THOUGHT-WORDING, SPEECH-WORDING,

is the setting of words or a bewording of thought or speech (syntax).

A thought-wording (proposition) is a bewording of the case of a thing with its time-taking. ‘The boy is good’ or ‘the boy plays.’

A thought-wording may have more thing-names and time-words, as ‘The boys and girls read and play.’

Thought-wordings (propositions) may be linked together in sundry ways, though mostly by Link-words (conjunctions). ‘Men walk and birds fly’; ‘I sought him, but I found him not’; ‘I waited at the door while Alfred went into the house.’

Twin Time-takings.

The Hinge Time-taking, on which the other hangs, and the Hank Time-taking which hangs on the Hinge one, as ‘If ye ask (hinge), ye shall receive (hank).’

There are sundry kinds of hinge time-takings, as one or the other or both of the time-takings may or may not be trowed or true or sure.

(1) Hinge and hank, trowed—‘As ye ask (as I trow you do), so ye receive (I trow).’

(2) Hinge, untrowed; hank, trowed—‘If ye ask (I trow not whether ye will or no), then ye will receive (I trow).’

The hinge-word put down as trowedly untrue, and the hank one trowed, as ‘If ye asked (as I trow you do not), ye would receive (I trow)’; or ‘If ye had asked (ye have not), ye would have received (I trow).’

The hinge time-taking trowed, and the other untrowed, as ‘Ye ask (I trow), that ye may receive (I trow not that ye will).’

Speech-trimming.

The putting of speech into trim; trim being a truly good form or state. To trim a shrub, a bonnet, or a boat, is to put it into trim.

1. The first care in speech-trimming is that we should use words which give most clearly the meanings and thoughts of our mind, though it is not likely that unclear thought will find a clear outwording; and either of the two, as clear or unclear, helps to clearen or bemuddle the other.

With most English minds, and with all who have not learned the building of Latin and Greek words, English ones may be used with fewer mistakes of meaning than would words from those tongues; though Englishmen should get a clearer insight into English word-building ere they could hope to keep English words to their true sundriness of meaning.

The so-seeming miswordings (solœcisms) of writers in the Latinised and Greekish speech-trimming are not uncommon or unmarkworthy.

One man writes of something which necessitates another, though Latin itself has no necessito to back ‘necessitate’; another gives eliminate as meaning elicit, or outdraw; a third calls a failure of a rule an exception from it. There is no EXCEPTION to a rule but that which is excepted from it at and in the downlaying of it. If a man gives a simple rule ‘that if it rains on St. Swithin’s day it rains forty days after it,’ and it did not so rain last year, the case is a breach or failure of the rule, and not an exception to it. He gave no exception.

Some say ‘Mrs. A. has had twins’ or ‘Alfred was one of twins.’ A twin is a twain, a two, or a couple of things of the same name or kind; and twins of children must be at least four. I should say ‘Alfred was one of a twin.’ In the latter case it would be correct to say ‘There IS one or a twain of fat men,’ &c., in which is would match both.

One has written ‘ideas are manufactured.’ By whose hands? Another talks of ‘a dilapidated dress’; and a third has ‘found the stomach of a big fish dilapidated.’ What are lapides? and what means delapido?

A man has written of an old Tartar that he was ‘a tameless gorilla’—a gorilla without a tame! as if tame were a thing-name.

Another says ‘It imposed absolute limits upon the choice of positions.’ What are absolute limits if absolute (from absolvo, to offloosen) means offloosened from all check and all limits?

A man writes of ‘a photograph reproduced by a new permanent process.’ Is it the process or the sunprint that is permanent?

Preposterous, foreaft, as when what should be præ, foremost, is put post or behind; whereas a writer gives a structure as ‘preposterously overgrown,’ as if ‘preposterous’ meant only very much, vastly.

One takes irretrievable as nohow amended. If ‘retrieve’ is the French retrouver (to find again), ‘irretrievable’ would mean not to be found again; and ‘the irretrievable defeat of the whole nation’ would be one which they could not find again, as most likely they would not wish to find it.

Twy-meanings.

From want of words in English, or of care, our wording may seem to bear two meanings, as ‘John played with Edwin, and broke his bat.’ The bat of which boy?

‘One Robert Bone of Antony shot at a little bird sitting upon his cow’s back, and killed it—the bird (I mean), not the cowe.’—Carew.

Word-sameness (Synonyms).

Words of the same meaning are less often so than they are so called; and we sometimes give lists of synonyms showing the differences of their meanings.

A twin of words of one very same meaning is rather evil than good; and if they are not of one very same meaning they should not be given as such.

It may be that from a misunderstanding of the word tautology, as the name of a bad kind of speech-trimming, men have often shunned the good use of words.

The bad tautology from which speakers have been so frayed seems to be the giving twice or many times, within one scope of thought-wording, the same matter of speech in the same words.

It is true that it would not be good wording to say ‘John has sold John’s horse’ for ‘his horse’ since the name-tokens are shapen to stand for foregiven names.

But where the same foreused word would give a very clear—if not the clearest—meaning, there seems to be little ground against the use of it.

‘I bought a horse on Monday and a donkey on Tuesday, and sold the horse again at a gain on Thursday.’ Why should not the word horse take the latter place as well as the word steed, or equine animal, or ‘more worthy beast’—or why should I not as well say, ‘An ass I want, and an ass I will buy,’ as ‘An ass I want, and a donkey, or it or him, I will buy’?

It seems that much wrong is done to the Greek of the Gospel by the putting, for the same Greek word, sundry English ones at sundry passages; and by what right do we try an Evangelist’s or an Apostle’s wisdom in the use of the same word, by which he must have meant to give the same meaning? or why should we make him to mean by κρίσις, at one time, a trying of a soul, and at another time a fordooming of him?

It is not any tautology to use near to each other a thing-name and a mark-word which are only fellow stem-words, as ‘As free, and not using your freedom for a cloke of wickedness.’

2. Another care in speech-trimming is the choice of words for their sound-sweetness (Gr. euphony) or well-soundingness, or for speech-readiness.

Past, with the hissing s with t, is less sound-good than after; and aqueduct, with ct, is less well-sounding than waterlode; nor is cataract softer than waterfall.

The hereunder given wordings were lately heard in a law court:—

‘I can give you one or two instances of remarkable intelligence in the cases of fat men’; and

A Juror—‘There are one or two fat men on the jury (laughter).’

Dr. K.—‘I don’t think there are.’

How should these cases be treated? In the first case, ‘one instances’ is a breach of word-matching, as would be ‘two instance’; and in the latter, the word one calls for man, and two for men. May we not better say, ‘I can give you at least one instance,’ or ‘I believe more instances than one’?

‘A man who has already, and will still, render such services will be,’ &c. Rendered is understood after has; but how may the thought be worded without the two puttings of the word render? Thus: ‘a man who will still be, as he has already been, found to render,’ &c.

Penetrate means insink, inpierce. M. Gambetta writes, ‘After the heroic examples given by open towns, and by villages only guarded by their firemen, it is absolutely necessary that each town, each commune, shall pay its debt to the national defence, and that all alike be penetrated by the task which is imposed upon France.’ It seems a queer speech-wording to take a task as a thing that penetrates, though it might be undertaken.

A bad wording is often found with mark-words of the higher pitch, as ‘Alfred was more clever, but not so good, as John.’ ‘Not so good’ is an inwedged word-cluster, but the word-setting is bad, as ‘more clever’ calls for the word than, not as; and ‘so good’ wants as, not than. It would be better to say ‘Alfred was more clever, but less good, than John.’ To try the word-setting take out the wedge-words (‘but not so good’), and you will have ‘Alfred was more clever as John.’

Dislike seems a bad word-shape. Mislike is the old and true English one. Like is from lic, a shape, as lich, the body of a dead man. ‘It liketh (licað) me well’ is ‘it shapes itself (looketh) to me well.’ ‘It misliketh me’ is ‘it misshapes itself to me’ (looks bad).

To seem is from the thing-name—sam, seam, seem, body or mass—and ‘it seems to me’ is ‘it bodies itself to me.’ ‘That ship seems to be a French one,’ or ‘that man seems to be ill,’ bodies itself or himself to be a French one or ill.

‘The house and the goods were burnt’; but ‘the house with the goods was (not were) burnt,’ since it is only the house that is in the speech-case, as the goods are in the mate-case. ‘The house was burnt with the goods.’

‘One of the children are come.’ No—is come. The one only is come.

In our taking of time-words from the Latin in the shape of the past participle, we get at last a queer shape of word. Take the Latin reg- of rego, to reach or straighten, as a line, and our word reck. From reg comes regtus, rectus. Here the t answers to our d (German t of ed and et). Then rec-t answers to reck’d. Now put on ed to each, and rec-t becomes rec-t-ed, as in direc-t-ed; and reck’d becomes reck-d-ed, showing that directed is truly direg-ed-ed, and too like reck-ed-ed, as ‘He reck-ed-ed nought.’

We may often hear a man who is careful to speak good English say ‘This rose smells very sweetly,’ for sweet. The rose smells (gives out smell) as being itself very sweet, not as smelling (taking in smell) in a sweet way. To find which to use, the thing-markword or the under-markword, put ‘as being’ after the time-word, as ‘This rose smells (as being itself) sweet,’ not sweetly.

‘Can you smell now? you had, the other day, lost your smelling?’ ‘Yes, I smell very nicely.’ Not I smell as being myself very nice. A rose cannot smell any other thing, and so cannot smell it nicely.

‘Mary sings very charmingly,’ but ‘Mary looks very charming.’

‘John looks pale,’ but ‘John looks very narrowly into that gold-work.’

‘I can taste well,’ ‘That peach tastes good.’

To have seen a man at a bygone time would mean that the seeing was before that bygone time; but we sometimes hear a man say, ‘I should (yesterday) have been very glad to have seen you (if you had called yesterday).’ That is, by wording, ‘I should have been very glad (yesterday) to have seen you (at a time before yesterday),’ not to see you yesterday; and yet that is what the speaker means. ‘I should have been very glad (yesterday) to see you (yesterday),’ or ‘I should be very glad to-day to have seen you yesterday.’

3. Odd word-shapes are not in the main choice-worthy.

Our time-word go is of unwontsome conjugation, as its foretime shape went is not shapen from go, but is a shape of another word, wend.

So the forlessening name, leveret for a hareling, and cygnet for a swanling, are unwontsome, as being words of another speech.

4. There is a greater or less freedom of word-shifting (Gr. anastrophe, up-shifting or back-shifting), as up in ‘Fasten it up well,’ ‘fasten it well up’; or back in ‘He brought back the saw,’ or ‘he brought the saw back’; ‘There is none to dispute my right,’ or ‘my right there is none to dispute.’

Why should not English, like other tongues, more freely form words with headings of case-words, as downfalls, incomings, offcuttings, outgoings, upflarings, instead of the awkward falls-down, comings-in, cuttings-off, goings-out, flare-ups; or offcast (for cast-off) clothes; or a downbroken (for a broken-down) schoolmaster; outlock or outlocking (for a lock-out); the uptaking beam (for the taking-up beam) of an engine?

Oddly-shapen or Oddly-taken Words.

Mongrel (hybrid) words, or words partly from one tongue and partly from another.

Twy-speechwords are a sore blemish to our English, as they seem to show a scantiness of words which would be a shame to our minds; as,

Sub-warder for under-warder.
Pseudo-sailor for sham-sailor.
Ex-king for rodless or crownless king.
Prepaid for forepaid.
Bi-monthly for fortnightly or every fortnight.

Wordiness (Verbosity).

As ‘The train ran with extraordinary velocity,’ for ‘the train ran very fast.’

‘Alfred did the business with perfect fidelity;’ for ‘Alfred did the business faithfully.’

Thence much of the wordiness of our written, if not spoken, composition.

The ‘New York Times’ thus explains how it was that the flames got to the roof in the burning of the Fifth Avenue Hotel:—‘Fire always is aspirant, the sole exception being where incandescent masses fall down, and so act as a medium of ignition.’

The hard breathing (aspirate) is often wrongly dropped or misput by less good speakers; but, while the upper ranks laugh at them for their mistakes, they themselves, like our brethren of Friesland and Holstein, often drop it from words to which it of right belongs, and mainly from the hard-breathed W or the Saxon HW (our WH).

What,wat (Hols.)
When,wanne (Fri.)
Where,wâr (Fri.)
Wheel,weel (Fri.)
Whelp,welp (Fri.)
While,wile (Fri.)
White,wit (Fri.)
(It is bad.)

Shall we soon hear ‘Wet the ’ook with a wetstone’ for ‘Whet the hook with a whetstone’?

Some Englishmen would say, ‘The ’ammer is on the hanvil’; and some have been known to say, ‘’enry ’it ’orace with the ’ollow of ’is ’and,’ for ‘Henry hit Horace with the hollow of his hand.’

English mark-timewords (participles) are of two kinds—one of an ongoing time-taking, as ‘the rising sun’; and another of the ended time-taking, as ‘the risen sun’; and they are of a few sundry shapes, some ending with -en, -n, as broken, and others ending with -ed, -d; and some without an ending, as cut.

1. In -en, those which are of one breath-sound, and moulded so that the bygone time-shape takes the sound (7) o[2]:—

Bore,borne.
Broke,broken.
Chose,chosen.
Clove,cloven.
Drove,driven.
Froze,frozen.
Rode,ridden.
Rose,risen.
Shore,shorn.
Smote,smitten.
Spoke,spoken.
Stole,stolen.
Strode,stridden.
Strove,striven.
Swore,sworn.
Tore,torn.
Throve,thriven.
Trode,trodden.
Wore,worn.

2. Some one-sounded and moulded time-words, of the sound (8) in the shape for bygone time, take -en, -n; as,

Draw,drew,drawn.
Grow,grew,grown.
Know,knew,known.
Throw,threw,thrown.
Flow,flew,flown.
Slay,slew,slain.

Unmoulded time-words take -ed, but a few of them take -ed or -en; as,

Grave,graved,graved,
graven.

These following, as is shown by the Saxon, ought to take -ed rather than -en:—

Shape, shave, and swell were in Saxon moulded, and thence took -en.

There is a set of time-words which were weak, but are now endingless in their mark-word shape. They ended with a roof-penning -t or -d, and the roof-penning of the ending -ed ran at last into the roof-penning of the stems in the way shown on p. [22], and their mark-word shapes are the same as those for bygone time.

Shortened Shapes (p. [23]).

One-sounded root time-words are mostly endingless in their mark-word shape:—

Sing,sang,sung.

WORDS OF SPEECH-CRAFT, AND OTHERS, ENGLISHED.
WITH SOME NOTES.

Ablative (fromness case). The case of the source of the time-taking.

Abnormal. Unshapely, queer of shape, odd.

Abrade. To forfray, forfret. For for- see [For-] hereafter.

Absist. Forbear.

Absorb. Forsoak.

Absolute. Checkless, freed or loosened from checks.

Absolve. To forfree-en, forloosen.

Abstract (in speech-craft). Unmatterly, not of matterly form.

Accelerate. To onquicken, quicken.

Accent. Word-strain, a strain of the voice, higher or lower, on a breath-sound.

Accessary. A bykeeper, deedmate.

Accidence. The forshapenings of words for case, tale, time, mood, or person.

Accusative (case). End-case, the case of a thing which is the end or aim of a time-taking.

Acephalous. Headless.

Acoustics. Sound-lore, hearing-lore.

Active. Sprack (Wessex), doingsome, doughty.

Active (time-taking). One that can reach from the time-taker to another thing; as, ‘to strike.’ John can strike another thing.

Acute. Sharp or high in sound.

Adjective. Thing-markword, mark-word.

Adulation. Flaundering, glavering.

Adverb. An under-markword.

Adversative. Thwartsome.

Aerology. Air-lore.

Aeronaut. Airfarer.

Affirmation. Foraying, or a foryeaing, not a fornaying; as, ‘Yes, he is.’

Agglutinate. To upcleam, to cleam up.

Aggregate. The main, whole.

Allative (case). A name given by some writers to that of a thing at which the time-taking is aimed (the aim case).

Alienate. To unfrienden.

Allegory. A forlikening.

Alliteration. Mate-pennings (i.e. Breath-pennings).

Alone. All-án, all-one:—‘Nen manniska buta God al ena.γράψον’—W. Friesic. ‘No man, but God all-one (alone.)’

Altercation. A brangle, brangling, brawling.

Ambiguous. Twy-sided, twy-meaning:—‘Alfred was struck as he was walking with a stout stick.’ Struck or walking with a stick? (twy-sided.) ‘Those shoes were made before the man that made them.’ Before in time, or before not behind?

Amicable. Friendly:—‘We have lived in amicable relations’ (friendly, in friendliness).

Amphibious. Twy-breath’d, twy-aired: by lungs and gills.

Amphibology. A twy-casting, a wording of two meanings.

Amphimacrum. Long sidelings, long end-sounds. A foot (in verse) of one short sound between two long ones, or of a low sound between two high ones; as, Tó and fró.

Amputate. Forcarve.

Anachronism. A mistiming.

Anagram. A letter-shuffling; as, out of ‘name’ to
Anagram. A letter-shuffling; as, out of ‘1234
make ‘mane,’ or of ‘march’ to make ‘charm.’
make ‘3214

Analysis. A forloosening or unmaking of a word or wording, or any thing, into its sundry clear pieces.

Anastrophe. A word-shifting; as, ‘Fasten it up well,’ ‘Fasten it well up.’ ‘He brought back the horse,’ or ‘He brought the horse back.’ ‘There is none to dispute my right,’ or ‘My right there is none to dispute.’

Anastrophe affords a case
Of the shifting of words from place to place.

Ancestor. Fore-elder, kin-elder.

Animate. To quicken.

Annals. Year-bookings.

Annihilate. To fornaughten.

Anniversary. Year-day.

Annuity. Year-dole.

Antanaclasis. Twy-hitting on a word:—‘If shape that was which had no shape.’ ‘It is the best art that conceals art.’

By antanaclasis is heard
Aloud once more a former word.

Anodyne. Pain-dunting, pain-dilling. (Dill, -n, to dunt, to soothe.)

Anomalous. Odd-shaped, oddly shapen.

Antepenultimate (breath-sound). Last but two.

Anticipate. To foreween, foretake.

Antique. Ancient, foreold, ereold. Old for things in being, foreold or ereold for things forgone.

Antithesis. An atsetting.

Antonomasia. Name-shunning, the marking of a man by other words than his name; as, ‘The honourable member for A.,’ instead of ‘Mr. B.’

Aphæresis. Foredocking of a word; as, pothecary for apothecary, nob for knob.

Aphorisms. Thought-cullings.

Apocope. End-lopping; as mortal for mortalis, send for send-an.

Apodosis. The hank time-taking to a hinge one (protasis):—‘If ye ask (hinge), ye shall receive (hank).’

Aposiopésis. A tongue-checking; as, ‘Do you think——but I reck not what you think.’

Apostrophe. An offturning.

Appellative (name). A call-name.

Appendix. Hank, hank-matter.

Apposition. A twy-naming, a putting of two names for one thing; as, ‘The dog Toby.’

Aptote. Casemarkless.

Aqueduct. Waterlode.

Arbitrator. Daysman (Job ix. 33).

Armistice. A weapon-staying, weapon-stay, war-pause.

Articulation. Breath-penning.

Aspirate. A breathing, hard breathing.

Assimilate. To make of the same sam (form of matter) or lic (bodily form of a thing). To assimilate food, to forselfen it, to make it into a man’s self.

Asylum has with us widely shifted its first meaning. An asylon was a sanctuary where a man was asylos, not to be pulled away (from a, sylao) by a foe. Now it often means a place whence a man cannot get away.

Asyndeton. Linklessness. The putting of words without link-words; as, ‘Faith, hope, charity,’ for ‘Faith and hope and charity.’

Asyndeton puts side by side
Strong words, by ne’er a linkword tied.

Atmosphere. Welkin-air.

Attraction. A fordrawing, a drawing of a word out of its true case or tale by another word to which it is nearer than to the one which it should match; as, ‘Neither of the men are (for is) come.’ Where the time-word would most likely have been drawn into the somely shape by its nearness to men.

Attraction may be misdrawing.

Augment. An eking, eking on or out.

Auxiliary. Outeking or helping.

Be- (a fore-eking, meaning by, to, about). Bebutton a coat, to put buttons to it; becloke school-children, give them clokes; becloud, obnubilate; beflood, inundate; behem, bebound or circumscribe; bereek, fumigate.

Belligerent. War-waging.

Bibulous. Soaksome.

Bicornous. Twy-horned.

Bidental. Two-teeth, two-teethed.

Bilateral. Two-sided:—‘These articles would be considered a public bilateral contract, and would form the subject of an agreement with the Powers having Catholic subjects.’ Bilateral contract is put for bipartite, a contract by or between two sides, or of men of two sides; but it would seem that the Romans did not call the two sides in a contract or cause latera, but partes—‘Parte utrâque auditâ.’—Plin. Jun.

Latera are the sides of a body or space.

Binocular. Two-sighted.

Bipennated (as an axe). Twy-bladed.

Botany. Wortlore.

Cardinal (numbers). Tale-numbers; as, one, two, three.

Catachresis. A misuse (of a word); as, an iron milestone; a parricide for one who has killed his mother; dilapidated for a ragged coat.

Chemistry. Matter-lore, the science of matter.

Chronology. Time-lore.

Cinereous. Ash-grey.

Circular (a trade-circular). A touting-sheet or -bill.

Circumference. Rim, rimreach.

Circumflex. A roundwinding, a winding of the voice up and down again.

Clause. A word-cluster in a thought-wording.

Cognate. Kin, akin. Cognate breath-pennings; as, T, D, both on the roof.

Collective (name). That of a cluster or a many or a body of single things; as, a club, a herd.

Colon. Gr. kōlon, a limb or member. A mark for a limb, or marked share of a thought-bewording.

Colophon. Book-end.

Comma. Gr. komma, a cut or share. A mark for the offcutting of small shares of a discourse.

Complement. An upfilling or outfilling in words.

Compound. Clustered or a cluster, a clustered word, as horseman, or a thought-wording of two or more smaller ones.

Concord. A matching.

Concrete. Matterly.

Conditional (mood). Hinge-mood (p. [34]).

Conjugation (of a time-word). The forfitting of it, the fortrimming of it.

Conjunction. A link-word.

Conjunctive. Linked, byholding.

Consonant. A letter for any breath-penning.

Construction. A word-setting, speech-trimming (see p. [36]).

Contraction. An updrawing:—I’ll for I will, sinn’d for sinnèd.

Co-ordinate. Rank-mate, row-mate.

Copula. A link or bond.

Correlative (words). Mate-words.

Crasis. Sound-blending, sound-welding.

Dactyl. Gr. daktylos. A foot (in verse) of one long and two short sounds, or of one high and two low sounds, as cheerily.

Dative. Giving.

Deciduous (plant). Fallsome. (Does it mean that only the leaves fall, or that the whole stem falls?) An elm is summer-green or leaved, and winter-sear. Holly is ever-green or winter-leaved. Parsley or the nettle is summer-stemm’d and winter-fallsome.

Decimate. To tithe:—‘Breech-loading rifles would so decimate columns.’ Decimate (decimo, from decem, ten, in Latin) was to take for death every tenth man of a body that had behaved very badly. The word decimate is now used very loosely, as meaning to cut up.

Defective. Wanting of something of its kind.

Defective (verb). Wanting of some time-shapes, as quoth, must, go. The foretime shape of go (gang) would be, as that of an unmoulded time-word, goed; and goed, a worn shape of the older ‘gaode,’ is found in northern folk-speech, with yowed (Saxon eode.) Gang makes ganged.

Deficiency. Underodds. Excess, overodds.

Define. L. de, off; finio, to mark. To offmark.

Demagogue. Folk-leader, folk’s-ringleader, folk’s-reder.

Democracy. Folkdom.

Dental. L. dentes, teeth. A dental breath-penning is one more or less on the teeth; as, eth, ef.

Dependency. Beholdingness:—‘As if one member would continue his wellbeing without beholdingness to the rest.’—Carew.

Depilatory. Hairbane.

Depletion. Unfullening.

Depopulate. Unfolk, forwaste.

Deport. Behave.

Deposit (of money). Earnest, pledge, bewaring.

Deprave. Forshrew, forwarp.

Depraved. Wicked.

Desecrate. Unhallow.

Desolate. Forloned.

Deter. Forfray.

Deteriorate. Worsen.

Develop. Unfold, unroll.

Diacritical. Offmarking, offskilling, sunder-clearing.

Diæresis. An outsundering or outopening, or foropening or forsundering, of a sound into two; as, L. sylva, syl-wa, into syl-u-a.

Diæresis splits sounds in two,
As if for true you said tri-u.

Diagram. A draught, offdrawing.

Dialect. A sunder-speech, a folk-speech, a fortongueing.

Diaphanous. Thoroughshining, thoroughshowing.

Dictionary. A word-book.

Didactic. Teaching, teachsome.

Disease. The Saxon-English had about fifty pure Teutonic names of diseases, to the main of which we now give Latin names. They were ranked under some few head-words.

Cwealm (qualm) meant mostly a deadly or many-killing epidemic, as the plague or cholera, which they would call a mancwealm (manqualm). Of this word we have left only qualm with qualmish.

Adl (our addle) was another main word for disease, as an unsoundness. From this word we have addle-headed and an addled egg.

Coða, coðe, was another main word for a disease. Hence (Dorset) a cothed sheep.

Weorc, werc (our wark), was a disease of pain or achingness, as the gout or colic.

Seoc, syc, meant any sickness in which a man sinks down on his bed or is off his legs.

Braec or breach was also given for some ailings.

To these words were set others of the parts of the body which they took, or of some other marks.

Stic-adl, stitch.
Sid-adl (side-addle), pleurisy.
Lengten-adl, lent-adl, typhus.
Hip-werc (hip-wark), sciatica.
Hrop-werc (bowel-wark, belly-wark (York)), colic.
Fylle seoc, falling sickness.
Lifer seoc, liver sickness.
Lifer-adl (Aelfric), liver-addle.
Milte-seoc (Aelfric), milt-sickness.
Lenden-wyrc (Aelfric), loin-wark.
Mete-afluing (Aelfric), atrophy.
Wylde-fyr (wildfire) (Aelfric), erysipelas.

Dissipate. Forscatter.

Distribution (of prizes). Outdealing, fordealing, outgiving:—‘Uetdieling fen da pryzen.’—Frs. (outdealing of the prizes.)

-dom (an ending). It is our word doom, from deem, and means a state or outreach of free judgment or power; as, kingdom, freedom.

-dom. ‘The scoundreldom and the rascality of a great city.’ Scoundrelhood. Dom (from deman, to judge or rule) would be good for kingdom, popedom, sheriffdom, or mayordom. Scoundreldom would mean the might of scoundrels as ruling or judging.

Domicile. Abode, wonestead.

Ecthlipsis. An outcasting or outstriking, as of a sound; as, ‘Sing th’ Almighty’s praise’ for ‘the Almighty’s,’ or ‘I’ll go’ for ‘I will go.’

Ecthlipsis happens where one leaves
Out sounds, or for the eaves says th’ eaves.

Elative (case). The fromward case; as, ‘He came from the house.’

Electricity. Matter-quickness; not speed, but liveliness. The word electricity means, as a word, only amberishness.

Ellipsis. An outleaving, as of a word understood; as, ‘I went to St. Paul’s’ (church).

Ellipsis is of any word
Well understood, but yet not heard.

-el (an ending). It means smallness or slightness:—Dazzle, to daze; fraze, frizzle; nose, nozzle (p. [18]).

Embrasure. Gun-gap, cannon-gap.

Emphasis. Speech-loudening, speech-strain.

Emporium. Warestore.

Enallage. Case-shifting, an onchanging, as of a word or case into or for another; as, ‘He was father to (or of) the fatherless.’ ‘The child took the toy in (or with) her hand.’

Enallagē takes word or case,
To put it in another’s place.

-en-ing (an ending). It means a becoming such; as, blacken, to make or become black; blackening, the becoming black.

The ending -en-ing differs from -ness, -en-es, as in blackness, which means the having become such.

Enthesis. An insetting.

Epenthesis. An inputting or inthrusting or infoisting of a sound or clipping into a word.

Epenthesis, for little good,
Infoisteth aught, as l in could.[3]

Epithet. A mark-word put to a thing; as, ‘The far-shooting Apollo,’ ‘the white-blossom’d sloe.’

Equilibrium. Weight evenness.

Equivalent. Worth evenness.

-er-r (an ending). It means outeked in size or time:—Chatter, to chat much; clamber, to climb much; wander, to wind about (pp. [18], [59]).

Esculent (plant). Meatwort.

Etymology. Word-building, word-making, word-shapening.

Euphemismus. A fair wording, or the putting of bad or unworthy things in a fairer light by words of less evil meanings; as, ‘I did time’ for ‘I was in prison.’ ‘A government man’ for ‘a convict.’

By euphemismus men are glad
To make a bad case seem less bad.

Euphony. Sound softness, sound sweetness.

Exalt. Forheighten:—‘Sa hwa him selma forheaget’ (whoever himself forheightens).—Friesic (Matt xxiii. 12).

Excrescence. Outgrowth.

Exegetical. Outclearening.

Exordium. Outsetting, outset.

Expansion. Outbroadening of wild or overwrought fullness readily becomes a bad kind of wordiness:—‘Farmer Stubbs drank beer,’ ‘The votary of Demeter, who rejoiced in the name of Stubbs, indulged in potations of the cereal liquor’; or ‘He received me with the most lively indications of amity’ for ‘He received me very kindly’; or for ‘He owes ten thousand pounds,’ ‘He is in a state of indebtedness to the extent of ten thousand pounds’; ‘He warned the hunters off his land,’ ‘He conveyed to the votaries of Diana a strong admonition that they would not be permitted to prosecute their sport within his domain.’

Faculty. Makingness.

Filiaceous. Threaden.

Flexible. Bendsome.

Fluctuate. Waver.

Foliate. Leafen.

For-. The fore-eking of forgive, forbear, is a most useful one. It is the Anglo-Saxon for, the German ver, and the Latin per, and means off or away.

For-go, per-eo, to go off or away.

Per-suadeo (L. suadeo, from suavis), to soften or sweeten off.

Foreshorten and forego should be forshorten and forgo.

Forceps. Tonglings, nipperlings.

Fore- (a fore-eking). Foredoom, predestinate; fore-token, portent, omen (p. [61]).

Fossil. A forstonening.

Frangible. Breaksome.

Garrulity.[4] Wordiness, talksomeness.

Genealogy. Kin-lore, kinhood-lore.

Genitive (case). The offspring case (p. [30]).

Genuflexion. Knee-bowing. Much has been said (in the law trials about posture in the administration of the Holy Communion) of genuflexion. A genuflexion is any knee-bowing, but all knee-bowing is not kneeling, which is knee-grounding.

Glossarist. A word-culler.

Glossary. Gr. glossa, tongue, speech. A word-list or word-list:—‘Mei en lyst vin oade spreckworden’ (with a list of old saws).—Friesic.

Grandiloquent. High-talking.

Gratuitous. Out of kindness. Gratia is good will, free kindness; and gratuitus is freely bestowed of gratia, without hire or reward. But a writer says that an attack of slander on a woman’s purity ‘was gratuitous,’ or of gratia or good will, without hire or reward, as if gratuitous meant without grounds of malice.

Hendiadys. One-in-twice. A wording of one thing at twice, or as two things; as, ‘I heard shouting and men’ for ‘shouting of men.’ ‘An arm and strength’ for ‘a strong arm.’ A fortwaining.

Hendiadys will give you two
Clear words where one alone would do.

Hexameter. Gr. hex, six; metron, measure, metre. A metre in Greek and Latin verse, lines of six feet.

-hood (an ending). It means a state of being, rank, or standing among other things:—Childhood, manhood.

Horizon. Sky-sill, sky-line.

Hybrid (word). L. hybrida, a mongrel.

Hydrophobia. Water-awe.

Hyperbaton. Gr. hyper, over; baino, to fare, go. An overfaring, an overshifting of words out of their more wonted or better ranking; as, ‘What for,’ for ‘For what.’ A ‘speaking out’ for an ‘outspeaking.’

Hypallage. Word-shifting, case-shifting; as, ‘We gave wind to our sails’ for ‘our sails to the wind.’ ‘The men were put to the sword,’ though also ‘the sword was put to the men.’

Hyperbolē. An overcasting or overshooting of the truth; as, ‘The train went as swift as lightning.’

Hyperbolē, less right than wrong,
O’ershoots the truth with words too strong.

Hyphen. A tie-stroke.

Hysterologia. A foreafter wording, forebehind or hinderforemost wording; as, ‘He earned a florin, and worked all the day,’ whereas he worked first, and so earned the florin.

Hysterologia’s careless mind
Puts last for first, and fore for hind.

Iambus. Gr. A foot (in verse) of one short or low and one long or high sound; as, ago, a low-high twin.

Idiom. Gr. idioma, from idios, one’s own. A folk’s-wording, a set form of words of any one speech or set of men; as, ‘How do you do?’ Fr.: ‘Comment vous portez-vous?’ (How do you bear yourself?) ‘I have just dined.’ Fr.: ‘Je viens de dîner’ (I come from to dine).

Imperative (mood). The bidding mood.

Impersonal (verb). A time-word without a thing-name; as, ‘It lightens,’ ‘it thunders,’ ‘it freezes,’ ‘it thaws.’ A thingnameless or a deederless time-word.

Impertinence may be meddlesomeness in what non pertinet, does not belong to one, or meddlesomeness in a deed or speech which non pertinet, does not hold by the matter under thought, unbyholdingness.

Impertinent. Meddlesome, unbyholding.

Inarticulate. Unbreathpenned.

Incandescent. White-hot, heat-whitened.

Inceptive (verbs). Belonging to ontaking or beginning. Becomesome time-words; as, L. albesco, to become white; English whiten, to become or make white. In Greek the ending of the becomesome words is -iz or -z. Orphanízo, to make or become elderless, or an orphan.

Indefinite. L. in, un; finio, to offmark, outmark. Unoffmarked, unbounded.

Indicative (mood). The surehood mood.

Infinitive (mood). L. in, un; finitus, bounded, marked. The unboundsome thing-free mood of a time-word free of anything; as, to love, to see.

Initial. Word-head.

Injury. Injuria is a moral wrong (summum jus summa injuria). Do we not wrest its meaning in such wording as ‘The wind has done much injury to my house-roof’ or ‘injured my flowers’? How can the behaviour of the wind be made out to be a moral wrong, even if it be a hurt?

Instrumentive, instrumental (case). The tool-case or means-case, that of the tool or means of a deed; as, ‘He cut the wood with a knife.’

Interest (of money). Money-rent, loan-meed, loan-pay.

Interest. Care:—‘I do not take any interest in him or it.’ ‘I do not becare him or it.’ ‘Wha kara unsis?’ (what care to us) (Mœso-goth).—Matt. xxvii. 4.

What a word to be taken as a thing-name is interest, ‘it is of odds’! The folk-speech, ‘It is of no odds to me,’ gives the meaning of ‘meâ non interest.’

Intransitive. Not overgoing, as time-takings that do not reach forth to another thing; as, to sleep.

Inversion. L. inverto, to turn up. An end-shifting:—‘Thee at morn, and Thee I praise at night,’ for ‘I praise Thee at morn, and Thee at night.’ A shifting of the ends of a wording.

Irony. Gr. eirōneia, from eiron, a shammer. A good wording for a bad meaning, mock-praise; as, ‘That was a good shot,’ meaning a very bad one. ‘He is a nice man,’ meaning the reverse of nice. ‘How glorious was the king of Israel to-day!’ meaning how inglorious.

-ism. The stump -ism of the Greek -ismos seems to be used very loosely. -ismos is from the ending -izō of ontaking or inceptive time-words, and where there is no time-word ending in -izō there is not, I should think, any thing-name in -ismos; as, chloros, green; chlorizō, to become green; chlorismos, a becoming green. So, if liberalism is a becoming liberal, conservatism is a becoming conservat, which might seem to mean conservatus, one conserved, rather than a conserver. Is chartism a becoming a chart? and what is Londonism, a becoming London or a Londoning? and, if so, what is a Londoning?

We have for -ismos some English endings, as -ening, in blackening; besides -hood, -ship, and -ness, and many others of sundry kinds.

For -ism, taken in names bestowed with very slight praise, we may take -ishness; as, Hebraism, Hebrewishness; Grecism, Greekishness; Latinism, Latinishness; Londonism, Londonishness; solœcism, folkswording. (On ‘Solœcism,’ see Aul. Gell. v. 20.)

Iterative. Going over again and again. Iterative time-words, that mean to take many shorter times in time-takings of the same kind; as, to chatter, chat much; clamber, wander.

Labial (letter). L. labium, lip. A lip breath-penning.

Laxative. Loosensome.

Lecture. A lore-speech.

Lenis. L. soft. The soft breathing is an unaspirate one, such as a in and, not ha in hand.

Letter. L. litera; Sax. bóc-staf, a book-staff. It is bad that the same word letter should be used for a letter of the alphabet and an epistle, the old English word for which is a brief, as it is in German and West Friesic. It was also the name of the king’s letter for gathering of help-money in the church; though now it is the name only of a barrister’s letter of instruction.

Lingual. L. lingua, the tongue. Belonging to the tongue.

Literature. Book-lore.

Lithography. Stone-printing.

Locative (case). L. locus, stead, place. The stead or stow-case; as, ‘In London,’ ‘At church.’

Logic. Redelore.

-m, -om, -um. A word-ending, a form of the Greek one -ma, as in prag-ma, from prasso; and of the Latin -men, as in flu-men, from fluo. Words so ended meant mostly the outcome of the time-word, and were at first thing-names; and so as time-words they were, as most of them yet are, weak ones. From roots ending, I believe, in -ing came[5]

BlowBloom.
Cling (root)Clome (clay or clayen pottery), clam, climb.
Cring (root) (to bend)Crome (a dung-pick with bent prongs).
Dunt, ding(root)Dam, dim, dumb, damp (fire).
Go (with quick stirrings), —ging (root)Game.
GlowGleam, gloom.
GrowGroom (a growing or now full-grown youth?).
HollowHaulm, helm, helmet.
HarryHarm.
Lose, lithe, (ling r.)Limp, limb, lime, loam.
ShriekScream.
SewSeam.
Slack,—sling (root)Slam (a slackness or looseness in matter or going; slam of a gate; a slack swing, as unguided by a hand).
SlackSlime, slim.
Stiff or stoutStem.
Stray or Stretch onStream.[6]
Tang, ting (reach on)Team, time, and timer, timber (a very ontanging stick).
ThickThumb (the thick finger).

Machine. An old English word for a machine is ginny or jinny which seems to be a fellow-stem to gin, and to mean to go, not as in onfaring (locomotion), but as in the way of a machine.

Magnificent. High-deedy, high-doing.

Magniloquent. High-talking.

Mechanics. Matter-might.

Metalepsis. Gr. metalambano, to take over. A use-shifting of a word, a taking of a word over from its common to another meaning; as, ‘Seven harvests ago’ for ‘seven summers or years.’

Metaphor. Gr. metaphora, from metaphero to carry over. A figure of speech, the overcarrying of a name from a thing to which it belongs to another to which it does not belong; as, ‘The Shepherd of Israel’ for ‘the Lord.’ ‘The father of the people’ for ‘a good king.’ ‘Eos Cymru’ (the Welsh nightingale) for ‘a fine Welsh songstress.’ ‘A man burning with anger.’

Metathesis. Gr. meta, with or against; thesis, a putting. A penning-shift, as that of putting each of two pennings in the stead of the other; as, waps, wasp; haps; hasp; though the first of the two shapes is the older in English.

Metathesis is where a word
Shifts pennings, as in crud for curd.

Meteor. Welkin-fire.

Metonymy. Gr. meta, off; onoma, a name. An offnaming, name-shifting, a wording that puts for a thing-name the name of some belonging—whether cause or effect or aught else—of the thing; as, ‘He reads Horace’ for ‘his works.’ ‘He lives by the sweat of his brow’ for ‘work.’ ‘Land holden by the Crown’ (Queen). ‘The power of the pen’ for ‘writers.’

Miosis. Gr. meiōsis, a forlessening. A wording by which a thing is lessened off; as, ‘Will you give me a crumb of bread and a drop of drink?’

Miōsis, a lessening,
Makes of a great a smaller thing.

Monitor. A warner. Ware-en-er, who makes ware.

Monosyllable. A breath-sound.

Multiloquous. Wordy, talksome.

Negative (word). L. nego, to deny. Fornaysome.

Nomenclature. Benaming, name-shapening.

Nominative. L. nomen, a, name. The name-case, speech-case.

Noun. L. nomen, a name; Fr. nom. A thing-name, thing-word, name-word.

Objective. Objective case. A name commonly given to the time-giving thing when it is not the speech-case.

Onomatopœia. A mocking name. The making of words from sounds; as, to hiss, a peewit or cuckoo from the sound it makes.

Optative (mood). The wish mood; as, ‘Oh! that I had wings.’ ‘May you be happy.’

Out- (a fore-eking). Outban, exile; outfaring, peregrination, exodus; outhue, outliken, depict or draw.

Over- (a fore-eking). Overbold, audacious; overhang, impend; overweigh, preponderate.

-p, -b, -f (endings). They mean small in kind or short in time:—Poke, pop, poke quickly; dip, a small dive; slip, a small slide; rip, to rive quickly.

Palindrome. Gr. palin, back; dromos, a running. A set of words which read the same backwards as forwards; as, ‘Lewd did I live, evil I did dwel,’ or ‘Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.’

A palindrome’s the same as read
From head to tail, or tail to head.

Palpitate. Throb.

Panacea. Allheal.

Paradigm. Gr. paradeigma, an offshowing, outshowing, a plan. A table of word-shapes.

Paragogē. An outbringing or outlengthening of a word.

A paragogē will be found
Where words are lengthened by a sound.

‘Such a sweet pett as this
Is neither far nor neary.
Here we go up, up, up;
Here we go down, down, downy.
Here we go backwards and forwards,
And here we go round, round, roundy.’

Old Song.

‘In playhouses, full six-o,
One knows not where to fix-o.’

Old Song.

Paragraph. An offwriting, a wording-share; such a share of a piece of writing as, if it were offwritten, would not want anything of a full meaning.

Paraphrase. New bewording; a turning of a piece of writing into other words, often more if not clearer than those of the writer. A paraphrase, while it is meant to clearen, may falsen the paraphrased matter. The following paraphrase from an old written sermon of (as I believe) an old Dorset divine, may be a good sample of new bewording:—

‘God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican: I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.’

Expanded or paraphrased:—

‘With great gratitude, O God (said the Pharisee), I contemplate my own superior attainments. How free is my mind from a variety of black offences which invade the consciences of others! Extortion, injustice, and adultery are crimes (said he, striking his breast) which have no harbour here. Who can lay to my charge the neglect of any religious duty? Are not my tithes paid with cheerfulness, and my fasts observed with sanctity?’

‘And the Publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’

‘The Publican, on the other hand, with every mark of the deepest contrition, stood abashed in a corner of the temple. Conscious of his own demerits, he was afraid to raise his eyes to that Being who sees the least degree of impurity with offence. After many ineffectual struggles to form the sighing of a contrite heart into the language of prayer, his efforts ended in this one exclamation, God be merciful to me a sinner.’

Parenthesis. An inwedging of a sentence within another:—‘Thou sayest—but they are but vain words—I have strength for the war.’

Parody. A song-mocking.

Paronomasia. A kind of play on words of more or less like sound, though of sundry meaning; as, ‘Though last not least.’ ‘Non amissi sed præmissi’ (said of friends deceased), ‘Not forgone but foregone.’

Paronomasia is found
In pairs of words of some like sound.

Participle. A thing-marking shape of the time-word.

Particle. A wordling, a small shapefast word.

Patronymic. Gr. pater, father, and onoma, name. A surname or sirename of a man taken from the forename of his father; as, John Richardson, Dafydd Ap-hoel, Patrick Mac-Duff, Jeroboam Ben-Nebat.

Pedigree. Kin-stem, forekin-stem.

Penultimate. Last but one.

Perambulator (the child’s carriage). Push-wainling.

Perfect. Fordone, forended, full-ended.

Period, in rhetoric (redecraft) and speechcraft, is so called, as a speech-ring or speech-round, a full round of thought-wording, in which the speech-meaning is kept uphanging and more or less unclear, till the last word or word-cluster by which it is clearly fulfilled; as, ‘(1) That among the sundry changes of the world (2), (3) our hearts may surely there be fixed (4): (5) where true joys are to be found (6).’ The whole thought-wording is a period or speech-round. From (1) to (4) is a limb (called in Greek a kōlon) and has a meaning, though not a full one beyond which the mind awaits nothing more. The word-cluster from (1) to (2) yields no full meaning, and is called in Greek a komma (kopma), a cutting or shareling. Thence we see the source of the names and uses of the stops—the period (.), colon (:), comma (,). The period marked the end of the period; the colon that of the kolon; and the comma that of a comma, or cutting of a colon.

The word seems to be often misused. A period (Gr. periodos) of time or wording is rightly a running of it round again to its like beginning; as, a week—from Sunday round to Sunday; or a year—from January to January.

A straight stretch of time or words is not truly a period; as, a man’s life from birth to manhood is not a ring-gate, beginning anew at childhood.

Periphrasis. Gr. peri, round; phrasis, a speaking. A roundabout speaking of a thing instead of an outright naming of it, a name-hinting; as, ‘The gentleman at the head of Her Majesty’s Government’ for Lord B.

Personal (time-word); not an impersonal one; as, ‘It rains.’ ‘It snows;’ but one with a named time-taker, as ‘John rides.’

Perverse. Wayward, froward.

Pervious. Throughletting.

Petrify. To stonen, forstonen.

Philology. Speechlore.

Phonetic. Soundly.

Phonography, phonotypy. Sound-spelling. Surely a photograph should be a phototype. Graphō is to graze or grave along a body, but a photograph is given by a plumb downstriking of rays of light—a typē and not a graphē. With graphē and typē we may set a glyphē (from glyphō), an outsmoothing of a shape, as that of a figure from a block of stone. Glyphō is a fellow stem-word to glykys, smooth, soft, or sweet.

Phrase. Gr. phrazo, to speak, say. A word-cluster, a word-set, a cluster or set of byhanging words.

Pirate. Sea-robber, weeking, wyking, wicing (Gloss. 11 cent.). The wicings or weekings or vicings were so called as lurking about in the bays, wicas, weeks, wykes, or wiches.

Plagiary. A thought-pilferer.

Pleonasm. Gr. pleonazo, to fullen or overfullen. An overwording; as, ‘A great [thing of a] boar’ for ‘a great boar.’ ‘What [ever in the world] are you doing?’ ‘Never [in all my whole life] have I seen the like.’

A pleonasm oft is heard
To strengthen speech by word on word.

Plocē. Gr. plokē, a twining or folding. A twining or folding of a foregiven name, of one meaning the same name, in another; as, ‘Then Edwin was Edwin (or himself) again.’ Worthy of himself. ‘Coal is now coal,’ i.e. scarce and costly.

By plocē you inweave a name
Once more with meaning not the same.

Plural (number). The somely (number).

Polyptoton. Gr. poly, many; ptotos, case. The inbringing of fellow stem-words or root-words in sundry cases or ways:—‘He, friendless once, befriended friends.’

Posterity. Afterkin.

Postposition. A hinder case-word, a case-word put after the thing-name; as, in Hindustani, panee-main, water in; panee-sae, water from; panee-ko, water to. Showing the source of case-endings.

Potential (mood). L. potentia, might, power. Mayly.

Predicate. The wording of the time-taking; as, ‘John walked twenty miles.’

Prefix. A fore-eking, a forewordling; as, be-set, for-give, out-run.

Preposition. A case-word.

Preterite. Bygone, past.

Programme. A foredraught.

Pronoun (personal). A name-token, a stead-word. Pronoun Adjective, mark-word.

Proper name. A one-head name.

Prosopopœia. Gr. prosopon, face, person; poieo, to make. The putting of an unmatterly or impersonal thing as a person.

Prosopopœia shows your mind
Unlive things doing as mankind.

Protasis. The hinge time-taking.

Prototype. Foreshape, forepattern.

Punctuation. L. punctuatio, from puncta, points or stops. The skill of the putting of stops, or of the marking of voice-stoppings in speech. Bestopping. (See ‘[Period].’)

Radicle. Rootling.

Reciprocal (verb). L. re, back, fro; ci, to this way. To and fro verbs; as, ‘They helped each other.’

Rectify. Righten.

Reflective. Back-turning, as a time-taking which comes back to the source of it; as, ‘John cut or hit himself.’

Regimen. Government, overwielding of a thing by another.

Religion. Faith-law.

Religious. On the true meaning of religiosus see Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. iv. 9. He makes it mean withholden, backbound from some uses. Religiosa delubra, a shrine hallowed from common use; religiosus dies, a day withholden, as unlucky, from great undertakings. A religious man is one who is withholden by his faith and conscience from bad deeds.

Restrain. Inhold, forhold.

Result. Outcome, outworking, backspring. Result (from resilio, to spring back) is neither in sound nor meaning a better word than outcome or outworking or froming, fromming.

Rhetoric. Rede-speech.

Rhythm. Gr. rhythmos, number, as number of clippings or sounds in a line of verse. Metre, which meant at first tale of sounds rather than sound matching, which we call rime. Rime is not come to us from the Greek, but is the Saxon rim or hrim, tale or number.

‘Manâ and misdædâ ungerím ealrâ’ (a tale, beyond telling, of all wickednesses and misdeeds).—Sermo Lupi ad Anglos.

‘Deer naet in da rime was’ (who was not in the number).—Old Friesic Law.

Salubrious. Healthy, halesome.

Satellite. Henchman.

Scintillate. Sparkle.

Semi-detached houses. Twin-houses, a house-twin.

Sentence. L. sentio, to think, deem, feel. In speech-craft, an uttering of a thought, one thought-wording.

Septuple. Sevenfold.

-sh (an ending). It means quickness and smartness; as, clang, clash; crack, crash; fly, flash; go, gush; hack, hash. In markwords it means somewhat such;—blackish, boyish.

-ship (an ending). It means a shape or form of being:—Friendship, mateship.

Solœcisms. Gr. soloikismos, from the bad Greek of the Soloikoi in Cilicia. A miswording, barbarism, or, as an old Saxon gives it, ‘a miscweðen word,’ or a misquothing, a misqueathing.

We in a solœcismus find
Miswording of a loreless mind.

Solstice. Sunsted. A.S. Sunanstede.

-some. The ending -some in such words as aimsome, matchsome, yieldsome seems, as we look to its true first meaning, to be a fitting one. A sam or som (some) meant at first a body of mingled matter or things. In its stronger meaning lumps of suet melted up into a soft body would be a sam or som; and potatoes boiled and mashed up would be a sam; and dough, if not flour itself, is a sam or som.

In the wider meaning of the word an upgathering of things, and even men, into a body or set is a sam or som. Thence we have our word same as well as the ending -some and the markword some:—‘Some in rags, and some in jags, and some in silken gowns’ (a set or body in rags, a set or body in jags, &c.).

Aimsome, yieldsome would mean of the aim or yield or aiming or yielding set or body.

Sam or som gives our words same and so. ‘The same man’ means the very man in sam or body or being. ‘Are they Hebrews? so (same) am I.’ Of that sam (am I). The Latin se is most likely a word of the same root:—‘Lucius se amat’ (Lucius loves same or his sam); and this is the meaning of our word self.

The Latin similis would mean of the sam or same kind; and ‘to summon (samen) men’ is to call them up into a sam, ‘Suma êlanda thêr im likte’ (some islands that pleased him).—Oera Linda Book.

Sophist. Wordwise.

Sophistry. Rede-guile, rede-cunning.

Spell. Sax. spellian, to tell, utter forth a word or a set of words.

Spell. A message or bewording, as in Godspel (Gospel), ‘the good message.’

-st (an ending). It strengthens the meaning, as it does in blackest; blow, blast; brow, breast.

Stereography. Bulk-drawing.

Stereometry. Bulk-meting.

Stereotype. Block-type.

Subject. The speech-thing or thing under speech.

Subjunctive (mood). The hinge-mood; as, ‘If ye ask, ye shall receive.’

Suffix. A wordling put on at the end of a word; as, man-hood, good-ness, kind-ly. End-eking, an on-eking, a word-ending.

Superlative. The highest pitch.

Supposititious. Underfoisted, undersmuggled.

Syllepsis. Gr. syn, up, together; lēpsis, a taking. An uptaking, upmating, comprehension, as of a second or third person with a first; as, ‘I (1) and my brother (3) (we) learn Latin.’.

Syllepsis takes I, you, and he
As first persons, and all called we.

Synalœpha. Gr. syn, up; aleipho, to smear. Sound-welding. The welding up of two sounds into one, or the end of one word into the head of the following. In Latin verse—‘Conticuere omnes,’ ‘conticue͞r omnes,’ ‘conticuere‿omnes’—uttering the e and om in the time of one syllable. So in Italian—‘In prato‿in foresta,’ ‘Sia l’alba‿o la sera,’ ‘Se dorme‿il pastor’—the o i, and a o, and e i are uttered as one syllable. In English—‘Before the‿Almighty’s throne.’

By synalœpha breath-sounds run
A couple to the time of one.

Syncope. The cutting of a penning from within a word; as, ‘He ha-s’ for ‘he haves,’ ‘Gospel’ for ‘Godspel.’ The outcutting is truly an outwearing of the clipping.

A clipping’s lost by syncope,
As subtle’s sounded minus b.

Synecdoche. Gr. syn, up; ek, out; dochē, a taking. An outtaking or outculling, as of a share of a thing for the whole, or the matter for the thing; as, ‘a hundred heads’ for ‘a hundred men’; ‘twenty hands’ for ‘twenty workmen’; ‘a cricketer’s willow’ for his ‘bat.’

Synonym. Gr. syn, together; onyma a name. Synonyms are words or names of the same meaning, twin-words; as, rabbit and coney, volume and tome, yearly and annual, letter and epistle. Twains of words are, however, less often synonyms than they are so called.

Syntax. Speech-trimming. A trim is a fully right or good state of a thing, the state in which it ought to be; and ‘to trim’ a thing is to put it in trim, or fully as it ought to be. ‘To trim a boat,’ to set it as it ought to be—upright, not heeling. ‘To trim a bonnet or dress,’ to put it fully as it ought to be. And so ‘to trim a hedge’: a man may think that, because much of the trimming of a hedge is done by cutting, a trimming is therefore a cutting. ‘I am out of trim’; ‘to trim,’ as a man in politics, albeit it may not be to set himself morally as he ought to be, is to set himself as he thinks that he ought to be for the nonce.

Tautology. Word-sameness, a saying over again of the same thing or words.

Technical. Craftly.

Telegram. Wire-spell. (See [Spell].)

Telegraph (the electric). Spell-wire.

Telescope. Spyglass.

Tense. Time.

Termination. A word-ending.

Tmesis. A word-cutting or splitting or outsundering; as, ‘The child has overthrown the flower-pot.’ By word-cutting or outsundering—‘The child has thrown the flower-pot over.’

By tmesis you may oft outshare
A word’s two word-stems here and there.

Transitive is overfaresome; intransitive, unoverfaresome.

Triphthong. Gr. tri, three; phthongos, sound. A threefold sound.

Uncial. L. literæ unciales, text letters. Capital letters.

Under. Undersea, submarine; underspan, subtend; underslinking, subterfuge.

Up-. Upclashing, collision; upthrong, congregate.

Upmating. The upmating of the persons, called in Greek syllepsis, touches the use of the personal pronouns. A second or third person upmated with the first is reckoned as first, and a third upmated with the second is reckoned as second; as,

‘That boat belongs to my brother (3) and me (1). We (1) bought it.’

‘That is known only to you (2) and me (1). We know it.’

‘I saw you (2) and your brother (3). You (2) were there.’

But persons are upmated as well from kindliness or civility as from the calls of speech-craft. Thus a speaker will often upmate himself with a hearer or another, as a mother may upmate herself with her child by we, instead of thou or you; as,

Here we go up, up, up;
Here we go down, down, downy;
Here we go backward and forward;
And here we go round, round, roundy—

though the going is only that of the child.

A young man may say to a girl friend, ‘How proud we are,’ meaning ‘you are’; or a man may say of others who might not be very brisk at work, ‘We are not very strong to-day’; or a footman may upmate himself with the heads of the house with such wording as ‘We do not treat our guests so unhandsomely.’

Vocabulary. L. vocabulum, a word. A word-list, word-book, word-store.

Vocative (case). L. voco, to call. The call-case.

-y, -ig (an ending). It means eked with something:—Snowy, with snow; dirty, with dirt.

Zeugma. Gr., a yoking. A yoking of two things as to one time-word which would fit only one of them, another being outleft; as, ‘The house which my own money, and not which my father bequeathed,’ supply bought after ‘money.’