General explanations (continued)

Main words

II. The etymology and form-history [within heavy square brackets] includes: 1. The derivation, showing the actual origin of the word, when ascertained. In some cases, this section also contains: 2. The subsequent form-history in English, when this presents special features, as phonetic change, contraction, corruption, perversion by popular etymology or erroneous association. 3. Miscellaneous facts as to the history of the word, its age, obsolescence, revival, refashioning, change of pronunciation, confusion with other words.

In the light of historical etymology, an English word is (1) the extant formal representative, or direct phonetic descendant, of an earlier word; that is to say, it is the earlier word itself, in a later or more recent form, as it has been unconsciously changed in the mouths of the successive generations that have used it. For example, ACRE (now really 'ek(r)), formerly aker, is the extant form of Old English æcer, this the later form of prehistoric æcr, the special English form of acr, akr, this of West Germanic akra, this, through earlier akra-z, or Original Germanic akro-z, this of original Aryan or Indo-European agro-s; and agros, akroz, akraz, akra, akr, aecr, Qker, acre ("eIk@(r)), are all merely successive and temporary forms of one and the same word, as employed during successive periods. The word has never died; no year, no day probably, has passed without its being uttered by many: but this constant use has so worn it down and modified its form, that we commonly look upon acre as a distinct word from agros, with which it is connected by many intermediate forms, of which only a few have been discriminated in writing, while the finer and more intimately connecting links have never been written. This phonetic descent is symbolized by (:-) thus ACRE:- OE. æcer.

If not the extant formal representative of an original Germanic word, an English word has been (2) adopted (a.), or (3) adapted (ad.), from some foreign language; i.e. it is a word once foreign, but now, without or with intentional change of form, used as English; or it has been (4) formed on or from (f.) native or foreign elements, or from a combination of them. Adoption is essentially a popular process, at work whenever the speakers of one language come into contact with the speakers of another, from whom they acquire foreign things, or foreign ideas, with their foreign names. It has prevailed in English at all periods from the earliest to the latest times: inch, pound, street, rose, cat, prison, algebra, antic, orange, tobacco, tea, canoe, focus, meerschaum, are adopted words. Adaptation is essentially a learned or literary process; it consists in adapting a foreign word to the ‘analogies of the language’, and so depriving it of its foreign termination. Examples are Latin or Greek words reduced to their stem form, or receiving recognized English endings. Latin words which lived on in Gaul there underwent regular phonetic changes, whereby they at length became ‘French’; in this living French form they were adopted in Middle English; but in more recent times numerous Latin words have been taken into English directly, yet modified, in their terminations, in the same way as if they had lived on in French and been thence adopted into English.⁴ Such English words originate in an adaptation of the Latin original, not in an adoption of its French (or other Romance) extant representative. Formation consists in the combination of existing words or parts of words with each other, or with living formatives, i.e. syllables which no longer exist as separate words, but yet have an appreciable signification which they impart to the new product. Formation is the chief natural process by which the vocabulary of a language is increased. It is both popular and learned: in its popular application, it gives such words as black-bird, shep-herd, work-er, high-ness, grand-ly, a-swim, be-moan, after-noon; in learned application, such as con-caten-ation, mono-petal-ous, chloro-phyl, tele-phone; in a mixture of the two, such as acknowledge-ment, lion-ize, starv-ation, betroth-al.

Much of the terminology of modern science is identical, or as nearly so as the forms of the languages permit, in English and French, in English, French, and German, or sometimes even in most of the European languages. It would often be as difficult as useless to ascertain in which language a particular scientific term first appeared in print, this being, linguistically, a mere accident: the word was accepted as common property from the beginning. In such cases, modern formation (mod. f.) is frequently employed to intimate that it is uncertain in what modern language, English or continental, the word was first used; it may indeed have occurred first in some modern Latin work, either of English or foreign authorship. In the supplementary scientific articles added to this edition, the first use has been ascertained whenever possible and appears as the first example in the set of illustrative quotations. If a word was first coined in some other language before being adopted into English, details of the foreign coinage (when traceable) are provided in the etymology. All such foreign coinages have been verified at source since it sometimes happens that the details provided in specialized bibliographies and reference works are inaccurate. Details of the coinages of plant and animal names are provided in the normal way. When, however, the first use of a term preceded the date accepted as the starting-point for the valid nomenclature of the group involved, a reference to the first valid use is added in the etymology.

Phonetic descent (:-), adoption (a.), adaptation (ad.), word-formation (f.) are usually combined under the term derivation; but, until we know in which of them, singly or in combination, a word has originated, we do not know its etymology.

In this Dictionary, words originally native are traced to their earliest known English, and, when possible, to their earliest Germanic form, authenticated and illustrated by the cognate words in other Germanic languages and dialects; those of foreign origin are referred to the foreign word or elements whence they were immediately adopted or formed. In certain cases these foreign words, especially the French, are themselves traced to their antecedent forms or component elements; but these antecedents are considered only with a view to the clearer comprehension of the history and use of the word in English. To trace the remoter history of these words, and determine their Indo-European or other ‘roots’, is no part of their English history.

Of many words it has to be stated that their origin is either doubtful or altogether unknown. In such cases the historical facts are given, as far as they go, and their bearing occasionally indicated. But conjectural etymologies are rarely referred to, except to point out their agreement or disagreement with the historical facts; for these, and the full discussion which they require, the reader is referred to special treatises on etymology.

III. The signification, or senses. Some words have only one invariable signification; but most words that have been used for any length of time in a language have acquired a long and sometimes intricate series of significations, as the primitive sense has been gradually extended to include allied or associated ideas, or transferred boldly to figurative and analogical uses. This happens to a greater extent with relational words, as prepositions (cf. about, after, against, and, anent) than with notional words, as verbs and nouns; of theses, also, it affects verbs and adjectives more than substantives; of substantives, it influences those which express action, qualities, and mental conceptions (cf. account), more than those which name, and are, as it were, fixed to material objects. Yet even these latter have often acquired many different senses. Thus, board names a material object; yet compare: a thin board, a frugal board, a card-board, board and lodgings, passengers on board, to fall over board, to sit at the council board, a board school, the Board of Trade, to tread the boards, a sea-board parish.

The order in which these senses were developed is one of the most important facts in the history of the word; to discover and exhibit it are among the most difficult duties of a dictionary which aims at giving this history. If the historical record were complete, that is, if we possessed written examples of all the uses of each word from the beginning, the simple exhibition of these would display a rational or logical development. The historical record is not complete enough to do this, but it is usually sufficient to enable us to infer the actual order. In exhibiting this in the Dictionary, that sense is placed first which was actually the earliest in the language: the others follow in the order in which they appear to have arisen. As, however, the development often proceeded in many branching lines, sometimes parallel, often divergent, it is evident that it cannot be adequately represented in a single linear series. Hence, while the senses are numbered straight on 1, 2, 3, etc., they are also grouped under branches marked I, II, III, etc., in each of which the historical order begins afresh. Subdivisions of the senses, varieties of construction, etc., are marked a, b, c, etc.; subdivisions of these, used especially for sense-divisions under combinations and derivatives, (a), (b), (c), or (i), (ii), (iii), etc.

So far for words of which the senses have been developed in English itself. But in adopted or adapted words which had already acquired various significations in the language (e.g. Latin) from which they were taken, it often happens that the order in which the senses appeared in English does not agree with the natural order in which they were developed in the original language. The English order is in fact accidental. For it was not in the primary sense that the word was first taken into English, but in a figurative, transferred, or specialized use, as an ecclesiastical, legal, grammatical, or medical term, which perhaps took root in our language, and here received a development of its own. Subsequently, however, familiarity with the Latin language and literature sometimes led to a fresh adoption of the word in the primary sense, or to a sudden extension of English usage, so as to include the primary sense, which thus appears as of quite late origin in English. In such a case it is not possible to make the historical order of the senses in English agree with the logical order in which they arose in Latin or other previous language; and every such word must be treated in the way which seems best suited to exhibit the facts of its own history and use. Instances of such words are afforded by ADVENT, AGONY, ANNUNCIATION, APPEND.

Obsolete senses, like obsolete words, have † prefixed, so as to be at once distinguished from those now in use. Under ¶ are included catachrestic and erroneous uses, confusions, and the like.

To a great extent the explanations of the meanings, or definitions, have been framed anew upon a study of all the quotations for each word collected for this work, of which those printed form only a small part. But the labours of other scholars in this, the most successfully cultivated department of English lexicography, have not been neglected. In particular, the explanations of Dr Johnson and of his editor Archdeacon Todd have often been adopted unchanged (within inverted commas and marked J. or T.), as have those of N. Bailey, and other early lexicographers, to whom it is only right to give credit for original work which has become the common property of all their successors.

Back to contents