Part 21 (1/2)
Cotgrave has _flans_, ”flawnes, custards, eggepies; also, round planchets, or plates of metall.”
CHAPTER X
DOUBLETS
The largest cla.s.s of doublets is formed by those words of Latin origin which have been introduced into the language in two forms, the popular form through Anglo-Saxon or Old French, and the learned through modern French or directly from Latin. Obvious examples are _caitiff_, _captive_; _chieftain_, _captain_; _frail_, _fragile_. Lat. _discus_, a plate, quoit, gave Anglo-Sax. _disc_, whence Eng. _dish_. In Old French it became _deis_ (_dais_), Eng. _dais_, and in Ital. _desco_, ”a deske, a table, a boord, a counting boord” (Florio), whence our _desk_. We have also the learned _disc_ or _disk_, so that the one Latin word has supplied us with four vocables, differentiated in meaning, but each having the fundamental sense of a flat surface.
_Dainty_, from Old Fr. _deintie_, is a doublet of _dignity_. _Ague_ is properly an adjective equivalent to _acute_, as in Fr. _fievre aigue_.
The _paladins_ were the twelve peers of Charlemagne's _palace_, and a Count _Palatine_ is a later name for something of the same kind. One of the most famous bearers of the t.i.tle, Prince Rupert, is usually called in contemporary records the _Palsgrave_, from Ger. _Pfalzgraf_, lit.
palace count, Ger. _Pfalz_ being a very early loan from Lat. _palatium_.
_Trivet_, Lat. _tripes_, _triped-_, dates back to Anglo-Saxon, its ”rightness” being due to the fact that a three-legged stool stands firm on any surface. In the learned doublets _tripod_ and _tripos_ we have the Greek form. _Spice_, Old Fr. _espice_ (_epice_), is a doublet of _species_. The medieval merchants recognised four ”kinds” of spice, viz., saffron, cloves, cinnamon, nutmegs.
_Coffin_ is the learned doublet of _coffer_, Fr. _coffre_, from Lat.
_cophinus_. It was originally used of a basket or case of any kind, and even of a pie-crust--
”Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap; A custard-_coffin_, a bauble, a silken pie.”
(_Taming of the Shrew_, iv. 3.)
Its present meaning is an attempt at avoiding the mention of the inevitable, a natural human weakness which has popularised in America the horrible word _casket_ in this sense. The Greeks, fearing death less than do the moderns, called a coffin plainly sa???f????, flesh-eater, whence indirectly Fr. _cercueil_ and Ger. _Sarg_.
The homely _mangle_, which comes to us from Dutch, is a doublet of the warlike engine called a _mangonel_--
”You may win the wall in spite both of bow and _mangonel_.”
(_Ivanhoe_, Ch. 27.)
which is Old French. The source is Greco-Lat. _manganum_, apparatus, whence Ital. _mangano_, with both meanings. The verb _mangle_, to mutilate, is unrelated.
[Page Heading: SULLEN--MONEY]
_Sullen_, earlier _soleyn_, is a popular doublet of _solemn_, in its secondary meaning of glum or morose. In the early Latin-English dictionaries _solemn_, _soleyn_, and _sullen_ are used indifferently to explain such words as _acerbus_, _agelastus_, _vultuosus_. Shakespeare speaks of ”customary suits of _solemn_ black” (_Hamlet_, i. 2), but makes Bolingbroke say--
”Come, mourn with me for that I do lament, And put on _sullen_ black incontinent.”
(_Richard II._, v. 6.)
while the ”_solemn_ curfew” (_Tempest_, v. 1) is described by Milton as ”swinging slow with _sullen_ roar” (_Penseroso_, l. 76). The meaning of _antic_, a doublet of _antique_, has changed considerably, but the process is easy to follow. From meaning simply ancient it acquired the sense of quaint or odd, and was applied to grotesque[102] work in art or to a fantastic disguise. Then it came to mean buffoon, in which sense Shakespeare applies it to grim death--
”For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court; and there the _antic_ sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp.”
(_Richard II._, iii. 2.)
and lastly the meaning was transferred to the capers of the buffoon.
From Old High Ger. _faltan_ (_falten_), to fold, and _stuol_ (_Stuhl_), chair, we get Fr. _fauteuil_. Medieval Latin constructed the compound _faldestolium_, whence our ecclesiastical _faldstool_, a litany desk.
_Revel_ is from Old Fr. _reveler_, Lat. _rebellare_, so that it is a doublet of _rebel_. Holyoak's _Latin Dictionary_ (1612) has _revells or routs_, ”concursus populi illegitimus.” Its sense development, from a riotous concourse to a festive gathering, has perhaps been affected by Fr. _reveiller_, to wake, whence _reveillon_, a Christmas Eve supper, or ”wake.” Cf. Ital. _vegghia_, ”a watch, a wake, a _revelling a nights_”
(Florio).
The very important word _money_ has acquired its meaning by one of those accidents which are so common in word-history. The Roman _mint_ was attached to the temple of Juno _Moneta_, _i.e._, the admonisher, from _monere_, and this name was transferred to the building. The Romans introduced _moneta_, in the course of their conquests, into French (_monnaie_), German (_Munze_), and English (_mint_). The French and German words still have three meanings, viz., mint, coin, change. We have borrowed the French word and given it the general sense represented in French by _argent_, lit. silver. The Ger. _Geld_, money, has no connection with _gold_, but is cognate with Eng. _yield_, as in ”the _yield_ of an investment,” of which we preserve the old form in _wergild_, payment for having killed a man (Anglo-Sax. _wer_). To return to _moneta_, we have a third form of the word in _moidore_--
”And fair rose-n.o.bles and broad _moidores_ The waiter pulls out of their pockets by scores.”
(INGOLDSBY, _The Hand of Glory_.)