ connected with our verb to _lay_. It is also, like so many art terms, of Dutch origin, the _lay_ representing Du. _lid_, limb, cognate with Ger.

_Glied_.[121] The German for lay-figure is _Gliederpuppe_, joint-doll.

Sewel's _Dutch Dict._ (1766) has _leeman_, or _ledeman_, "a statue, with pliant limbs for the use of a painter." A _footpad_ is not a rubber-soled highwayman, but a _pad_, or robber, who does his work on foot. He was also called a _padder_--

"'Ye crack-rope _padder_, born beggar, and bred thief!' replied the hag."

(_Heart of Midlothian_, Ch. 29.)

_i.e._, one who takes to the "road," from Du. _pad_, path. _Pad_, an ambling nag, a "roadster," is the same word.

_Pen_ comes, through Old French, from Lat. _penna_, "a penne, quil, or fether" (Cooper), while _pencil_ is from Old Fr. _pincel_ (_pinceau_), a painter's brush, from Lat. _penicillus_, a little tail. The modern meaning of _pencil_, which still meant painter's brush in the 18th century, is due to a.s.sociation with _pen_. The older sense survives in optics and in the expression "pencilled eyebrows." The _ferrule_ of a walking-stick is a distinct word from _ferule_, an aid to education. The latter is Lat. _ferula_, "an herbe like big fenell, and maye be called fenell giant. Also a rodde, sticke, or paulmer, wherewith children are striken and corrected in schooles; a cane, a reede, a walking staffe"

(Cooper). _Ferrule_ is a perversion of earlier _virrel_, _virrol_, Fr.

_virole_, "an iron ring put about the end of a staffe, etc., to strengthen it, and keep it from riving" (Cotgrave).

The modern meaning of _pester_ is due to a wrong a.s.sociation with _pest_. Its earlier meaning is to hamper or entangle--

"Confined and _pestered_ in this pinfold here."

(_Comus_, l. 7.)

It was formerly _impester_, from Old Fr. _empestrer_ (_empetrer_), "to _pester_, intricate, intangle, trouble, inc.u.mber" (Cotgrave), originally to "hobble" a grazing horse with _pasterns_, or shackles (see _pastern_, p. 76).

_Mosaic_ work is not connected with _Moses_, but with the _muses_ and _museum_. It comes, through French, from Ital. _mosaico_, "a kinde of curious stone worke, of divers colours, checkie worke" (Florio), which is Vulgar Lat. _musaic.u.m opus_. _Sorrow_ and _sorry_ are quite unrelated. _Sorrow_ is from Anglo-Sax. _sorg_, _sorh_, cognate with Ger.

_Sorge_, anxiety. _Sorry_, Mid. Eng. _sori_, is a derivative of _sore_, cognate with Ger. _sehr_, very, lit. "painfully"; _cf._ English "_sore_ afraid," or the modern "_awfully_ nice," which is in South Germany _arg nett_, "_vexatiously_ nice."

It is probable that _vagabond_, Lat. _vagabundus_, has no etymological connection with _vagrant_, which appears to come from Old Fr.