Note 198 — Chapter XIII

It is needless to say that innumerable instances might be quoted of this metaphorical change in the meanings of words, even in existing languages,—so much so, indeed, that, as Richter says, all languages are but dictionaries of forgotten metaphors. For example, there is a single Hebrew word of three letters which may bear any one of the following significations:—to mix, to exchange, to stand in place of, to pledge, to interfere, to be familiar, to disappear, to set, to do a thing in the evening, to be sweet, a fly or beetle, an Arabian, a stranger, the weft of cloth, the evening, a willow, and a raven. (See Farrar, Chapters on Language, p. 229. He adds, “Assuming that all these significations are ultimately deducible from one and the same root, we see at once the extent to which metaphor must have been at work.” For further examples of the same principle, see ibid., pp. 234, 251, 252.)