Part 20 (1/2)
[Page Heading: ARBOUR--FRET]
In some cases it is impossible to estimate the different elements in a word. _Arbour_ certainly owes its modern spelling to Lat. _arbor_, a tree, but it represents also Mid. Eng. _herbere_, _erbere_, which comes, through French, from Lat. _*herbarium_. But this can only mean herb-garden, so that the sense development of the word must have been affected by _harbour_, properly ”army-shelter,” ultimately identical with Fr. _auberge_ (p. 164). When Dryden wrote--
”Tardy of aid, _unseal_ thy heavy eyes, Awake, and with the dawning day arise.”
(_The c.o.c.k and the Fox_, 247.)
he was expressing a composite idea made up from the verb _seal_, Old Fr.
_seeler_ (_sceller_), Lat. _sigillare_, and _seel_, Old Fr. _ciller_, Vulgar Lat. _*ciliare_, from _cilium_, eye-brow. The latter verb, meaning to sew together the eyelids of a young falcon, was once a common word--
”Come, _seeling_ night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.”
(_Macbeth_, iii. 2.)
The verb _fret_ is Anglo-Sax. _fretan_, to eat away (_cf._ Ger.
_fressen_). _Fret_ is also used of interlaced bars in heraldry, in which sense it corresponds to Fr. _frette_ with the same meaning; for this word, which also means ferrule, a Vulgar Lat. _*ferritta_ (_ferrum_, iron) has been suggested. When Hamlet speaks of--
”This majestical roof _fretted_ with golden fire,”
(_Hamlet_, ii. 3.)
is he thinking of _frets_ in heraldry, or of _fretwork_, or are these two of one origin? Why should _fret_, in this sense, not come from _fret_, to eat away, since _fretwork_ may be described as the ”eating away” of part of the material? Cf. _etch_, which comes, through Dutch, from Ger. _atzen_, the fact.i.tive of _essen_, to eat. But the German for _fretwork_ is _durchbrochene Arbeit_, ”broken-through” work, and Old Fr. _fret_ or _frait_, Lat. _fractus_, means ”broken.” Who shall decide how much our _fretwork_ owes to each of these possible etymons?
That form of taxation called excise, which dates from the time of Charles I., has always been unpopular. Andrew Marvell says that _Excise_--
”With hundred rows of teeth the shark exceeds, And on all trades like ca.s.sowar she feeds.”
Dr Johnson defines it as ”a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid,” an outburst which Lord Mansfield considered ”actionable.” The name, like the tax, came from the Netherlands, where it was called _accijs_--
”'Twere cheap living here, were it not for the monstrous _excises_ which are impos'd upon all sorts of commodities, both for belly and back.”
(HOWELL, _Letter from Amsterdam_, 1619.)
In modern Dutch it has become _accijns_, through confusion with _cijns_, tax (Lat. _census_; _cf._ Ger. _Zins_, interest). But the Dutch word is from Fr. _accise_, which appears in medieval Latin as _accisia_, as though connected with ”cutting” (cf. _tallage_, from Fr. _tailler_, to cut), or with the ”incidence” of the tax. It is perhaps a perversion of Ital. _a.s.sisa_, ”an imposition, or taxe, or a.s.sesment” (Torriano); but there is also an Old Fr. _aceis_ which must be related to Latin _census_.
When folk-etymology and contamination work together, the result is sometimes bewildering. Thus _equerry_ represents an older _querry_ or _quirry_, still usual in the 18th century. Among my books is--
”The Compleat Horseman, or Perfect Farrier, written in French by the Sieur de Solleysell, _Querry_ to the Present King of France” (1702).
The modern spelling is due to popular a.s.sociation with Lat. _equus_.
But this _querry_ is identical with French _ecurie_, stable, just as in Scottish the _post_ often means the _postman_. And _ecurie_, older _escurie_, is from Old High Ger. _scura_[100] (_Scheuer_, barn). The word used in modern French in the sense of our _equerry_ is _ecuyer_, older _escuier_, Lat. _scutarius_, s.h.i.+eld-bearer, whence our word _esquire_. This _ecuyer_ is in French naturally confused with _ecurie_, so that Cotgrave defines _escuyrie_ as ”the stable of a prince, or n.o.bleman; also, a _querry_-s.h.i.+p; or the duties, or offices belonging thereto; also (in old authors) a _squire's_ place; or, the dignity, t.i.tle, estate of an esquire.”
[Page Heading: PLEONASM]
Ignorance of the true meaning of a word often leads to pleonasm. Thus _greyhound_ means _hound-hound_, the first syllable representing Icel.
_grey_, a dog. _Peajacket_ is explanatory of Du. _pij_, earlier _pye_, ”py-gown, or rough gown, as souldiers and seamen wear” (Hexham). _On Greenhow Hill_ means ”on green hill hill,” and _Buckhurst Holt Wood_ means ”beech wood wood wood,” an explanatory word being added as its predecessor became obsolete. The second part of _salt-cellar_ is not the same word as in _wine-cellar_. It comes from Fr. _saliere_, ”a salt-_seller_” (Cotgrave), so that the _salt_ is unnecessary. We speak pleonastically of ”_dishevelled_ hair,” while Old Fr. _deschevele_, lit.
dis-haired, now replaced by _echevele_, can only be applied to a person, e.g., _une femme toute deschevelee_, ”discheveled, with all her haire disorderly falling about her eares” (Cotgrave). The word _cheer_ meant in Mid. English ”face.” Its French original _chere_ scarcely survives except in the phrase _faire bonne chere_, lit. ”make a good face,” a meaning preserved in ”to be of good _cheer_.” In both languages the meaning has been transferred to the more substantial blessings which the pleasant countenance seems to promise, and also to the felicity resulting from good treatment. The true meaning of the word is so lost that we can speak of a ”_cheerful_ face,” _i.e._, a face full of face.
[Page Heading: UNEXPLAINED DISTORTIONS]
But there are many words whose changes of form cannot be altogether explained by any of the influences that have been discussed in this and the preceding chapters. Why should _cervelas_, ”a large kind of sausage, well season'd, and eaten cold in slices” (Kersey's _Eng. Dict._, 1720), now be _saveloy_? We might invoke the initial letters of _sausage_ to account for part of the change, but the _oy_ remains a mystery.
_Cervelas_, earlier _cervelat_, comes through French from Ital.