Part 23 (2/2)

[108] See _Crowther_, p. 176.

[109] But the early use of the word in the sense of middle-man points to contamination with some other word of different meaning.

[110] But the usual Italian past participle of _dire_ is _detto_.

[111] Hooks used for stretching cloth.

CHAPTER XI

h.o.m.oNYMS

Modern English contains some six or seven hundred pairs or sets of h.o.m.onyms, _i.e._, of words identical in sound and spelling but differing in meaning and origin. The _New English Dictionary_ recognises provisionally nine separate nouns _rack_. The subject is a difficult one to deal with, because one word sometimes develops such apparently different meanings that the original ident.i.ty becomes obscured, and even, as we have seen in the case of _flour_ and _mettle_ (p. 144), a difference of spelling may result. When Denys of Burgundy said to the physician--

”Go to! He was no fool who first called you _leeches_.”

(_Cloister and Hearth_, Ch. 26.)

he was unaware that both _leeches_ represent Anglo-Sax. _laece_, healer.

On the other hand, a resemblance of form may bring about a contamination of meaning. The verb to _gloss_, or _gloze_, means simply to explain or translate, from Greco-Lat. _glossa_, tongue; but, under the influence of the unrelated _gloss_, superficial l.u.s.tre, it has acquired the sense of specious interpretation.

That part of a helmet called the _beaver_--

”I saw young Harry, with his _beaver_ on, His cuisses on his thigh, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury.”

(1 _Henry IV._, iv. 1.)

has, of course, no connection with the animal whose fur has been used for some centuries for expensive hats. It comes from Old Fr. _baviere_, a child's bib, now replaced by _bavette_, from _baver_, to s...o...b..r.

It may be noted _en pa.s.sant_ that many of the revived medieval words which sound so picturesque in Scott are of very prosaic origin. Thus the _basnet_--

”My _basnet_ to a prentice cap, Lord Surrey's o'er the Till.”

(_Marmion_, vi. 21.)

or close-fitting steel cap worn under the ornamental helmet, is Fr.

_ba.s.sinet_, a little basin. It was also called a _kettle hat_, or _pot_.

Another obsolete name given to a steel cap was a privy _pallet_, from Fr. _palette_, a barber's bowl, a ”helmet of Mambrino.” To a brilliant living monarch we owe the phrase ”mailed fist,” a translation of Ger.

_gepanzerte Faust_. _Panzer_, a cuira.s.s, is etymologically a _pauncher_, or defence for the paunch. We may compare an article of female apparel, which took its name from a more polite name for this part of the anatomy, and which Shakespeare uses even in the sense of _Panzer_.

Imogen, taking the papers from her bosom, says--

”What is here?

The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus, All turn'd to heresy? Away, away, Corrupters of my faith! You shall no more Be _stomachers_ to my heart.”

(_Cymbeline_, iii. 4.)

[Page Heading: COMPOUND--CHASE]

Sometimes h.o.m.onyms seem to be due to the lowest type of folk-etymology, the instinct for making an unfamiliar word ”look like something” (see p.

128, _n._). To this instinct we owe the nautical _companion_ (p. 165).

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