General explanations (continued)

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Main words (continued)

II. The etymology and form-history [within heavy square brackets] includes: 1. The derivation, showing the actual origin of the word, when ascertained. In some cases, this section also contains: 2. The subsequent form-history in English, when this presents special features, as phonetic change, contraction, corruption, perversion by popular etymology or erroneous association. 3. Miscellaneous facts as to the history of the word, its age, obsolescence, revival, refashioning, change of pronunciation, confusion with other words.

In the light of historical etymology, an English word is (1) the extant formal representative, or direct phonetic descendant, of an earlier word; that is to say, it is the earlier word itself, in a later or more recent form, as it has been unconsciously changed in the mouths of the successive generations that have used it. For example, ACRE (now really ek(r)), formerly aker, is the extant form of Old English æcer, this the later form of prehistoric æcr, the special English form of acr, akr, this of West Germanic akra, this, through earlier akra-z, or Original Germanic akro-z, this of original Aryan or Indo-European agro-s; and agros, akroz, akraz, akra, akr, aecr, ker, acre (ek(r)), are all merely successive and temporary forms of one and the same word, as employed during successive periods. The word has never died; no year, no day probably, has passed without its being uttered by many: but this constant use has so worn it down and modified its form, that we commonly look upon acre as a distinct word from agros, with which it is connected by many intermediate forms, of which only a few have been discriminated in writing, while the finer and more intimately connecting links have never been written. This phonetic descent is symbolized by (:-) thus ACRE:- OE. æcer.

If not the extant formal representative of an original Germanic word, an English word has been (2) adopted (a.), or (3) adapted (ad.), from some foreign language; i.e. it is a word once foreign, but now, without or with intentional change of form, used as English; or it has been (4) formed on or from (f.) native or foreign elements, or from a combination of them. Adoption is essentially a popular process, at work whenever the speakers of one language come into contact with the speakers of another, from whom they acquire foreign things, or foreign ideas, with their foreign names. It has prevailed in English at all periods from the earliest to the latest times: inch, pound, street, rose, cat, prison, algebra, antic, orange, tobacco, tea, canoe, focus, meerschaum, are adopted words. Adaptation is essentially a learned or literary process; it consists in adapting a foreign word to the 'analogies of the language', and so depriving it of its foreign termination. Examples are Latin or Greek words reduced to their stem form, or receiving recognized English endings. Latin words which lived on in Gaul there underwent regular phonetic changes, whereby they at length became 'French'; in this living French form they were adopted in Middle English; but in more recent times numerous Latin words have been taken into English directly, yet modified, in their terminations, in the same way as if they had lived on in French and been thence adopted into English.[4] Such English words originate in an adaptation of the Latin original, not in an adoption of its French (or other Romance) extant representative. Formation consists in the combination of existing words or parts of words with each other, or with living formatives, i.e. syllables which no longer exist as separate words, but yet have an appreciable signification which they impart to the new product. Formation is the chief natural process by which the vocabulary of a language is increased. It is both popular and learned: in its popular application, it gives such words as black-bird, shep-herd, work-er, high-ness, grand-ly, a-swim, be-moan, after-noon; in learned application, such as con-caten-ation, mono-petal-ous, chloro-phyl, tele-phone; in a mixture of the two, such as acknowledge-ment, lion-ize, starv-ation, betroth-al.

Much of the terminology of modern science is identical, or as nearly so as the forms of the languages permit, in English and French, in English, French, and German, or sometimes even in most of the European languages. It would often be as difficult as useless to ascertain in which language a particular scientific term first appeared in print, this being, linguistically, a mere accident: the word was accepted as common property from the beginning. In such cases, modern formation (mod. f.) is frequently employed to intimate that it is uncertain in what modern language, English or continental, the word was first used; it may indeed have occurred first in some modern Latin work, either of English or foreign authorship. In the supplementary scientific articles added to this edition, the first use has been ascertained whenever possible and appears as the first example in the set of illustrative quotations. If a word was first coined in some other language before being adopted into English, details of the foreign coinage (when traceable) are provided in the etymology. All such foreign coinages have been verified at source since it sometimes happens that the details provided in specialized bibliographies and reference works are inaccurate. Details of the coinages of plant and animal names are provided in the normal way. When, however, the first use of a term preceded the date accepted as the starting-point for the valid nomenclature of the group involved, a reference to the first valid use is added in the etymology.

Phonetic descent (:-), adoption (a.), adaptation (ad.), word-formation (f.) are usually combined under the term derivation; but, until we know in which of them, singly or in combination, a word has originated, we do not know its etymology.

In this Dictionary, words originally native are traced to their earliest known English, and, when possible, to their earliest Germanic form, authenticated and illustrated by the cognate words in other Germanic languages and dialects; those of foreign origin are referred to the foreign word or elements whence they were immediately adopted or formed. In certain cases these foreign words, especially the French, are themselves traced to their antecedent forms or component elements; but these antecedents are considered only with a view to the clearer comprehension of the history and use of the word in English. To trace the remoter history of these words, and determine their Indo-European or other 'roots', is no part of their English history.

Of many words it has to be stated that their origin is either doubtful or altogether unknown. In such cases the historical facts are given, as far as they go, and their bearing occasionally indicated. But conjectural etymologies are rarely referred to, except to point out their agreement or disagreement with the historical facts; for these, and the full discussion which they require, the reader is referred to special treatises on etymology.

4. The French words adopted before 1400 were generally taken from the Anglo-French, or French spoken for several centuries in England, where they had undergone further phonetic change. It was in strict conformity with linguistic facts that Chaucer told of his Prioresse:

...Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frenssh of Parys was to hire vnknowe:

for the Anglo-French dialect of the fourteenth century was distinct not only from Parisian, but from all dialects of continental French. In its origin a mixture of various Norman and other Northern French dialects, afterwards mixed with and greatly modified by Angevin, Parisian, Poitevin, and other elements, and more and more exposed to the overpowering influence of literary French, it had yet received, on this side of the Channel, a distinct and independent development, following, in its phonology especially, English and not continental tendencies. As the natural speech of the higher and educated classes, it died out in the fourteenth century; but it maintained a kind of artificial existence for a longer period, and was used (in an increasingly debased form) for writing law-reports down to the seventeenth century, in which stage it still influenced the spelling of English words. Its forms survive in many of our terminations: armour, colour, glorious, gracious, envious, perilous, arrival, espousal, language, enjoy, benefit, gaoler, caitif, are the actual Anglo-French forms, as distinct from those of continental Old and Modern French. As a rule, it may be assumed that the original form of every Middle English word of French origin was identical with the Anglo-French form; and that, where a gap appears between the earliest known English form of a word and its Old French equivalent, that gap would be filled up by the recovery of the Anglo-French and earliest English form. It was not until the fifteenth century, and chiefly at the hands of Caxton, that continental French forms and spellings began directly to influence our language. [return]

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