Note 91 — DISSERTATION IV.
Reading edition
Mr. Horne remarks that the French word mais was formerly used in the sense of more, or bot. The English word more was formerly often spelt mo.
"Telle me anon withouten wordes mo."
Chaucer, Prol. to Cant. Tales, 810.
Is it not possible that mo or more and the French mais may be radically the same word?
The following passage will confirm the foregoing explanation of beutan. It is taken from the Saxon version of the Gospels.—— Luke, chap. 1. v. 74. of the original.
"Hæt we butan ege of ure feonda handa alysede, him theowrian."
This version of the Gospels was doubtless as early as the tenth or eleventh century. In Wickliff's version, made about three centuries later, the passage stands thus: "That we without drede, delyvered fro the hand of oure enemyes, serve to him." Where we find butan and without are synonimous.
The word bot or bote is still retained in the law language, as fire-bote, house-bote; where it is equivalent to enough or sufficiency.