ADDENDA TO DICTIONARY
abacus
, an ancient (and, in some parts, current) Near Eastern calculating device, consisting orig of a board on which sand or dust was strewn for writing, hence for counting, then of a frame with sliding balls: L abacus, Gr abax, gen abakos: prob H or Phoenician abaq (abak), sand, dust.
abbreviate
, abbreviation. The former comes from ML abbreviāte, ex abbreviāre (L abbreuiāre), from breuis; the latter was adopted ex F (itself, of course, from L). Cf BRIEF.
anent
, about, concerning: ME anent, an easing of anenst: ME anen (cf again—against), OE on emn, from on efen, on even (ground with=beside; hence, touching)—cf dial anent, in line with, even with. See, f.a.e., the adj EVEN.
bairn
, child, is the Sc form of ME-OE bearn, akin to ON, Go, OS barn and to OE beran, to bear: f.a.e., the 2nd BEAR.
baize
: C17 bayze, C16–18 bayes, C16–17 baies, pl of bay: OF baie (? for etoffe baie): OF-F bai, bay-coloured: f.a.e., the adj BAY.
barnacle
, shell-fish and wild goose: EF barnacle, the goose, ? influenced by F bernicle in its passage from EF bernaque (cf ME bernake): ML bernaca: o.o.o., but perh from Ir (and Ga) bairneach, a limpet, OC *barennīkā: cf Cor brennygen, limpet, perh a dim of Cor bron, an udder, a breast.
‘The connection of the two senses is due to the ancient superstition that the goose was hatched from shell-fish adhering to trees hanging over the water’ (W).
berserk
, to go; a berserker or berserk rage. A berserk or berserker is properly a Norse soldier fighting with a fury called ‘the berserker rage’; hence, usually berserk, an adj: ON (Icelandic) berserkr, acc berserk: lit, prob ‘bear-skin or -coat’. But baresark, adv.— ‘fighting in shirt only, i.e. armourless’—is precisely what it appears to be: in bare sark, i.e. with nothing over one’s shirt.
blanket
: AF blanquete: from F. blanc, white (f.a.e., BLANK)—prob influenced by MF blanquet, a white woollen material, F blanchet.
bloomer
, orig. a complete suit for women, then (bloomers) a pair of loose trousers gathered at the knees, now often a loose, knee-length undergarment ; bloomer named after Mrs Amelia Bloomer (1814–94), who did not invent it and who protested against the use of her name. It was, however, in her magazine, The Lily, that, at Seneca Falls, New York State, the new costume seems to have been first mentioned (DAE).
booth
Addenda to dictionary 4215
, orig. a shed or small house built of, boughs or boards: ME bothe: prob ex ODa both akin to ON būth, a hut, a dwelling, and būa, to dwell: f.a.e., the 2nd BOWER.
bridge
(2), the card-game: earlier biritch, ‘app. changed to bridge from the dealer’s bridging, or passing, the declaration of trumps to his partner’ (Webster): o.o.o.: ‘prob. of Levantine origin, since some form of the game appears to have been long known in the Near East’ (OED).
brimstone
: late ME brimstan(e) or brimston(e), brynstan(e) or -ston(e): late OE brynstān: cf ON brennistein, sulphur, and MD-MLG bernsteen, amber. In short, ‘burn-stone’; f.a.e., BURN and STONE.
bubonic
plague—characterized by buboes (ML būbo, a swelling in the groin) or large inflamed swellings, esp. in the groin—derives from F bubonique, adj of MF-F bubon, perh prompted by the MGr adj boubōnikos: Gr boubōn, swelling in groin: if we cf Gr bounos, a hill, we perh arrive at an IE r *bou-, *bū-, a swelling, a large swelling, a mound, a large mound. Cf:
bunion
: o.o.o.: perh cf dial E bunny, a (small) swelling, esp. one caused by a blow—OF bugne, a swelling—and the edible E bun. If the comparison be correct, then compare bubonic.
enough
, enow: the former from OE genōh, the latter from OE genōg; co-existent OE forms of what was orig an adj, itself from OE genēah, it is enough: cf Du genoeg and G genug, OHG adj ginuog(i), adv ginuog, and Go ganōhs: f.a.e,, NEAR.
exotic
: EF-F exotique: L exōticus: Gr exōtikos, coming from without, i.e. foreign: exō, outside: ex, out of. Cf exoteric, q.v. at ESOTERIC; f.a.e,, ex- (1) in Prefixes.
fad
, whence the hybrid n faddist and the adjj faddish, faddy; faddle. Fad, a passing hobby or fashion, has been adopted from an English Midland dial: perh akin to the fat- of fatuous, q.v. at VAPID, para 1. Webster suggests that the n fad may derive from EF-F fadaise, from Prov fadeza, a folly, ult from L fatuus. The freq ‘to faddle’ or trifle comes from ‘to fad’, the v corresponding to n fad—although, to be frank, the n may come from the v. ‘To fad’ has the redup ‘to fiddle-faddle’, which Whitehall prefers to regard as ‘to fiddle’+ ‘to faddle’. In short, the nexus is as uncertain as the origin of fad itself.
fairy
, adj, comes from the n, the individual from the collective (fairy folk, land of fairies, power of fairies, enchantment): late ME fairie, faierie, a fairy, in earlier ME fairy folk: OF-MF faerie, then feerie (EF-F féerie), fairy folk, enchantment: OF-MF fee (EF-F fée): VL fāta, f sing from the neu pl of L fātum, destiny: f.a.e., FATE.
farthingale
. This EE-E, now archaic, word represents EF vertugale (or -galle), a var of EF verdugale: alteration of Sp verdugado, so named from the hoops of this hooped skirt: Sp verdugo, a young, green shoot: Sp verde, green: ML viridis: L uiridis: f.a.e., VERD.
Origins 4216
fester
, v from n: ME festre, a fistula: OF-MF festre: L fitula, a pipe, a flute (cf Gr surinx): o.o.o.
flagon
: ME flakon: MF-F flacon: MF flascon: LL flasco, o/s flascōn-: Gmc flaska, whence also—perh as adaptation of It fiasca, of the same Gmc origin—EF-F flasque, whence E flask: f.a.e., perh PLY (pp. 505–507). Cf the ML flasca, whence the OE flasce (Dauzat; Whitehall). But the exact relationship of the It, F, OE-ME words is uncertain.
flask
. See prec.
fluff
, whence the adj fluffy, is app a mdfn of the syn flue, itself prob akin to VELVET.
former
, adj: ME former, var of forme: OE forma, first. Cf the OE-ME firmest, foremost: f.a.e., FORE, on p. 228, where cf FOREMOST.
gin
(1), the drink. Unrecorded before 1714, it represents both a shortening and an alteration of geneva, which, first occurring in 1706, is a spirit that, made from grain, is flavoured with juniper berries, adapts Du genever but has been influenced by the place-name Geneva. Du genever comes from OF genevre, itself from L iūniperus, juniper. (For JUNIPER, see p. 324.)
guise
. For the phrase ‘in this (or that) guise’, cf ‘in this (or that) wise’: see VIDE, para 9 on p. 779. Our guise has been adopted from OF-F guise, itself from Gmc *wisa, whence It guisa, whence, via OF desguisier, MF desguiser, the E ‘to disguise’, whence the n disguise.
inkling
, a hint, hence a vague idea: vn from archaic E inkle, ME incle, to hint: perh a freq from OE inca, a suspicion.
ketchup
(f/e catsup): Mal kĕchap.
leisure
: ME leysir: OF-MF leisir (n from v): L licēre: cf LICENCE. ‘For formation from infinitive and change of suffix in E, of pleasure’ (W).
lunch
, luncheon. Lunch, as a (usu fairly light) midday meal, shortens luncheon. But both words, first recorded in C16, were orig, dial; and dial luncheon (or -ion), a large lump, esp of food, is an aug—prob influenced by the earlier, now dial, almost syn nuncheon— of lunch, a lump, itself app a dial var of lump: f.a.e,, LUMP. The OED pertinently cfs bunch from bump and hunch from hump.
This E origin seems preferable to derivation from Sp lonja, a slice of meat.
midriff
: OE midhrif (cf OFris midref): lit ‘midbelly’—OE midd, middle+hrif, belly.
pad
Addenda to dictionary 4217
(4), a road horse, an easy-paced horse for safe road-work, is derived by OED from PAD (1), a path or a road. OED may well be right. Yet I think that the origin lies in ED-D paard, a horse thus: paard becomes pard becomes, in pron, pahd, flattened, esp. in N and Midland E, to pad. C, PALFREY, and see my Adventuring among Words.f
phoney
, meaning ‘counterfeit, spurious, pretended’, was little known, outside of North America, before American journalists, late in 1939, began to speak of ‘the phoney war’. The word does not come from ‘funny business’, nor from telephone, nor yet from one Forney, an American jeweller specializing in imitation ware, but, via American phoney man, a pedlar of imitation jewellery, from its original, the English fawney man, itself an adaptation of the British fawney cove, one who practises ‘the fawney rig’ or ringdropping trick, involving a gilt ring passed off as gold and first described by George Parker in A View of Society, 1781. The key-word is the British underworld fawney, a finger-ring, a word brought to England by Irish confidence tricksters and deriving from the synonymous Irish fáinne. It was probably the Irish who introduced the word into the United States. (See Adventuring among Words.)
The variant phony was suggested by the variant fawny.
scalp
, orig ‘crown of head; skull’: ME scalp prob of Scan origin (cf ON skalpr, a sheath) an; perhaps, as EW proposed, a contraction ofd SCALLOP.
sceptic
, whence sceptical; scepticism (cf the F scepticisme); Am spellings, sk-.
The n sceptic, like the discarded adj sceptic, derives imm from EF-F sceptique, adj, whence also n, from L scepticus, Gr skeptikos, akin to skepsis, a considering, hence a doubt, itself akin to skeptesthai, to look carefully at, to consider: the r is clearly skep-, akin to the skop- of Gr skopein, to view: for the IE framework, therefore, see SCOPE (p. 595).
scimitar
. The EE cimitarie (or -erie) or semiterie or cimiter (or -or) comes from the late MF-F cimeterre (EF var cimi-): medieval It cimitara (It scimitarra), which, like the Sp cimitarra, presumably derives, sem, from Turkey, and prob—despite the phon difficulties, for there may have been f/e ‘interference’—does derive, as B & W hold, from Tu (and Per) šimšir or šemšir, pron shim-sheer or shem-sheer.
sister
prob derives, not from OE sweostor but, as ME sister, from ON systir. The predominant OGmc forms have sw-; cf OS and OHG swestar, MHG swester (G Schwester), OFris swester. Go swistar. The OGmc r *swestr- is an extn of IE *swesr- or *suesr- cf OSl (and Ru) sestra, L soror for *suesor or perh *sosor, the OL var seror, Skt svásā, s svásar-; the C forms, e.g. OIr siur, gen sethar—W chwaer—Br and Cor choar; Arm khoyr; Gr voc eor, for *heor, nom *heōr, with the characteristic IE alternation of h and s.
The IE etymon is perh *swesor (*swes, one’s own +*sor, female); with epenthetic -t-, this becomes *swestor.
But IE *swesor is more prob swes-, one’s own + the agential -or or -er (cf the 3rd -or: Suffixes): in short, not a cpd but a simple, in line with all other family-relationship words (father, mother, son, daughter, brother): as it were, ‘one’s own agent’: mother’s help,
Origins 4218
father’s joy, brother’s ally, sister’s companion. See Adventuring among Words for a development of this argument.
sturdy
: late ME stourdi, sturdi: OF-MF estourdi, esturdi, stunned, dazed, hence (?) reckless, violent, pp of esiourdir, to stun or daze: o.o.o., but cf It stordito, from stordire, derived by Prati from tordo, a foolish fellow.
syllabub
is a var of sillabub, q.v. at SILLY, para 2.
syndic
, hence (via F) syndical, whence (via F syndicalisme) syndicalism; syndicate, n and v.
Syndic: EF-F syndic (MF sindiz): L syndicus, a town’s delegate or advocate : Gr sundikos, a defendant’s advocate: sun, with+dikē, a judgement. The n syndicate (EE): late MF-F syndicat, a syndic’s function, hence (mid C19) a group of workers united to defend their own interests, finally the sense and nuances in which, now, we mostly use it. The v ‘to syndicate’ app comes into EE, not from the n but from ML syndicātus, pp of syndicāre.
taxi
; taxicab; taximeter. Taxi, the conveyance, shortens taxicab (still used in formal contexts): taxicab shortens taximeter cab, a cab fitted with a ‘clock’ or meter: taximeter cab, or taximeter motor cab, was prompted by F taximètre (a correction, made c 1906, by the F scholar Th. Reinach, of the barbarous earlier taxamètre, itself from G Taxameter: cf the E taxameter, used for some years before taximeter displaced it)—which orig designated the meter, then almost immediately the cab itself. (Dauzat.) The word taximeter is a cpd of Gr taxis, a tax+F mètre, meter or ‘measurer’.
wombat
, a burrowing Aus marsupial: Sydney-hinterland Aboriginal wombach or -back or -bat, with occ varr woomback and (? aberrant) womat.