Note 109 — Chapter VII · OF ADVERBS.

Denominativa terminantur in lic vel lice, ut þeꞃlic virilis, ælic legitimus, ꞃælic marinus, þiꝼlic muliebris, &c. Hanc terminationem hodie mutavimus in like vel ly, ut in godlike vel godly. Hickesii Thes.

The correctness of this explanation has been controverted by Mr. Gilchrist, who contends that, though it may answer in some cases, it will fail “in nine times out of ten.” In the expressions “weekly wages,” “daily labour,” “yearly income,” he observes, that the meaning cannot be, “wages like a week,” “labour like a day,” “income like a year.” He rejects, therefore, this explanation, and considers the termination lic to be the same with lig in the Latin verb ligo, “to tie,” or “join,” and to have the same effect as other conjunctive particles, as “a friendly part,” “a friend’s part,” “yearly produce,” “year’s produce.” Though a copious induction of examples justifies us in refusing our assent to Mr. Gilchrist’s exaggerated statement, that the derivation proposed by Hickes will fail in nine cases out of ten; we candidly acknowledge, that in many instances it is inadmissible; and that Mr. Gilchrist’s suggestion is ingenious, though it will be found, we apprehend, opposed by the same objection as he urges against Hickes’s explanation. Nor does it appear to us, that Mr. Gilchrist’s argument subverts the doctrine generally received. The termination may have been originally what Hickes supposed, and the principle of analogy may, in time, have introduced similar compositions, when this meaning of the termination ceased to be regarded. Thus the term candidly, which we have just now used, was probably introduced, in conformity to analogy, with no reference whatever to the meaning of the termination. It may be here also observed, that the import of this term seems inexplicable on the hypothesis that ly is a mere term of conjunction.