A SELECT GLOSSARY ETC. (continued 5)

Beaumont, Psyche, can. iv. st. 156.

Perchance as vultures are said to smell the earthliness of a dying corpse; so this bird of prey [the evil Spirit which personated Samuel] resented a worse than earthly savour in the soul of Saul, an evidence of his death at hand.—Fuller, The Profane State, b. v. c. 4.

The judicious prelate will prefer a drop of the sincere milk of the word before vessels full of traditionary pottage, resenting of the wild gourd of human invention.—Id., A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iii. c. 1.

I resented as I ought the news of my mother-in-law’s death.—Sancroft, Variorum Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 518.

Sadness does in some cases become a Christian, as being an index of a pious mind, of compassion, and a wise, proper resentment of things.—Bishop Taylor, Sermon 23, part ii.

The Council taking notice of the many good services performed by Mr. John Milton, their Secretary for foreign languages, particularly for his book in vindication of the Parliament and people of England against the calumnies and invectives of Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their resentment and good acceptance of the same, and that the thanks of the Council be returned to Mr. Milton.—Extract from ‘The Council Book,’ 1651, June 18.

Residence, }

Resident.

It will be seen from the quotations which follow that ‘residence’ in the seventeenth century meant something quite different from ordinary place of habitation, which is all the meaning which now it has.

Separation in it is wrought by weight, as in the ordinary residence or settlement of liquors.—Bacon, Natural History, § 302.

Of waters of a muddy residence we may make good use and quench our thirst, if we do not trouble them; yet upon any ungentle disturbance we drink down mud, instead of a clear stream.—Bishop Taylor, Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason.

The inexperienced Christian shrieks out whenever his vessel shakes, thinking it always a danger that the watery pavement is not stable and resident like a rock.—Id., Sermon 11, part 3.

Restive, }

Restiveness.

Any one now invited to define a ‘restive’ horse would certainly put into his definition that it was one with too much motion; but in obedience to its etymology ‘restive’ would have once meant one with too little; determined to stand still when it ought to go forward. [It is the Old French restif, stubborn, drawing backward (see Cotgrave), from rester, Latin restare, to stand still.] Immobile, lazy, stubborn, are the three stages of meaning which the word went through, before it reached the fourth and present.

Bishops or presbyters we know, and deacons we know, but what are chaplains? In state perhaps they may be listed among the upper serving-men of some great man’s household, the yeoman ushers of devotion, where the master is too resty or too rich to say his own prayers, or to bless his own table.—Milton, Iconoclastes, c. xxiv.

Restive, or Resty, drawing back instead of going forward, as some horses do.—Phillips, New World of Words.

Nothing hindereth men’s fortunes so much as this: Idem manebat, neque idem decebat; men are where they were, when occasions turn. From whatsoever root or cause this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial.—Bacon, Advancement of Learning, b. ii.

The snake, by restiness and lying still all winter, hath a certain membrane or film growing over the whole body.—Holland, Pliny, part i. p. 210.

Retaliate, }

Retaliation.

It has fared with ‘retaliate’ and ‘retaliation’ as it has with ‘resent’ and ‘resentment,’ that whereas men could once speak of the ‘retaliation’ of benefits as well as of wrongs, they only ‘retaliate’ injuries now.

Our captain would not salute the city, except they would retaliate.—Diary of Henry Teonge, Aug. 1, 1675.

[The king] expects a return in specie from them [the Dissenters], that the kindness which he has graciously shown them may be retaliated on those of his own persuasion.—Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, Preface.

His majesty caused directions to be sent for the enlargement of the Roman priests, in retaliation for the prisoners that were set at liberty in Spain to congratulate the prince’s welcome.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 166.

Revoke. This has now a much narrower range of meaning than the Latin ‘revocare;’ but some took for granted once that wherever the one word could have been used in Latin, the other might be used in English.

Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. xi.

Chapman, The Odyssey of Homer, b. xxiii. l. 5.

Rig. A somewhat vulgar word, with the present use of which, however, we are probably all familiar from its occurrence in John Gilpin:

But a ‘rig’ in its earlier use was not so often a strange uncomely feat, as a wanton uncomely person.

Let none condemn them [the girls] for rigs because thus hoyting with the boys, seeing the simplicity of their age was a patent to privilege any innocent pastime.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iv. 6.

[Ripple. It is now in literary English a poetical word, and nothing is ‘rippled’ but the surface of the water. This is probably a distinct word from the ‘ripple’ of the Whitby dialect, which means to scratch slightly as with a pin upon the skin (see Robinson’s ‘Glossary,’ English Dialect Society, 1876). This is precisely the meaning of ‘ripple’ in the citation from Holland below. For cognates of this ‘ripple’ to scratch see Skeat’s ‘Dictionary’ (s. v. ‘rip’).]

On a sudden an horseman’s javelin, having slightly rippled the skin of his [Julian’s] left arm, pierced within his short ribs, and stuck fast in the nether lappet or fillet of his liver.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 264.

Rogue. There was a time when ‘rogue’ meant no more than wandering mendicant. What of dishonesty is implied now in the word was afterwards superinduced upon it; as has also been the case with ‘tramp’ and ‘vagabond.’

Shakespeare, King Lear, act iv. sc. 7.

Rogue signifieth with us an idle sturdy beggar, that, wandering from place to place without passport, after he hath been by justices bestowed upon some certain place of abode, or offered to be bestowed, is condemned to be so called; who for the first offence is called a rogue of the first degree, and punished by whipping, and boring through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron an inch in compass, and for the second offence is called a rogue of the second degree, and put to death as a felon, if he be above eighteen years old.—Cowell, The Interpreter, s.v.

The third sort of those that live unprofitably and without a calling are our idle sturdy rogues and vagrant towns-end beggars. I mean such as are able to work, yet rather choose to wander abroad the country, and to spend their days in a most base and ungodly course of life.—Sanderson, Sermons, 1671, vol. i. p. 197.

Romantic. It is much rarer to find words which in lapse of time have mended their position than those which have seen theirs grow worse. But such there are, and this is one of them. Who would have expected two centuries ago that ‘romantic’ would have held the place of honour which now it does; would have divided with ‘classical’ the whole world of modern literature?

Can anything in nature be imagined more profane and impious, more absurd, and indeed romantic, than such a persuasion [namely that whenever in Scripture the Covenant is mentioned, the Scotch Covenant was intended]? and yet, as impious and absurd as it was, it bore down all before it, and overturned the equallest and best framed government in the world.—South, Sermons, 1737, vol. vi. p. 42.

Room. In certain connexions we still employ ‘room’ for place, but in many more it obtains this meaning no longer. Thus one who accepts the words, ‘When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room’ (Luke xiv. 8), according to the present use of ‘room,’ will probably imagine to himself guests assembling in various apartments, some more honourable than other; and not, as indeed the meaning is, taking higher or lower places at one and the same table.

Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 2.

If he have but twelve pence in’s purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse.—Sir T. Overbury, Characters: A Proud Man.

Ruffian, }

Ruffianly.

The Old French ‘ruffien,’ the Italian ‘ruffiano,’ the Spanish ‘rufian,’ all signify the setter-forward of an infamous traffic between the sexes; nor will the passages quoted below leave any doubt that this is the proper meaning of ‘ruffian’ in English, others being secondary and derived from it. At the same time the ‘ruffian’ is not merely the ‘leno,’ he is the ‘amasius’ as well. For some instructive English uses of the word, see Ascham’s Scholemaster, Wright’s edit. pp. 44, 215.

Let young men consider the precious value of their time, and waste it not in idleness, in jollity, in gaming, in banqueting, in ruffians’ company.—Homilies; Against Idleness.

Xenocrates, casting but his eye upon Polemon, who was come into his school like a ruffian, by his very look only redeemed him from his loose life.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 112.

He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at home, revelling with her ruffians.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murther, b. iii. hist. 11.

Who in London hath not heard of his [Greene’s] dissolute and licentious living; his fond disguising of a Master of Art with ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company?—G. Harvey, Four Letters touching Robert Greene, p. 7.

Some frenchified or outlandish monsieur, who hath nothing else to make him famous, I should say infamous, but an effeminate, ruffianly, ugly, and deformed lock.—Prynne, The Unloveliness of Love-locks, p. 27.

Rummage. At present so to look for one thing as in the looking to overturn and unsettle a great many others. It is a sea-term, and signified at first to dispose with such orderly method goods in the hold of a ship that there should be the greatest possible room, or ‘roomage.’ The quotation from Phillips shows the word in the act of transition from its former use to its present.

And that the masters of the ships do look well to the romaging, for they might bring away a great deal more than they do, if they would take pain in the romaging.—Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. i. p. 308.

To rummage (sea-term): To remove any goods or luggage from one place to another, especially to clear the ship’s hold of any goods or lading, in order to their being handsomely stowed and placed; whence the word is used upon other occasions, for to rake into, or to search narrowly.—Phillips, New World of Words.

Sad, }

Sadly,

Sadness.

This had once the meaning of earnest, serious, sedate. The passage from Shakespeare quoted below marks ‘sadly’ and ‘sadness’ in their transitional state from the old meaning to the new; Benvolio using ‘sadness’ in the old sense, Romeo pretending to understand him in the new. For the etymology of ‘sad’ see Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English.

Chaucer, The Manciples Tale.

He may have one year, or two at the most, an ancient and sad matron attending on him.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. i. c. 6.

Earl of Surrey, The Faithful Lover, p. 33 (ed. 1717).

Chaucer, The Knightes Tale.

Therfor ye, britheren, bifor witynge kepe you silf, lest ye be disseyved bi errour of unwise men, and falle awei fro youre owne sadness [a propriâ firmitate, Vulg.].—2 Pet. iii. 17. Wiclif.

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 1.

Sampler. This has now quite dissociated itself in meaning from ‘exemplar,’ of which it is the popular form, as ‘sample’ has done from ‘example;’ not so, however, once.

Job, the sawmpler of pacience.—Preparatory Epistles of St. Jerome to Wiclif’s Bible.

Sash. At present always a belt or girdle of the loins; not so, however, when first introduced from the East. By the ‘sash,’ or ‘shash’ as it was then always spelt, was understood the roll of silk, fine linen, or gauze, worn about the head; in fact a turban. The word is of Persian origin.

Shash: Cidaris seu tiara, pileus Turcicus, ut doct. Th. H. placet, ab It. Sessa, gausapina cujus involucris Turcæ pileos suos adornant.—Skinner, Etymologicon.

So much for the silk in Judea, called Shesh in Hebrew, whence haply that fine linen or silk is called shashes, worn at this day about the heads of eastern people.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. ii. c. 14.

He [a Persian merchant] was apparelled in a long robe of cloth of gold, his head was wreathed with a huge shash or tulipant of silk and gold.—Herbert, Travels, 1638, p. 191.

Scarce, }

Scarcely,

Scarcity.

Now expressing the fact that the thing to which this epithet is applied is rare, not easily to be come by; but in the time of Chaucer, Wiclif, and Gower, and till a later day, parsimonious or stingy. For the derivation see Skeat’s Dictionary.

Ye schul use the richesses the whiche ye han geten by youre witte and by youre travaile, in such a maner, that men holde yow not skarse ne to sparynge ne fool-large; for right as men blamen an avërous man bycause of his skarsite and chyncherie, in the same manere is he to blame that spendeth over largely.—Chaucer, The Tale of Melibœus.

A man is that is maad riche in doynge scarsli [parce agendo, Vulg.]—Ecclus. xi. 18. Wiclif.

For I seie this thing, he that sowith scarseli schal also repe scarseli.—2 Cor. ix. 6. Id.

Davison, Poetical Rhapsody, p. 256.

Secure, }

Securely,

Security.

In our present English the difference between ‘safe’ and ‘secure’ is hardly recognized, but once it was otherwise. ‘Secure’ (‘securus,’ from sē- + cura) was subjective; it was a man’s own sense, well grounded or not, of the absence of danger; ‘safe’ was objective, the actual fact of such absence of danger. A man, therefore, might not be ‘safe,’ just because he was ‘secure’ (thus see Judges xviii. 7, 10, 27, and Paradise Lost, iv. 791). I may observe that our use of ‘secure’ at Matt. xxviii. 14, is in fact this early, though we may easily read the passage as though it were employed in the modern sense. ‘We will secure you’ of our Version represents ἀμερίμνους ὑμᾶς ποιήσομεν of the original.

Quarles, Emblems, ii. 14.

We cannot endure to be disturbed or awakened from our pleasing lethargy. For we care not to be safe, but to be secure.—Bishop Taylor, Of Slander and Flattery.

Ben Jonson, The Forest, xi.

Shakespeare, Richard II., act ii. sc. 1.

Id., ibid., act iii. sc. 2.

The last daughter of pride is delicacy, under which is contained gluttony, luxury, sloth, and security.—Nash, Christ’s Tears over Jerusalem, p. 137.

Webster, Duchess of Malfi, act v. sc. 2.

Sedition, }

Seditious.

There was an attempt on the part of some scholarly writers at the beginning of the seventeenth century to keep ‘sedition’ true to its etymology, and to the meaning which ‘seditio’ bears in the Latin. This is the explanation of its employment as a rendering of διχοστασίαι, Gal. v. 21, as quoted below; which in our present English would be more accurately rendered, secessions, dissensions, or divisions; in exactly which sense ‘seditious’ is there used by our Translators. So too, when Satan, in the quotation given below, addresses Abdiel ‘seditious Angel,’ this is to find the same explanation, as is clear from the words which immediately follow. He the one faithful, taking the Lord’s side, had in so doing divided the ranks of those who adhered to the fallen Archangel, and separated from them, being therein ‘seditious.’ The quotation from Bishop Andrewes not less evidently shows how distinct in his mind ‘seditions’ were from those overt acts of petty treason which we now call by this name; however, they might often lead to such.

Whom you find thus magnifying of changes and projecting new plots for the people, be sure they are in the way to sedition. For (mark it) they do sedire, that is seorsim ire, go aside; they have their meetings apart about their new alterations. Now of sedire comes sedition, side-going. For if that be not looked to in time, the next news is, the blowing of a trumpet, and Sheba’s proclamation, We have no part in David. It begins in Shimei, it ends in Sheba.—Andrewes, Of the Gunpowder Treason, Serm. 6.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, ... seditions (in R.V. ‘divisions’).—Gal. v. 20, 21. (A.V.)

Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 150.

See. Not always confined as now to the seat or residence of a bishop; nor indeed did it necessarily involve the notion of a seat of authority at all.

Chaucer, The Monkes Tale.

Id., The Hous of Fame, b. iii. (Skeat, p. 156).

The Lord smoot all the fyrst gotun in the loond of Egipte, fro the fyrst gotun of Pharao, that sat in his see, unto the fyrst gotun of the caitiff woman that was in prisoun.—Exod. xii. 29. Wiclif.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, iv. 10, 30.

Seedsman. Between the ‘seedsman’ and the ‘sower’ there is now a useful distinction. The one sells the seed; the other scatters it in the furrow; but the distinction is comparatively modern.

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. sc. 7.

Sensual, }

Sensuality.

‘Sensual’ is employed now only in an ill meaning, and implies ever a predominance of sense in quarters where it ought not so to predominate. Milton, feeling that we wanted another word affirming this predominance where no such fault was implied by it, and that ‘sensual’ only imperfectly expressed this, employed, I know not whether he coined, ‘sensuous,’ a word which, if it had rooted itself in the language at once, might have proved of excellent service. ‘Sensuality’ has had always an ill meaning, but not always the same ill meaning which it has now. Any walking by sense and sight rather than by faith was ‘sensuality’ of old.

Hath not the Lord Jesus convinced thy sensual heart by sensual arguments? If thy sense were not left-handed, thou mightest with thy right hand bear down thine infidelity; for God hath given assurance sufficient by his Son to thy very sense, if though wert not brutish (1 John i. 1).—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 493.

There cannot always be that degree of sensual, pungent, or delectable affections towards religion as towards the desires of nature and sense.—Bishop Taylor, Life of Christ, part ii. § 12.

Pope, Essay on Man, b. i.

I do take him to be a hardy captain; but yet a man more meet to be governed than to govern; for all his enterprizes be made upon his own sensuality, without the advice and counsel of those that been put in trust by the King’s Majesty.—State Papers, 1538, vol. iii. p. 95.

He who might claim this absolute power over the soul to be believed upon his bare word, yet seeing the sensuality of man and our woful distrust, is willing to allow us all the means of strengthening our souls in his promise, by such seals and witnesses as confirm it.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 483.

A great number of people in divers parts of this realm, following their own sensuality, and living without knowledge and due fear of God, do wilfully and schismatically abstain and refuse to come to their own parish churches.—Act of Uniformity, 1662.

Servant. A wooer, follower, admirer, lover, not of necessity an accepted one, was a ‘servant’ in the chivalrous language of two or three centuries ago.

Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii. sc. 1.

’Tis more than I know if Mr. Freeman be my servant.... I cannot brag much that he makes any court to me.—Letters from Dorothy Osborne, Lett. 22 (ed. 1889).

Servility. The subjective abjectness and baseness of spirit of one who is a slave, or who acts as one, is always implied by this word at the present; while once it did but express the objective fact of an outwardly servile condition in him of whom it was predicated, leaving it possible that in spirit he might be free notwithstanding.

Such servility as the Jews endured under the Greeks and Asiatics, have they endured under the Saracen and the Turk.—Jackson, The Eternal Truth of Scriptures, b. i. c. 26.

We are no longer under the servility of the law of Moses, but are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.—H. More, The Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. viii. c. 6.

The same [faith] inclined Moses to exchange the dignities and delights of a court for a state of vagrancy and servility.—Barrow, Sermon 3, On the Apostles’ Creed.

[Shed. This verb was once in common use in the sense of to separate, divide, or part. This ‘shed’ is the representative of the O.E. ‘sceādan’ (scādan), the equivalent of the modern German ‘scheiden.’ With these words is connected the modern geographical term ‘watershed,’ i.e. water-divider. ‘To shed’ is still used in the North in the sense of to divide or separate (Halliwell). From this verb comes the word ‘sheeding,’ the name of a territorial division in the Isle of Man. Probably our modern ‘shed,’ to scatter, pour, may be the same word as ‘shed,’ to separate, with a development of meaning, but the relation of the two words has not been satisfactorily made out yet.]

They say also that the manner of making the shed [διακρίνεσθαι] of new-wedded wives’ hair with the iron head of a javelin came up then likewise.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 22.

They were never so careful to comb their heads as when they should to the battle; for then they did noint their selves with sweet oils, and did shed their hair.—Id., ibid. p. 45.

Sheer. It is curious that Christopher Sly’s declaration that he was ‘fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale’ (Taming of the Shrew, Induction, sc. 2) should have given so much trouble to some of the early commentators upon Shakespeare. ‘Sheer,’ which is pure, unmixed, was used of things concrete once, although mostly of things abstract now.

They had scarcely sunk through the uppermost course of sand above, when they might see small sources to boil up, at the first troubled, but afterward they began to yield sheer and clear water in great abundance.—Holland, Livy, p. 1911.

Shakespeare, King Richard II., act v. sc. 3.

Massinger, A New Way to pay Old Debts, act iv. sc. 2.

Shelf. ‘To shelve’ as to shoal, still remains; but not so, except in mariners’ charts, ‘shelf’ as = shallow or sandbank. This ‘shelf’ is quite a distinct word from the ‘shelf’ (of a cupboard).

I thought fit to follow the rule of coasting maps, where the shelves and rocks are described as well as the safe channel.—Davenant, Preface to Gondibert.

Ben Jonson, The Forest, iii.

Dryden, Virgil’s Æneid, b. v.

Shrew. There are at the present no ‘shrews’ save female ones; but the word, like so many others which we have met with, now restrained to one sex, was formerly applied to both. It conveyed also of old a much deeper moral reprobation than now or in the Middle English it did. Thus Lucifer is a ‘shrew’ in Piers Plowman, and two murderers are ‘shrews’ in the quotation from Chaucer which follows.

Chaucer, The Pardoneres Tale.

If Y schal schewe me innocent, He schal preve me a schrewe [pravum me comprobabit, Vulg.].—Job ix. 20. Wiclif.

I know none more covetous shrews than ye are, when ye have a benefice.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.

Shrewd, }

Shrewdness.

The weakness of the world’s moral indignation against evil causes a multitude of words which once conveyed intensest moral reprobation gradually to convey none at all, or it may be even praise. ‘Shrewd’ and ‘shrewdness’ must be numbered among these.

An ant is a wise creature for itself; but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden.—Bacon, Essay 23.

Is he shrewd and unjust in his dealings with others?—South, Sermons, 1737, vol. vi. p. 106.

Forsothe the erthe is corupt before God, and is fulfilled with shrewdness [iniquitate, Vulg.].—Gen. vi. 12. Wiclif.

The prophete saith: Flee schrewednesse [declinet a malo, Vulg.], and doo goodnesse; seeke pees, and folwe it.—Chaucer, The Tale of Melibeus (Morris, iii. p. 187).

Siege. A ‘siege’ is now the sitting down of an army before a fortified place with the purpose of taking it; and has no other meaning but this. It had once the double meaning, abstract and concrete, of the French ‘siège,’ a seat.

Whanne mannus sone schal come in his majeste and alle hise aungels with hym, thanne he schal sitte on the sege of his majeste, and alle folkis schulen be gaderid bifor hym.—Matt. xxv. 31. Wiclif.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 7, 44.

Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act iv. sc. 2.

Sight. The use of ‘sight’ to signify a multitude, a great quantity (that is, to see), has now a touch of vulgarity about it, which once it was very far from possessing.

A noble sighte of bookes (nobilissimam librorum bibliothecam).—Harleian translation of Higden, vi. 239. (Rolls Series, No. 41.)

Ye are come unto the mounte Sion, and to the citie of the livinge God, the celestiall Jerusalem, and to an innumerable sight of angels.—Heb. xii. 22. Tyndale.

Clodius was ever about him in every place and street he went, having a sight of rascals and knaves with him.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 722.

Silly, }

Silliness.

A deep conviction of men that he who departs from evil will make himself a prey, that none will be a match for the world’s evil who is not himself evil, has brought to pass the fact that a number of words, signifying at first goodness, signify next well-meaning simplicity; the notions of goodness and foolishness, with a strong predominance of the last, for a while interpenetrating one another in them; till at length the latter quite expels the former, and remains as the sole possessor of the word. I need hardly mention the Greek ἄκακος, εὐήθης, εὐήθεια: while the same has happened in regard of the O.E. ‘sǽlig,’ which (the same word as the German ‘selig’) has successively meant, (1) blissful, (2) innocent, harmless, (3) weakly foolish.

Chaucer, Troylus and Cryseyde (Morris, p. 258).

Chaucer, Legend of Fair Women, 1252.

This Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the silly children lying in their beds) came into the chamber, and suddenly lapped them up among the clothes.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III.

Sincere, }

Sincerity.

The etymology of ‘sincerus’ being uncertain, it is impossible to say what is the primary notion of our English ‘sincere.’ These words belong now to an ethical sphere exclusively, and even there their meaning is not altogether what once it was; but the absence of foreign admixture which they predicate might be literal once.

The mind of a man, as it is not of that content or receipt to comprehend knowledge without helps and supplies, so again, it is not sincere, but of an ill and corrupt tincture.—Bacon, Of the Interpretation of Nature, c. xvi.

The Germans are a people that more than all the world, I think, may boast sincerity, as being for some thousands of years a pure and unmixed people.—Feltham, A brief Character of the Low Countries, p. 59.

Skeleton. Now the framework of bones as entirely denuded of the flesh; but in early English, and there in stricter agreement with the meaning of the word in Greek, the dried mummy.

Scelet; the dead body of a man artificially dried or tanned for to be kept or seen a long time.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals; An Explanation of certain obscure Words.

Smug. One of many words which have been spoilt for poetic use through being drawn into our serio-comic vocabulary. It still means neat, trim, being connected with the German ‘schmuck,’ trim, spruce; but seeks to present the very neatness which it implies in a ridiculous ignoble point of view. Any such intention was very far from it once.

Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV., act iii. sc. 1.

Beaumont, Psyche, ix. 176.

I like the smugness of the Cathedral (Winchester), and the profusion of the most beautiful Gothic tombs.—Walpole, Letters, i. 442 (1755).

Snail. It is curious what different objects men will be content for long to confuse under a common name. Thus in some provincial dialects of Germany they have only one name, ‘padde’ (compare our ‘paddock’), for frog and toad. So too ‘snail’ (cochlea) and ‘slug’ (limax) with us were both to a comparatively recent period included under the former name. ‘Slug’ indeed, in the sense of slothful, is an old word in the language; but only at the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century was it transferred to that familiar pest of our gardens which we now call by this name. Indeed up to the present day in many of our provincial dialects slugs and snails are invariably both included under the latter name; the snail proper being sometimes distinguished from the other as the ‘shell-snail’ (see Holland’s Plutarch, p. 212). See an interesting discussion in the Philological Society’s Transactions, 1860-1, pp. 102-106.

There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See these two snails. One hath a house, the other wants it; yet both are snails, and it is a question whether case is the better. That which hath a house hath more shelter, that which wants it hath more freedom.—Bishop Hall, Occasional Meditations.

Snails, a soft and exosseous animal, whereof in the naked and greater sort, as though she would requite the loss of a shell on their back, nature near the head hath placed a flat white stone. Of the great grey snails I have not met with any that wanted it.—Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, b. iii. c. 13.

Snub. To check or cut short; now never used save in a figurative sense and in familiar language; but this was not always so.

If we neglect them [the first stirrings of corruption] but a little, out of a thought that they can do no great harm yet, or that we shall have time enough to snub them hereafter, we do it to our own certain disadvantage, if not utter undoing.—Sanderson, Sermons, 1671, vol. ii. p. 241.

Soft, }

Softness.

It is not an honourable fact that ‘soft’ and ‘softness’ should now be terms of slight, almost of contempt, when ethically employed; although indeed it is only a repetition of what we find in χρηστός, εὐήθης, ‘gutig,’ ‘bonhomie,’ and other words not a few.

That they speak evil of no man, that they be no fighters, but soft [ἐπιεικεῖς], showing all meekness unto all men.—Titus iii. 2. Tyndale.

The meek or soft shall inherit the earth; even as we say, Be still and have thy will.—Tyndale, Exposition on the Fifth Chapter of Matthew.

Let your softness [τὸ ἐπιεικὲς ὑμῶν] be known unto all men.—Phil. iv. 5. Cranmer.

Sonnet. A ‘sonnet’ now must consist of exactly fourteen lines, neither more nor less; and these with a fixed arrangement, though admitting a certain relaxation, of the rhymes; but ‘sonnet’ used often to be applied to any shorter poem, especially of an amatory kind.

He [Arion] had a wonderful desire to chaunt a sonnet or hymn unto Apollo Pythius.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 343.

If ye will tell us a tale, or play a jig, or show us a play and fine sights, or sing sonnets in our ears, there we will be for you.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 492.

Sot, }

Sottish,

Sottishness.

He only is a ‘sot’ now whose stupor and folly is connected with, and the result of, excessive drink; but any fool would once bear this name.

Oldham, Eighth Satire of Boileau.

I do not here speak of a legal innocence (none but sots and Quakers dream of such things), for as St. Paul says, ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;’ but I speak of an evangelical innocence.—South, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 427.

He [Perseus] commanded those poor divers to be secretly murdered, that no person should remain alive that was privy to that sottish commandment of his.—Holland, Livy, p. 1177.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 471.

Sottishness and dotage is the extinguishing of reason in phlegm or cold.—H. More, Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. viii. c. 14.

[Sparkle. It is probable that ‘to sparkle’ in the sense of to scatter is not the same word as our modern ‘sparkle,’ the diminutive of ‘spark,’ a small particle of fire. I think that it is almost certain that the ‘sparkle’ in the passages given below is a later form of ‘sparple,’ to scatter, see Trevisa, v. 287 (Rolls Series), and Promptorium. The Middle English ‘sparplen’ is the same word as the French ‘esparpiller,’ to scatter, disparkle asunder (see Cotgrave); compare also Italian ‘sparpagliare’ (Florio). For the etymology of ‘sparple’ see Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English (s. v. ‘disparplen’). For a late use of ‘disparple,’ to scatter, see Davies, Suppl. Gloss.]

The Lansgrave hath sparkled his army without any further enterprise.—State Papers, vol. x. p. 718.

Sackville, Induction to a Mirrour for Magistrates.

And awhile chawing all those things in his mouth, he spitteth it upon him whom he desireth to kill; who being sparkled therewith, dieth by force of the poison within the space of half an hour.—Purchas’s Pilgrims, part ii. p. 1495.

Specious. Like the Latin ‘speciosus,’ it simply signified beautiful once; it now means always presenting a deceitful appearance of that beauty which is not really possessed, and is never used in any but an ethical sense.

Metrical Romance of the Fourteenth Century.

And they knew him, that it was he which sate for alms at the Specious Gate of the temple.—Acts iii. 10. Rheims.

Ben Jonson, Epitaph on Master Vincent Corbet.

Which [almug-trees], if odoriferous, made that passage as sweet to the smell as specious to the sight.—Fuller, Α Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iii. c. 2, § 5.

Spice. We have in English a double adoption of the Latin ‘species,’ namely ‘spice’ and ‘species’. ‘Spice,’ the earlier form (Old French ‘espice’), is now limited to certain aromatic drugs, which, as consisting of various kinds, have this name of ‘spices.’ But ‘spice’ was once employed as ‘species’ is now.

Absteyne you fro al yvel spice [ab omni specie malâ, Vulg.]—1 Thess. v. 22. Wiclif.

The spices of envye ben these.—Chaucer, The Persones Tale (Morris, p. 304).

Justice, although it be but one entire virtue, yet is described in two kinds of spices. The one is named justice distributive, the other is called commutative.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. iii. c. 1.

Spill. Nothing appears so utterly and irrecoverably lost as liquid poured upon the ground; and thus it has come to pass that ‘to spill,’ the Ο. E. ‘spillan,’ which had once the meaning of to waste, to squander, to consume, to destroy, and that in any way, is now restricted to this single meaning.

Chaucer, The Man of Lawes Tale.

If the colors ... be not well tempered or not well laid, or be used in excess, or never so little disordered and misplaced, they disfigure the stuff, and spill the whole workmanship, taking away all beauty and good liking from it.—Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, b. iii. c. 1.

Spill not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in recreations.—Fuller, Holy State, b. iii. c. 13.

Spinster. A name that was often applied to women of evil life, in that they were set to enforced labour of spinning in the Spittle or House of Correction (it is still called ‘The Spinning House’ at Cambridge), and thus were ‘spinsters.’ None of our Dictionaries, so far as I have observed, take note of this use of the word.

Many would never be indicted spinsters, were they spinsters indeed, nor come to so public and shameful punishments, if painfully employed in that vocation.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Kent.

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Prophetess, act iii. sc. 1.

Spruce. The exploits of the Teutonic Knights against the Pruzzi, the stubborn heathen of Lithuania, made Prussia to be very familiar on the lips of men in the later Middle Ages (see Weigand, s. v. Preuszen). This Prussia, Sprutia very often in medieval Latin, appears now as ‘Pruce’ (so in Chaucer), and now as ‘Spruce’ (see Skeat’s Dictionary); and in this latter form it survives in our spruce fir, which was brought from Northern Europe, in spruce beer, and in spruce, more vaguely applied to a certain neatness and smartness of outward appearance; one which it is implied had reached us from those quarters.

They were apparelled after the fashion of Prussia or Spruce.—Hall, Chronicle, Henry VIII.

Norway in that age, the sprucest of the three kingdoms of Scandia, and best tricked up with shipping, sent her fleet of tall soldiers to Syria.—Fuller, Holy War, b. v. c. 22.

Squander. The examples which follow will show that ‘to squander’ had once, if not a different, yet a much wider use than it now, at least in our classical English, retains. In the northern dialects it is still used as equivalent to ‘disperse.’

He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; ... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad.—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. 3.

The minister is not to come into the pulpit, as a fencer upon the stage, to make a fair flourish against sin, but rather as a captain into the field, to bend his forces specially against the strongest troops of the enemy, and to squander and break through the thickest ranks.—Sanderson, Sermon 2, ad Clerum.

Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, st. 67.

Staple. A curious change has come over this word. We should now say, Cotton is the great ‘staple,’ that is, the established merchandize, of Manchester; our ancestors would have reversed this and said, Manchester is the great ‘staple,’ or established mart, of cotton. We make the goods prepared or sold the ‘staple’ of the place; they made the place the ‘staple’ of the goods. See Cowell, The Interpreter, s. v.

Men in all ages have made themselves merry with singling out some place, and fixing the staple of stupidity and stolidity therein.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Nottinghamshire.

Staple; a city or town, where merchants jointly lay up their commodities for the better uttering of them by the great; a public storehouse.—Phillips, New World of Words.

Starve. This word, the O.E. ‘steorfan,’ the German ‘sterben,’ to die, is only by comparatively modern use restricted to dying by cold or by hunger; in this restriction of use, resembling the French ‘noyer,’ to kill by drowning, while ‘necare,’ from which it descends, is to kill by any manner of death. But innumerable words are thus like rivers, which once pouring their waters through many channels, have now left dry and abandoned them all, save one, or, as in the present instance it happens, save two.

Chaucer, The Marchaundes Tale.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 6, 34.

State. Used often by our old writers for a raised dais or platform, on which was placed a chair or throne with a canopy (the German ‘Thronhimmel’) above it; being the chiefest seat of honour; thus in Massinger’s Bondman, act i. sc. 3, according to the old stage-direction Archidamus ‘offers Timoleon the state.’ But there is another use of ‘state’ not unfrequent in the seventeenth century, though altogether unknown in our own. A ‘state’ was a republic, as contradistinguished from a monarchy. This usage, which the States of Holland may have contributed to bring about, does not seem to have lasted very long.

Beaumont, Psyche, can. xix. st. 170.

Their majesties were seated as is aforesaid under their canopies or states, whereof that of the Queen was somewhat lesser and lower than that of the King, but both of them exceeding rich.—History of the Coronation of King James II., 1687, p. 61.

When he went to court, he used to kick away the state, and sit down by his prince cheek by jowl. Confound these states, says he, they are a modern invention.—Swift, History of John Bull, part ii. c. 1.

What say some others? A government of states would do much better for you than a monarchy.—Andrewes, Sermon 6, Of the Gunpowder Treason.

Davenant, The Dream.

Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 66.

Stationer. There was a time when ‘stationer,’ meaning properly no more than one who had his station, that is, in the market-place or elsewhere, included the bookseller and the publisher, as well as the dealer in the raw material of books. But when, in the division of labour, these became separate businesses, the name was restrained to him who dealt in the latter articles alone.

Stacyonere, or he that sellythe bokys, stacionarius, bibliopola.—Promptorium.

I doubt not but that the Animadverter’s stationer doth hope and desire that he hath thus pleased people in his book, for the advancing of the price and quickening the sale thereof.—Fuller, Appeal of Injured Innocence, p. 38.

The right of the printed copies (which the stationer takes as his own freehold), was dispersed in five or six several hands.—Oley, Preface to Dr. Jackson’s Works.

Oldham, A Satire.

Stickle, }

Stickler.

Now to stand with a certain pertinacity to one’s point, refusing to renounce or go back from it; but formerly to interpose between combatants and separate them, when they had sufficiently satisfied the laws of honour. Our present meaning of the word connects itself with the past in the fact that the ‘sticklers,’ or seconds, as we should call them now, often fulfilled another function, being ready to maintain in their own persons and by their own arms the quarrel of their principals, and thus to ‘stickle’ for it. [The word ‘stickle’ represents the Middle English ‘stightlen,’ to order, arrange; for an interesting account of its cognates see Skeat’s Dictionary.]

I styckyll betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that prove mastries to se that none do other wronge, or I parte folkes that be redy to fyght.—Palsgrave.

Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6.

The same angel [in Tasso], when half of the Christians are already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way of being routed, stickles betwixt the remainders of God’s hosts and the race of fiends; pulls the devils backwards by the tails, and drives them from their quarry.—Dryden, Dedication of Translations from Juvenal, p. 122.

In ancient times they were wont to employ third persons as sticklers, to see no treachery nor disorder were used, and to bear witness of the combat’s success.—Florio, Montaigne, ii. 27.

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. 9.

Dryden, On the Death of Oliver Cromwell.

Stomach. Already in classical Latin ‘stomachus’ had all the uses, courage, pride, indignation, ill-will, which ‘stomach’ may be seen in the following quotations to have once possessed, but which at this day have nearly or quite departed from it.

And sence we herde therof oure hert hath failed us, neither is there a good stomache more in eny man, by the reasone of youre commynge.—Josh. ii. 11. Coverdale.

Shakespeare, Henry VIII., act iv. sc. 2.

Arius, discontented that one should be placed before him in honour, whose superior he thought himself in desert, became through envy and stomach prone unto contradiction, and bold to broach that heresy wherein the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ was denied.—Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, b. v. § 42.

[Stout. This word is now generally used in the sense of corpulent, less frequently in the sense of strong, robust. In provincial use ‘stout’ has sometimes the meaning of proud, and this is probably the original meaning of the word. ‘Stout’ is the same word as the Old French estout, bold, proud, which represents a Germanic base stolto-; compare modern German stolz, proud (see Kluge, s. v.). In the passages below the word retains its old meaning.]

Commonly it is seen that they that be rich are lofty and stout.—Latimer, Sermons, p. 545.

Old Proverb.

Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act iii. sc. 2.

Stove. This word, which was probably introduced from Holland, has much narrowed its meaning. Bath, hothouse, any room where air or water was artificially heated, was a ‘stove’ once.

When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melanchthon, he found him in his stove, with one hand dandling his child in the swaddling-clouts, and the other holding a book and reading it.—Fuller, Holy State, b. ii. c. 9.

How tedious is it to them that live in stoves and caves half a year together, as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the pole!—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2.

When most of the waiters were commanded away to their supper, the parlour or stove being nearly emptied, in came a company of musketeers, shot every one his man, and so proceeded to an apothecary’s house, where Wallenstein lay.—Letters and Despatches of Thomas Earl of Strafford, vol. i. p. 226.

Street. This, one of the words which the Romans left behind them when they quitted Britain, and which the Saxons learned from the Britons, is more properly a road or causeway (‘via strata’) than a street, in our present sense of the word; and as late as Coverdale was so used.

For they soughte them thorow every strete, and yet they founde them not.—Josh. ii. 22. Coverdale.

But when one sawe that all the people stode there still, he removed Amasa from the strete unto the felde.—1 Sam. xx. 12. Coverdale.

Sublime. There is an occasional use of ‘sublime’ by our earlier poets, a use in which it bears much the meaning of the Greek ὑπερήφανος, or perhaps approaches still more closely to that of μετέωρος, high and lifted up, as with pride; which has now quite departed from it.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, v. 8, 30.

Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1669.

Sue. One now ‘sues’ or follows another into the courts of law, being, as in the legal language of Greece, ὁ διώκων, the ‘pursuer;’ but ‘to sue’ was once to follow, without any such limitation of meaning.

If thou wolt be perfite, go, and sille alle thingis that thou hast, and come, and sue me.—Matt. xix. 21. Wiclif.

And anoon thei leften the nettis and sueden hym.—Mark i. 19. Id.

Sure. Used once in the sense of affianced, or, as it would be sometimes called, ‘hand-fasted.’ See ‘Assure,’ ‘Ensure.’

The king was sure to dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband before God.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III.

Suspect, }

Suspicion.

To ‘suspect’ is properly to look under, and out of this fact is derived our present use of the word; but in looking under you may also look up, and herein lies the explanation of an occasional use of ‘suspect’ and ‘suspicion’ which we find in our early writers.

Pelopidas being sent the second time into Thessaly, to make accord betwixt the people and Alexander, the tyrant of Pheres, was by this tyrant (not suspecting the dignity of an ambassador, nor of his country) made prisoner.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 927.

If God do intimate to the spirit of any wise inferiors that they ought to reprove, then let them suspect their own persons, and beware that they make no open contestation, but be content with privacy.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 330.

Cordeilla, out of mere love, without the suspicion of expected reward, at the message only of her father in distress, pours forth true filial tears.—Milton, History of England, b. i.

Sycophant. The early meaning of ‘sycophant,’ when it was employed as equivalent to informer, delator, calumniator, ‘promoter’ (which see), agreed better with its use in the Greek than does our present. Employing it now in the sense of false and fawning flatterer, we might seem at first sight to employ it in a sense not merely altogether unconnected with, but quite opposite to, its former. Yet indeed there is a very deep inner connexion between the two uses. It is not for nothing that Jeremy Taylor treats of these two, namely ‘Of Slander and Flattery,’ in one and the same course of sermons; seeing that, as the Italian proverb has taught us, ‘He who flatters me before, spatters me behind.’

The poor man, that hath nought to lose, is not afraid of the sycophant or promoter.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 261.

He [St. Paul] in peril of the wilderness, that is of wild beasts; they [rich men] not only of the wild beast called the sycophant, but of the tame beast too, called the flatterer.—Andrewes, Sermon preached at the Spittle.

Sanders, that malicious sycophant, will have no less than twenty-six wain-load of silver, gold, and precious stones to be seized into the king’s hands by the spoil of that monument.—Heylin, History of the Reformation, 1849, vol. i. p. 20.

Symbol. The employment of ‘symbol’ in its proper Greek sense of contribution thrown into a common stock, as in a pic-nic or the like, is frequent in Jeremy Taylor, and examples of it may be found in other scholarly writers of the seventeenth century.

The consideration of these things hath oft suggested, and at length persuaded me to make this attempt, to cast in my mite to this treasury, my symbolum toward so charitable a work.—Hammond, A Paraphrase on the Psalms, Preface.

Christ hath finished his own sufferings for expiation of the world; yet there are ‘portions that are behind of the sufferings’ of Christ, which must be filled up by his body the Church; and happy are they that put in the greatest symbol; for ‘in the same measure you are partakers of the sufferings of Christ, in the same shall ye be also of the consolation.’—Bishop Taylor, The Faith and Patience of the Saints.

There [in Westminster Abbey] the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes, mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of mortality.—Id., Holy Dying, c. i. § 2.

Table. The Latin ‘tabula’ had for one of its meanings picture or painting; and this caused that ‘table’ was by our early writers used often in the same meaning.

The table wherein Detraction was expressed, he [Apelles] painted in this form.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. iii. c. 27.

You shall see, as it were in a table painted before your eyes, the evil-favouredness and deformity of this most detestable vice.—Homilies: Against Contention.

Learning flourished yet in the city of Sicyon, and they esteemed the painting of tables in that city to be the perfectest for true colours and fine drawing, of all other places.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 843.

Taint. This and ‘tint’ or ‘teint,’ the one connected more closely with the French, the other with the Italian form of the word, have divided off from one another, but own a common origin—‘tingo,’ ‘tinctus.’ The fact that discoloration commonly accompanies decay explains our present use of ‘taint.’

A most delicate and beautiful young lady, slender of body, tall of stature, fair of taynt and complexion.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murther, b. i. hist. 1.

Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, sc. 1.

Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI., act iii. sc. 1.

Talent. The original meaning, as of ‘talent’ in Old French, ‘talento’ in Italian, ‘talante’ in Spanish, was will, inclination, from ‘talentum’ (τάλαντον), balance, scales, and then inclination of balance; thus in Spenser (Fairy Queen, iii. 4, 61), ‘maltalent’ is grudge or ill-will (compare Old French ‘maltalant’ in the Chanson de Roland, 271). It is probably under the influence of the Parable of the Talents (Matt. xxv.) that it has travelled to its present meaning. Clarendon still employs it very distinctly in its older sense.

Whoso then wold wel understonde these peines, and bethinke him wel that he hath deserved these peines for his sinnes, certes he shold have more talent for to sighe and to wepe than for to singe and playe.—Chaucer, The Persones Tale.

The meaner sort rested not there, but creating for their leader Sir John Egremond, a factious person and one who had of a long time borne an ill talent towards the king, entered into open rebellion.—Bacon, History of King Henry VII.

Though the nation generally was without any ill talent to the Church, either in the point of the doctrine or the discipline, yet they were not without a jealousy that Popery was not enough discountenanced.—Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, b. i. c. 194.

Tall. [This word occurs in earlier English with a great variety of meanings. A very common meaning is seemly, fine, elegant; for examples see Oliphant’s New English (index). In old plays it often meant valiant, brave, great (Halliwell). In the Complaint of Mars ‘talle’ occurs, apparently in the sense of obedient, docile (see Skeat, Minor Poems of Chaucer, iv. 38). The word in the sense of lofty in stature may perhaps be distinct from the above ‘tall’; at any rate the modern sense of tall seems to be the primary one in the Welsh and Cornish tal, high. See Skeat’s Dictionary.]

Tal, or semely, Decens, elegans.—Promptorium.

He [the Earl of Richmond’s] companions being almost in despair of victory were suddenly recomforted by Sir William Stanley, which came to succours with three thousand tall men.—Grafton, Chronicle.

Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great, part ii. act iv. sc. 4.

He [Prince Edward] would proffer to fight with any mean person, if cried up for a tall man.—Fuller, Holy War, b. iv. c. 29.

Tarpaulin. Not any longer used in the sense of sailor, except in the shorter form of ‘tar.’ See the quotation from Smollett, s. v. ‘Companion.’

The Archbishop of Bordeaux is at present General of the French naval forces, who though a priest, is yet permitted to turn tarpaulin and soldier.--Turkish Spy, Letter 2.

Tawdry. ‘Tawdry’ laces and such like were cheap and showy articles of finery bought at St. Etheldrida’s or St. Awdry’s fair; but it is only in later times that this cheapness, showiness, with a further suggestion of vulgarity, made themselves distinctly felt in the word. [The Old English form of ‘Etheldrida’ was ‘Æthelthry̅th,’ which means noble strength. See Sweet, Oldest English Texts, p. 638.]

Spenser, Shepherd’s Calendar, Fourth Eclogue.

Come, you promised me a tawdry lace and a pair of sweet gloves.—Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale, act iv. sc. 3.

Temper. What has been said under ‘Humour,’ which see, will also explain ‘Temper,’ and the earlier uses of it which we meet. The happy ‘temper’ would be the happy mixture, the blending in due proportions, of the four principal ‘humours’ of the body.

The exquisiteness of his [the Saviour’s] bodily temper increased the exquisiteness of his torment, and the ingenuity of his soul added to his sensibleness of the indignities and affronts offered to him.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, vol. i. p. 345.

Concupiscence itself follows the crasis and temperature of the body. If you would know why one man is proud, another cruel, another intemperate or luxurious, you are not to repair so much to Aristotle’s ethics, or to the writings of other moralists, as to those of Galen, or of some anatomists, to find the reason of these different tempers.—South, Sermons, 1744, vol. ii. p. 5.

Temperament. The Latin ‘temperamentum’ had sometimes very nearly the sense of our English ‘compromise’ or the French ‘transaction,’ and signified, as these do, a middle term reached by mutual concession, by a tempering of the extreme claims upon either side. This same use of ‘temperament’ appears from time to time in such of our writers as have allowed their style to be modified by their Latin studies.

Safest, therefore, to me it seems that none of the Council be moved unless by death, or just conviction of some crime. However, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any temperament that can be found in things of this nature, so disputable on either side.—Milton, The Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth.

Many temperaments and explanations there would have been, if ever I had a notion that it [Observations on the Minority] should meet the public eye.—Burke, Letter to Lawrence.

Termagant. A name at this present applied only to women of fierce temper and ungoverned tongue, but formerly to men and women alike; and indeed predominantly to men; ‘Termagant’ in the popular notion being the name of one of the three gods of the Saracens. [See Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English (s. v. ‘Tervagant’).]

Art thou so fierce, currish, and churlish a Nabal, that even when thou mightest live in the midst of thy people (as she told Elisha [2 Kings iv. 13]), thou delightest to play the tyrant and termagant among them?—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 270.

This would make a saint swear like a soldier, and a soldier like Termagant.—Beaumont and Fletcher, King or No King.

Thews. It is a remarkable evidence of the influence of Shakespeare upon the English language, that while, so far as yet has been observed, every other writer, one single instance excepted, employs ‘thews’ in the sense of manners, qualities of mind and disposition, his employment of it in the sense of nerves, muscular vigour, has quite overborne the other; which, once so familiar in our literature, has now quite passed away. See a valuable note in Craik’s English of Shakespeare, p. 117.

Chaucer, Legend of Good Women (Skeat, p. 118).

Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 1, 33.

Id., ib., 10, 59.

Think, }

Thought,

Thoughtful.

Many, as they read or hear in our English Bible these words of our Lord, ‘Take no thought for your life’ (Matt. vi. 25; cf. 1 Sam. ix. 5), are perplexed, for they cannot help feeling that there is some exaggeration in them, that He is urging here something which is impossible, and which, if possible, would not be desirable, but a forfeiting of the true dignity of man. Or perhaps, if they are able to compare the English with the Greek, they blame our Translators for having given an emphasis to the precept which it did not possess in the original. But neither is the fact. ‘Thought’ is constantly anxious care in our earlier English, as the examples which follow will abundantly prove; and ‘to think,’ though not so frequently, is to take anxious care. To this day they will say in Yorkshire, ‘it was thought that did for her,’ meaning that it was care that killed her.

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. sc. 13.

Skelton, Manerly Margery.

He so plagued and vexed his father with injurious indignities, that the old man for very thought and grief of heart pined away and died.—Holland, Camden’s Ireland, p. 120.

In five hundred years only two queens have died in childbirth. Queen Catherine Parr died rather of thought.—Somers’ Tracts (Reign of Elizabeth), vol. i. p. 172.

Harris, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died of thought and anxiety before his business came to an end.—Bacon, History of Henry VII.

Lydgate, Lyf of Our Lady.

Thrifty. The ‘thrifty’ is on the way to be the thriving; yet ‘thrifty’ does not mean thriving now, as once it did. It still indeed retains this meaning in provincial use; as I have heard a newly-transplanted tree, which was doing well, described as ‘thrifty.’ See ‘Unthrifty;’ and the quotation from Tusser, s. v. ‘Family.’

No grace hath more abundant promises made unto it than this of mercy, a sowing, a reaping, a thrifty grace.—Bishop Reynolds, Sermon 30.

Tidy. This, identical with the German ‘zeitig,’ has lost that reference to time which in ‘noontide,’ ‘eventide,’ and some other compounds still survives.

Genesis and Exodus, 2104.

Lo an erthetilier abidith preciouse fruyt of the erthe, paciently suffrynge til he resseyve tymeful and lateful fruit—that is tidi and ripe.—James v. 7. Wiclif.

Tinsel. This (the Old French ‘estincelle,’ a spark) is always now cheap finery, flashing like silver and gold, but at the same time pretending a value and a richness which it does not really possess. There lay no such insinuation of pretentious splendour in its earlier uses. A valuable note in Keightley’s Milton, vol. i. p. 126, makes it, I think, clear that by ‘tinsel’ was commonly meant ‘a silver texture, less dense and stout than cloth of silver;’ yet not always, for see my first quotation.

Under a duke, no man to wear cloth of gold tinsel.—Literary Remains of King Edward VI., 1551, 2.

Every place was hanged with cloth of gold, cloth of silver, tinsel, arras, tapestry, and what not.—Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, p. 18.

Gascoigne, The Steel Glass.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, iii. 1, 15.

Tobacconist. Now the seller, once the smoker, of tobacco.

Germany hath not so many drunkards, England tobacconists, France dancers, Holland mariners, as Italy alone hath jealous husbands.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. 3.

Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted.—Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair.

Sylvester, Tobacco Battered.

Tory. It is curious how often political parties have ended by assuming to themselves names first fastened on them by their adversaries in reproach and scorn. The ‘Gueux’ or ‘Beggars’ of Holland are perhaps the most notable instance of all; so too ‘tories’ was a name properly belonging to the Irish bogtrotters, who during our Civil War robbed and plundered, professing to be in arms for the maintenance of the royal cause; and from them transferred, about the year 1680, to those who sought to maintain the extreme prerogatives of the Crown. There is an Act of the 6th of Anne with this title: ‘For the more effectual suppressing Tories and Rapparees; and for preventing persons becoming Tories or resorting to them.’ For the best account of the ‘tories’ see Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, pp. 163-183; and compare Carte’s Life of the Duke of Ormonde, vol. ii. p. 481.

That Irish Papists who had been licensed to depart this nation, and of late years have been transplanted into Spain, Flanders, and other foreign parts, have nevertheless secretly returned into Ireland, occasioning the increase of tories and other lawless persons.—Irish State Papers, 24th January, 1656.

Let such men quit all pretences to civility and breeding. They are ruder than tories and wild Americans.—Glanville, Sermons, p. 212.

In the open or plain countries the peasants are content to live on their labour; the woods, bogs, and fastnesses fostering and sheltering the robbers, tories, and woodkerns, who are usually the offspring of gentlemen, that have either misspent or forfeited their estates; who, though having no subsistance, yet contemn trade, as being too mean and base for a gentleman reduced never so low.—MS. Account of the State of the County of Kildare, of date 1684, in Trinity College Library, Dublin.

Mosstroopers, a sort of rebels in the northern part of Scotland, that live by robbery and spoil, like the tories in Ireland, or the banditti in Italy.—Phillips, New World of Words, ed. 1706.

Trade. Properly that path which we ‘tread,’ and thus the ever recurring habit and manner of our life, whatever this may be.

Earl of Surrey, Translation of the Æneid, b. ii. l. 592.

For him that lacketh nothing necessary, nor hath cause to complain of his present state, it is a great folly to leave his old acquainted trade of life, and to enter into another new and unknown.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 53.

Teach a child in the trade of his way, and when he is old, he shall not depart from it.—Proverbs xxii. 6. Geneva.

Spenser, Fairy Queen, ii. 12, 30.

Ib., ii. 6, 39.

Treacle. This at present means only the sweet syrup of molasses, but was once of far wider reach and far nobler significance, having come to us from afar, and by steps which are curious to trace. They are these. The Greeks, in anticipation of modern homœopathy, called a fancied antidote to the viper’s bite, which was composed of the viper’s flesh, θηριακά—from θηρίον, a name often given to the viper (Acts xxviii. 5); of this came the Latin ‘theriaca,’ from the Old French form of which—namely, ‘triacle’—came our ‘triacle’ and ‘treacle.’ See Promptorium, and Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English, p. 237.

For a most strong treacle against these venomous heresies wrought our Saviour many a marvellous miracle.—Sir T. More, A Treatise on the Passion, Works, p. 1357.

There is no more triacle at Galaad, and there is no phisician that can heale the hurte of my people.—Jer. viii. 22. Coverdale.

At last his body [Sir Thomas Overbury’s] was almost come by use of poisons to the state that Mithridates’ body was by the use of treacle and preservatives, that the force of the poisons was blunted upon him.—Bacon, Charge against Robert, Earl of Somerset.

The saints’ experiences help them to a sovereign treacle made of the scorpion’s own flesh (which they through Christ have slain), and that hath a virtue above all others to expel the venom of Satan’s temptations from the heart.—Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, c. ix. § 2.

Wonderful therefore is the power of a Christian, who not only overcomes and conquers and kills the viper, but like the skilful apothecary makes antidote and triacle of him.—Hales, Sermon on Christian Omnipotence.

Treacle; a physical composition, made of vipers and other ingredients.—Phillips, New World of Words.

Tree. This might once have been used of the dead timber, no less than of the living growth; this use surviving still in ‘roodtree,’ ‘axletree,’ ‘saddletree.’

In a greet hous ben not oneli vessels of gold and of silver, but also of tree [lignea, Vulg.] and of erthe.—2 Tim. ii. 20. Wiclif.

He had a castel of tre, which he cleped Mategrifon.—Capgrave, Chronicle of England, p. 145.

Old Ballad.

Triumph. A name often transferred by our early writers to any stately show or pageantry whatever, not restricted, as now, to one celebrating a victory. See Bacon’s Essay, the 37th, with the heading ‘Of Masks and Triumphs,’ passim.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, act ii. sc. 2.

You cannot have a perfect palace except you have two several sides, the one for feasts and triumphs, the other for dwelling.—Bacon, Essays, 45.

Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1311.

Trivial. A ‘trivial’ saying is at present a slight one; it was formerly an often-repeated one, or one containing an elementary truth; it might be trite, on the ground of the weight and wisdom which it contained; as certainly the maxim quoted by Hacket is anything but ‘trivial’ in our sense of the word. Gradually the notion of slightness was superadded to that of commonness, and thus an epithet once of honour has become one of dishonour rather. See Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English (s. v. ‘Trivials’).

Others avouch, and that more truly, that he [Duns Scotus] was born in Downe, and thereof they guess him to be named Dunensis, and by contraction Duns, which term is so trivial and common in schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling sophistry or subtle philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a Duns.—Stanyhurst, Description of Ireland, p. 2.

Æquitas optimo cuique notissima, is a trivial saying, A very good man cannot be ignorant of equity.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 57.

These branches [of the divine life] are three, whose names though trivial and vulgar, yet, if rightly understood, they bear such a sense with them that nothing more weighty can be pronounced by the tongue of men or seraphims, and in brief they are these, Charity, Humility, and Purity.—H. More, Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. ii. c. 12.

Trumpery. That which is deceitful is without any worth; and ‘trumpery,’ which was formerly deceit, fraud (tromperie), is now anything which is worthless and of no account. Was Milton’s use of the word in his well-known line, ‘Black, white and gray, with all their trumpery’ (P. L. iii. 475), our present, or that earlier?

Sir J. Harington, Orlando Furioso, b. vii.

Britannicus was now grown to men’s estate, a true and worthy plant to receive his father’s empire; which a grafted son by adoption now possessed by the injury and trumpery of his mother.—Greenwey, Tacitus, p. 182.

Turk. It is a remarkable evidence of the extent to which the Turks and the Turkish assault upon Christendom had impressed themselves on the minds of men, of the way in which they stood as representing the entire Mahometan world, that ‘Turk,’ being in fact a national, is constantly employed by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a religious, designation, as equivalent to, and coextensive with, Mahometan; exactly as Ἔλλην in the New Testament means continually not of Greek nationality, but of Gentile religion.

Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics.—Collect for Good Friday.

It is no good reason for a man’s religion, that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian.—Chillingworth, Religion of Protestants, part i. c. 2.

Tutor, }

Tuition.

The ‘tutor’ of our forefathers was rather a caretaker and guardian than an instructor: but seeing that one defends another most effectually who imparts to him those principles and that knowledge whereby he shall be able to defend himself, our modern use of the word must be taken as a deeper than the earlier.

This is part of the honour that the children owe to their parents and tutors by the commandment of God, even to be bestowed in marriage as it pleaseth the godly, prudent and honest parents or tutors to appoint.—Becon, Catechism, Parker Soc. ed., p. 871.

What shall become of the lambs under the tuition of wolves?—Adams, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 117.

Tutors and guardians are in the place of parents; and what they are in fiction of law they must remember as an argument to engage them to do in reality of duty.—Bishop Taylor, Holy Living, iii. 2.

As though they were not to be trusted with the king’s brother, that by the assent of the nobles of the land were appointed, as the king’s nearest friends, to the tuition of his own royal person.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III., p. 36.

Afterwards turning his speech to his wife and his son, he [Scanderbeg] commended them both with his kingdom to the tuition of the Venetians.—Knolles, History of the Turks, vol. i. p. 274.

Umbrage, }

Umbrageous.

‘To take umbrage’ is, I think, the only phrase in which the word ‘umbrage’ is still in use among us, the only one at least in which it is ethically employed; but ‘umbrage’ in its earlier use coincides in meaning with the old French ‘ombrage’ (see the quotation from Bacon), and signifies suspicion, or rather the disposition to suspect; and ‘umbrageous,’ as far as I know, is constantly employed in the sense of suspicious by our early authors; having now no other but a literal sense. Other uses of ‘umbrage,’ as those of Fuller and Jeremy Taylor which follow, must be explained from the classical sympathies of these writers; out of which the Latin etymology of the word gradually made itself felt in the meaning which they ascribed to it, namely as anything slight and shadowy. [For the development of meaning of the French ‘ombrage’ from shadow to suspicion, see Darmesteter, Vie des Mots, p. 77.]

I say, just fear, not out of umbrages, light jealousies, apprehensions afar off, but out of clear foresight of imminent danger.—Bacon, Of a War with Spain.

To collect the several essays of princes glancing on that project [a new Crusade], were a task of great pains and small profit; especially some of them being umbrages and state representations rather than realities, to ingratiate princes with their subjects, or with the oratory of so pious a project to woo money out of people’s purses.—Fuller, Holy War, b. v. c. 25.

You look for it [truth] in your books, and you tug hard for it in your disputations, and you derive it from the cisterns of the Fathers, and you inquire after the old ways; and sometimes are taken with new appearances, and you rejoice in false lights, or are delighted with little umbrages or peep of day.—Bishop Taylor, Sermon preached to the University of Dublin.

There being in the Old Testament thirteen types and umbrages of this Holy Sacrament, eleven of them are of meat and drink.—Id., The Worthy Communicant, c. ii. § 2.

At the beginning some men were a little umbrageous, and startling at the name of the Fathers; yet since the Fathers have been well studied, we have behaved ourselves with more reverence toward the Fathers than they of the Roman persuasion have done.—Donne, Sermons, 1640, p. 557.

That there was none other present but himself when his master De Merson was murdered, it is umbrageous, and leaves a spice of fear and sting of suspicion in their heads.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murther, b. iii. hist. 13.

Uncouth. Now unformed in manner, ungraceful in behaviour; but once simply unknown. The change in signification is to be traced to the same causes which made ‘barbarous,’ meaning at first only foreign, to have afterwards the sense of savage and wild. Almost all nations regard with disfavour and dislike that which is outlandish, and generally that with which they are unacquainted; so that words which at first did but express this fact of strangeness, easily acquire a further unfavourable sense.

The vulgar instruction requires also vulgar and communicable terms, not clerkly or uncouth, as are all these of the Greek and Latin languages.—Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, b. iii. c. 10.

Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar, September.

‘Uncouthe, unkiste,’ sayde the old famous poete Chaucer; which proverb very well taketh place in this our new poete, who for that he is uncouthe (as said Chaucer) is unkist; and, unknown to most men, is regarded but of a few.—E. K., Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar.

Unequal. From the constant use made of ‘unequal’ by our early writers, for whom it was entirely equivalent to unjust, unfair, one might almost suppose they were influenced by sense association with ‘iniquus’ in their naturalization of ‘inæqualis.’ At any rate they had no scruple in using it in a sense, which ‘inæqualis’ never has, but ‘iniquus’ continually.

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, act ii. sc. 5.

Ben Jonson, The Fox, act iii. sc. 1.

Jerome, a very unequal relator of the opinion of his adversaries.—Worthington, Life of Joseph Mede, p. xi.

Uneasy. This has lost the sense of ‘difficult,’ and means now restless or anxious. But the objective signification is to be found in our Bible and in Shakespeare.

The town was hard to besiege and uneasy to come unto.—2 Macc. xii. 21. (A.V.)

Shakespeare, The Tempest, act i. sc. 2.

Unhandsome. See ‘Handsome.’

A narrow straight path by the water’s side, very unhandsome [οὐ ῥᾳδίαν] for an army to pass that way, though they found not a man to keep the passage.—North, Plutarch’s Lives, p. 317; cf. p. 378.

The ships were unwieldy and unhandsome.—Holland, Livy, p. 1188.

Unhappy, }

Unhappiness.

A very deep truth lies involved in the fact that so many words, and I suppose in all languages, unite the meanings of wicked and miserable, as the Greek σχέτλιος, our own ‘wretch’ and ‘wretched.’ So, too, it was once with ‘unhappy,’ although its use in the sense of ‘wicked’ has now passed away.

Fathers shall do well also to keep from them [their children] such schoolfellows as be unhappy, and given to shrewd turns; for such as they are enough to corrupt and mar the best natures in the world.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 16.

Shakespeare, King Lear, act iv. sc. 6.

The servants of Dionyse, king of Sicily, which although they were inclined to all unhappiness and mischief, yet after the coming of Plato, perceiving that for his doctrine and wisdom the king had him in high estimation, they thus counterfeited the countenance and habit of the philosopher.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. ii. c. 14.

[Man] from the hour of his birth is most miserable, weak, and sickly; when he sucks, he is guided by others; when he is grown great, practiseth unhappiness and is sturdy; and when old, a child again and repenteth him of his past life.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader.

Union. The elder Pliny (H. N. ix. 59) tells us that the name ‘unio’ had not very long before his time begun to be given to a pearl in which all chiefest excellencies, size, roundness, smoothness, whiteness, weight, met and, so to speak, were united; and as late as Jeremy Taylor the word ‘union’ was often employed to designate a pearl of a rare and transcendent beauty. See Skeat’s Dictionary (s. v. ‘Onion’).

Shakespeare, Hamlet, act v. sc. 2.

Pope Paul II. in his pontifical vestments outwent all his predecessors, especially in his mitre, upon which he had laid out a great deal of money in purchasing at vast rates diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, crysoliths, jaspers, unions, and all manner of precious stones.—Sir Paul Rycaut, Platina’s History of the Popes, p. 114.

Perox, the Persian king, [hath] an union in his ear worth an hundred weight of gold.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, mem. ii. sect. 3.

Unkind, }

Unkindness.

‘Unkind’ has quite forfeited now its primary meaning, namely that which violates the law of kind, thus ‘unkind abominations’ (Chaucer), meaning incestuous unions and the like; and has taken up with the secondary, that which does not recognise the duties flowing out of this kinship. In its primary meaning it moves in a region where the physical and ethical meet; in its secondary in a purely ethical sphere. How soon it began to occupy this the passages which follow will show; for out of a sense that nothing was so unnatural or ‘unkind’ as ingratitude, the word early obtained use as a special designation of this vice.

Unkynde [ingrati, Vulg.], cursid, withouten affeccioun.—2 Tim. iii. 2, 3. Wiclif.

Gower, Confessio Amantis, b. v.

Richard Rolle de Hampole, Pricke of Conscience, 117.

The most damnable vice and most against justice, in mine opinion, is ingratitude, commonly called unkindness. He is unkind that denieth to have received any benefit, that indeed he hath received; he is unkind that dissimuleth; he is unkind that recompenseth not; but he is most unkind that forgetteth.—Sir T. Elyot, The Governor, b. ii. c. 13.

God might have made me even such a foule and unreasonable beast as this is; and yet was I never so kynde as to thancke Him that He had not made me so vile a creature; which thing I greatly bewayle, and my unkindenesse causeth me now thus to weepe.—Frith, Works, 1573, p. 90.

We have cause also in England to beware of unkindnesse, who have had in so fewe yeares the candel of Goddes woorde, so oft lightned, so oft put out; and yet will venture by our unthankfulnesse in doctrine, and sinfull life, to leese againe lighte, candle, candlesticke, and all.—Ascham, The Scholemaster, b. i.

Unthrifty, }

Unthriftiness.

As the ‘thrifty’ will probably be the thriving, so the ‘unthrifty’ the unthriving; but the words are not synonymous any more, as once they were. See ‘Thrifty.’

What [is it] but this self and presuming of ourselves causes grace to be unthrifty, and to hang down the head? what but our ascribing to ourselves in our means-using, makes them so unfruitful?—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 146.

Staggering, non-proficiency, and unthriftiness of profession is the fruit of self.—Id., Index.

Unvalued. This and ‘invaluable’ have been usefully desynonymized; so that ‘invaluable’ means now having a value greater than can be estimated, ‘unvalued’ esteemed to have no value at all. Yet it was not so once; though in Shakespeare (see Hamlet, act i. sc. 3) our present use of ‘unvalued’ occasionally obtained.

Spenser, Sonnet 77.

Chapman, Dedication of Poems.

Milton, An Epitaph on Shakespeare.

Usury, }

Usurer.

This, which is now the lending of money upon inordinate interest, was once the lending it upon any. The man who did not lend his money for nothing was then a ‘usurer,’ not he, as now, who makes unworthy profit by the necessities of the needy or the extravagance of the foolish. It is true that the word was as dishonourable then as it is now; and it could not be otherwise, so long as all receiving of interest was regarded as a violation at once of divine and of natural law. When at length the common sense of men overcame this strange but deep-rooted prejudice, the word was too deeply stained with dishonour to be employed to express the lawful receiving of a measurable interest; but ‘usury,’ taking up a portion only of its former meaning, was now restricted to that which still remained under a moral ban, namely the exacting of an excessive interest for money lent.

On the other side, the commodities of usury are: first, that howsoever usury in some respects hindereth merchandising, yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is certain that the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants upon borrowing at interest; so as if the usurer either call in or keep back his money, there will ensue presently a great stand of trade.—Bacon, Essay, 41.

Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury [σὺν τόκῳ]?—Luke xix. 23. (A.V.)

Brokers, takers of pawns, biting usurers I will not admit; yet because we converse here with men, not with gods, and for the hardness of men’s hearts, I will tolerate some kind of usury.—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader.

Varlet. Littré, dealing with this very word, has truly said, ‘Les mots, soit en changeant de pays, soit en changeant de siècle, s’ennoblissent ou s’avilissent d’une façon singulière’ (Hist. de la Langue Française, vol. ii. p. 166). There could be no more signal proof of this than that which the word ‘varlet’ supplies. I continue to quote his words, ‘Vaslet, ou, par une substitution non rare de l’r à l’s, varlet, est un diminutif de vassal; vassal signifiait un vaillant guerrier, et varlet un jeune homme qui pouvait aspirer aux honneurs de la chevalerie.’ From this it fell to the use in which we find it in the passage quoted below from Shakespeare of squire or attendant, which is also the continually recurring use in the Old English translation of Froissart. In this sense it survives as ‘valet;’ but not pausing here, ‘varlet’ is now tinged with contempt, and implies moral worthlessness in him to whom it is applied.

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 1.

Right so there came in a varlet; and told Sir Tristram how there was come an errant knight into the town with such colours upon his shield.—Sir T. Malory, Morte d’Arthur, b. x. c. 56.

Vassalage. This, like the Old French ‘vasselage,’ had once the meaning of courage, prowess, superiority. See in explanation the quotation from Littré under ‘Varlet.’

Chaucer, The Knightes Tale, 2189 (Clar. Press).

Lydgate, Minor Poems, Halliwell’s ed., p. 176.

Vermin. Now always noxious offensive animals of the smaller kind, but employed formerly with no such limitation.

But he shouke of the vermen into the fyre and felt no harme.—Acts xxviii. 5. Geneva Version.

This crocodile is a mischievous four-footed beast, a dangerous vermin used to both elements.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 212.

Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and vermin [καὶ τὰ θηρία], and worms, and fowls of the air.—Acts x. 12. Geneva.

The Lord rectifies Peter, and frames him to go by a vision of all crawling vermin in a clean sheet.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 42.

Vilify. This now implies a great deal more than to hold morally cheap, which was all that in the seventeenth century it involved.

Can it be imagined that a whole people would ever so vilify themselves, depart from their own interests to that degree as to place all their hopes in one man?—Milton, Defence of the People of England, c. 7.

The ears of all men will be filled with deceitful figments and gainful lies, the merits of Christ’s passion will be vilified and maimed.—H. More, The Mystery of Iniquity, b. ii. c. 7, § 11.

The more I magnify myself, the more God vilifies me.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 469.

Villain, }

Villany.

A word whose story, like that of ‘churl,’ is so well known that one may be spared the necessity of repeating it. It was, I think, with ‘villany’ that there was first a transfer into an ethical sphere, though it is noticeable how ‘villany’ till a very late day expressed words foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than deeds.

Pour the blood of the villain in one basin, and the blood of the gentleman in another; what difference shall there be proved?—Becon, The Jewel of Joy.