The Romance of Words (Part 3)

Okay, another installment of what interested me in The Romance of Words. This post covers what I found in pp. 61-97:

• infantry (p. 64):
  

  Infantry comes, through French, from Italian. It means a collection of "infants" or juniors, so called to contrast with the proved veterans who composed the cavalry.

• rummage (p. 64):
  

  To rummage meant for the Elizabethan navigators to stow goods in a hold. A rummager was what we calla stevedore. Rummage is Old Fr. arrumage (arrimage), from arrumer, to stow, the middle syllable of which is probably cognate with English room; cf. arranger, to put in "rank."

• stevedore (p. 64):
  

  A Spanish word, Lat. stipator "one that stoppeth chinkes" (Cooper). It came to England in connexion with the wool trade.

• pedigree (p. 65):
  

  Pedigree was in Mid. English pedigrew, petigrew, etc. It represents Of Fr. pie de grue, crane's foot, foot from the shape of a sign used in showing lines of descent in genealogical charts. The older form survives in the family name Pettigrew. Here it is a nickname, like Pettifer (pied de fer), iron-foot; cf. Sheepshanks.

• spade (p. 65):
  

  Many people must have wondered at some time why the clubs and spades on cards are so called. The latter figure, it is true, bearts some resemblance to a spade, but no giant of fiction is depicted with a club with a triple head. The explanation is that we have adopted the French pattern, carreau (see p. 128), diamond, coeur, heart, pique, pike, spear-head, trèfle, trefoil, clover-leaf. but have given to the two latter the names used in the Italian and Spanish pattern, which, instead of the pike and trefoil, has the sword (Ital. spada), and mace (Ital. bastone). Etymologically both spades are identical, the origin being Greco-Lat. spatha, the name of a number of blade-shaped objects; cf. the diminutive spatula.

• fond (p. 67):
  

  The transition form fond, foolish, which survives in "fond hopes," tofond, loving, is easy. French fou is used exactly the same way. Cf. also, to dote on, i.e., to be foolish about.

• puny (p. 67):
  

  Puny is Fr. puîné, from puis né, later born, junior, whence the puisne justices. Milton uses it of a minor--

  "He must appear in print like a puny with his guardian." (Areopagitica)

• petty (p. 67):
  

  Petty, Fr. petit, was similarly used for a small boy.

• miniature (p. 68):
  

  Change of meaning may be brought about by association. A miniature is a small portrait, and we even use the words as an adjective meaning small, on a reduced scale. But the true sense of miniature is something painted in minium, red lead. Florio explains miniatura as "a limning (see p. 54), a painting with vermilion."

• steward (p. 75):
  

  The steward, or sty-ward, looked after his master's pigs. He rose in importance until, by the marriage of Marjorie Bruce to Walter the Stewart of Scotland, he founded the most picturesque of royal houses.

• onion (p. 75):
  

  The onion, Fr. oignon, Lat. unio, union- is so named because successive skins form an harmonious one-ness. It is doublet of union.

• surly (p. 77):
  

  From Fr. sire comes Eng. sir, and from this was formed the adjective sirly, now spelt surly, which in Shakespeare still means haughty, arrogant--

  "See how the surly Warwick mans the wall." (3 Henry VI., v. 1.)

• companion (p. 77):
  

  Companion, with its related words, belongs to Vulgar Lat. *companio, companion-, bread-sharer. The same idea is represented by the pleonastic Eng. messmate, the second part of which, mate, is related to meat. Mess, food, Old Fr. mes (mets), Lat. missum, is in modern English only military or naval, but was once the usual name for a dish of food....

• put to the test (p. 87):
  

  To bring a thing to the test is to put it in the alchemist's or metallurgist's test or trying-pot (cf. test-tube), Old Fr. test (têt). This is related to Old Fr. teste (tête), head, from Lat. testa, tile, pot, etc., used in Roman slang from caput. Shakespeare of has the complete metaphor--

  "Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamp'd upon it." (Measure for Measure, i. 1.)

• shambles (p. 87):
  

  The old butchers' shops which once adjoined Nottingham Market Place were called the Shambles. The word is similarly used at Carlisle and probably elsewhere; but to most people it is familiar only in the metaphorical sense of place of slaughter, generally regarded as singular. Thus Denys of Burgundy says--

  "The beasts are in the shambles." (Cloister and Hearth, Ch. 33)--

  etymologically misusing the word, which does not mean slaughterhouse, but the bench on which meat is exposed for sale. It is a very early loan from Lat. scamnum, a bench or form, also explained by Cooper as "a step or grice (see p. 96) to get up to bedde."

• spick and span (p. 88):
  

  Modern German has funkelnagelneu, spark nail new; but in older German we find also spanneu, splinterneu, chip new, splinter new; which shows the origin of our spick and span (new), i.e., spike and chip new. French has tout battant neuf, beating new, i.e., fresh from the anvil.

• at bay (p. 88):
  

  Many old hunting terms survive as metaphors. To be at bay, Fr. aux abois, is to be facing the baying hounds.

• jeopardy (p. 88):
  

  Jeopardy is Old Fr. jeu parti, a divided game, hence an equal encounter.

• cajole (p. 89):
  

  Fowling has given us cajole, decoy, and trepan. Fr. cajoler, which formerly meant to chatter like a jay in a cage, has in modern French assumed the meaning of enjôler, earlier engeoler, "to incage, or ingaole" (Cotgrave), hence, to entice. Fr. geôle, gaol, represents Vulgar Lat. *caveola.

• decoy (p. 89):
  

  Decoy, earlier also coy, is Du. kooi, cage. The later form is perhaps due to duck-coy. Du. kooi is also of Latin origin. It comes, like Fr. cage, from Vulgar Lat. *cavea, and has a doublet kevie, whence Scot. cavie, a hen-coop.

• apron (p. 92):
  

  Apron was in Mid. English naprun, from Old Fr. naperon, a derivative of nappe, cloth.

• humble-pie (p. 92):
  

  Humble-pie is a popular perversion of umble-pie, i.e., a pie made from the umbles, or inferior parts of the stag. But umble is for earlier numble, Old. Fr. nomble, formed, with dissimilation, from Lat. lumbulus, diminutive of lumbus, loin; cf. niveau (p. 50). Thus humble-pie has etymologically no connexion with humility.

• umpire (p. 92):
  

  Umpire represents Old Fr. non per (pair), not equal, the umpire being a third person called in when arbitrators could not agree. This appears clearly in the following extract from a medieval letter--

  "And if so be that the said arbitrators may not accord before the said feast of Allhalowes, then the said parties be the advise abovesaid are agreed to abide the award and ordinance of of an noumper to be chosen be the said arbitrators." (Plumpton Correspondence, 1431.)

  For the sense we may compare Span. tercero, "the third, a broaker, a mediator" (Percyvall).

• nickname (p. 93):
  

  The opposite has happened in the case of a newt for an ewt, and a nick-name for an eke-name. Eke, also, occurs in the first stanza of John Gilpin. It is cognate with Ger. auch, also, and Lat. augere, to increase.

• alarm and alert(p. 93):
  

  The two words alarm and alert include the Italian definite article. The first is Ital. all'arme, to arms, for a le arme, and the second is all'erta for alla (a la) erta, the last word representing Lat. erecta. With rolled r, alarm becomes alarum, whence the aphetic larum--

  "Then we shall hear their larum, and they ours." (Coriolanus, i. 4)

  Ger. lärm, noise, is the same word. In Luther's time we also find allerm.

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