CHANGES IN THE MEANING OF WORDS.
Language, as it daguerreotypes human thought, shares, as we have seen, in all the vicissitudes of man. It mirrors all the changes in the character, tastes, customs, and opinions of a people, and shows with unerring faithfulness whether, and in what degree, they advance or recede in culture or morality. As new ideas germinate in the mind of a nation, it will demand new forms of expression; on the other hand, a petrified and mechanical national mind will as surely betray itself in a petrified and mechanical language. It is by no accident or caprice that
“Words, whilom flourishing,
Pass now no more, but banished from the court,
Dwell with disgrace among the vulgar sort;
And those which eld’s strict doom did disallow,
And damn for bullion, go for current now.”
Often with the lapse of time the meaning of a word changes imperceptibly, until after some centuries it becomes the very opposite of what it once was. To disinter these old meanings out of the alluvium and drift of ages affords as much pleasure to the linguist as to disinter a fossil does to the geologist.
An exact knowledge of the changes of signification which words have undergone is not merely a source of pleasure; it is absolutely indispensable to the full understanding of old authors. Thus, for example, Milton and Thomson use “horrent” and “horrid” for bristling, e.g.,
“With dangling ice all horrid.”
Milton speaks of a “savage” (meaning woody, silva) hill, and of “amiable” (meaning lovely) fruit. Again, in the well known lines of the “Allegro,” where, Milton says, amongst the cheerful sights of rural morn,
“And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the vale,”—
the words “tells his tale” do not mean that he is romancing or making love to the milkmaid, but that he is counting his sheep as they pass the hawthorn,—a natural and familiar occupation of shepherds on a summer’s morning. The primary meaning of “tale” is to count or number, as in the German zahlen. It is thus used in the Book of Exodus, which states that the Israelites were compelled to deliver their “tale of bricks.” In the English “tale” and in the French conte the secondary meaning has supplanted the first, though we still speak of “keeping tally,” of “untold gold,” and say, “Here is the sum twice-told.”
Again, Milton’s use of the word “jolly” in the following lines from his “Sonnet to the Nightingale,” strikingly illustrates the disadvantages under which poetry in a living, and consequently ever-changing, language, labors:
“Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart doth fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.”
Though we may know the meaning which the word bore a little more than two and a half centuries ago, yet it is impossible entirely to banish from the mind the vulgar associations which have gathered round it since.
It has been said that one of the arts of a great poet or prose-writer, who wishes to add emphasis to his style,—to bring out all the latent forces of his native tongue,—will often consist in reconnecting a word with its original derivation, in not suffering it to forget itself and its father’s house, though it would. This Milton does sometimes with signal effect; but in the great majority of cases his meaning becomes obscure to the unlearned reader. In a great number of cases we must interpret his words rather by their classical meanings than by their English use. Thus in “Paradise Lost,” when Satan speaks of his having been pursued by “Heaven’s afflicting thunder,” the poet uses the word “afflicting” in its original primary sense of striking down bodily. Properly the word denotes a state of mind or feeling only, and is not used to-day in a concrete sense. So when Milton, at the opening of the same poem, speaks of
“The secret top
Of Oreb or of Sinai,”
the meaning of the word “secret” is not that of the English adjective, but is remote, apart, lonely, as in Virgil’s secretosque pios. The absurdity of supposing the word to be the same as our ordinary adjective led Bentley, among many ridiculous “improvements” of Milton’s language, to change it to “sacred.” Again, the word “recollect” is used in its etymological sense in these lines from “Paradise Lost”:
“But he, his wonted pride
Soon recollecting, with high words,” etc.
So Milton uses the word “astonished” in its etymological sense of “thunderstruck,” attonitus, as when he makes Satan say that his associates
“Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool.”
Holland, in his translation of Livy, speaks of a knave who threw some heavy stones upon a certain king, “whereof the one smote the king upon his head, the other astonished his shoulder.”
Shakespeare, also, not unfrequently uses words in their classical sense. Thus when Cleopatra speaks of
“Such gifts as we greet modern friends withal,”
“modern” is used in the sense of “modal” (from modus, a fashion or manner); a modern friend, compared with a true friend, being what the fashion of a thing is, compared with the substance. So,—as De Quincey, to whom we owe this explanation, has shown,—when in the famous picture of life, “All the World’s a Stage,” the justice is described as
“Full of wise saws and modern instances,”
the meaning is not “full of wise sayings and modern illustrations,” but full of proverbial maxims of conduct and of trivial arguments; i.e., of petty distinctions that never touch the point at issue. “Instances” is from instantia, which the monkish and scholastic writers always used in the sense of an argument. When in “Julius Cæsar” we read,—
“And come down
With fearful bravery, thinking by this face
To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage,”
we must not attach to “bravery” its modern sense; and the same remark applies to the word “extravagant” in the following passage from “Hamlet”:
“Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine,” etc.
“Courage” is “good heart.” “Anecdote,”—from the Greek ἀν (not), ἐκ (out), and δότα (given),—meant once a fact not given out or published; now it means a short, amusing story. Procopius, a Greek historian in the reign of Justinian, is said to have coined the word. Not daring, for fear of torture and death, to speak of some living persons as they deserved, he wrote a work which he called “Anecdotes,” or a “Secret History.” The instant an anecdote is published, it belies its title; it is no longer an anecdote. “Allowance” formerly was used to denote praise or approval; as when Shakespeare says in “Troilus and Cressida,”
“A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant.”
“To prevent,” which now means to hinder or obstruct, signified, in its Latin etymology, to anticipate, to get the start of, and is thus used in the Old Testament. “Girl” once designated a young person of either sex. “Widow” was applied to men as well as women. “Sagacious” once meant quick-smelling, as in the line
“The hound sagacious of the tainted prey.”
“Rascal,” according to Verstegan, primarily meant an “il-favoured, lean, and worthelesse deer.” Thus Shakespeare:
“Horns! the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal.”
Afterward it denoted the common people, the plebs as distinguished from the populus. A “naturalist” was once a person who rejected revealed truth, and believed only in natural religion. He is now an investigator of nature and her laws, and often a believer in Christianity. “Blackguards” were formerly the scullions, turnspits, and other meaner retainers in a great household, who, when a change was made from one residence to another, accompanied and took care of the pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils, by which they were smutted. Webster, in his play of “The White Devil,” speaks of “a lousy knave, that within these twenty years rode with the ‘black guard’ in the Duke’s carriage, amongst spits and dripping-pans.” “Artillery,” which to-day means the heavy ordnance of modern warfare, was two or three centuries ago applied to any engines for throwing missiles, even to the bow and arrow. “Punctual,” which now denotes exactness in keeping engagements, formerly applied to space as well as to time. Sir Thomas Browne speaks of “a ‘punctual’ truth”; and we read in other writers of “a ‘punctual’ relation,” or “description,” meaning a particular or circumstantial relation or description.
“Bombast,” now swelling talk, inflated diction without substance, was originally cotton padding. It is derived from the Low Latin, bombax, cotton. “Chemist” once meant the same as alchemist. “Polite” originally meant polished. Cudworth speaks of “polite bodies, as looking-glasses.” “Tidy,” which now means neat, well arranged, is derived from the old English word “tide,” meaning time, as in eventide. “Tidy” (German, zeitig) is timely, seasonable. As things in right time are apt to be in the right place, the transition in the meaning of the word is a natural one. “Caitiff” formerly meant captive, being derived from captivus through the Norman-French. The change of signification points to the tendency of slavery utterly to debase the character,—to transform the man into a cowardly miscreant. In like manner “miscreant,” once simply a misbeliever, and applied to the most virtuous as well as to the vilest, points to the deep-felt conviction that a wrong belief leads to wrong living. Thus Gibbon: “The emperor’s generosity to the ‘miscreant’ [Soliman] was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.” “Thought,” in early English, was anxious care; e.g., “Take no ‘thought’ for your life” (Matt, vi, 25). “Thing” primarily meant discourse, then solemn discussion, council, court of justice, cause, matter or subject of discourse. The “husting” was originally the house-thing, or domestic court.
“Coquets” were once male as well as female. “Usury,” which now means taking illegal or excessive interest, denoted, at first, the taking of any interest, however small. A “tobacconist” was formerly a smoker, not a seller, of tobacco. “Corpse,” now a body from which the breath of life has departed, once denoted the body of the living also; as in Surrey,
“A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met.”
We have already spoken of the striking change which the word “incomprehensible” has undergone within the last three centuries.
“Wit,” now used in a more limited sense, at first signified the mental powers collectively; e.g., “Will puts in practice what the wit deviseth.” Later it came to denote quickness of apprehension, beauty or elegance in composition, and Pope defined it as
“Nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”
Another meaning was a man of talents or genius. The word “parts,” a hundred years ago, was used to denote genius or talents. Horace Walpole, in one of his letters, says of Goldsmith that “he was an idiot, with once or twice a fit of ‘parts.’” The word “loyalty” has undergone a marked change within a few centuries. Originally it meant in English, as in French, fair dealing, fidelity to engagements; now it means, in England, fidelity to the throne, and, in the United States, to the Union or the Constitution. “Relevant,” which formerly meant relieving or assisting, is now used in the sense of “relative” or “relating” to, with which, from a similarity of sound, though without the least etymological connection, it appears to have been confounded. The word “exorbitant” once meant deviating from a track or orbit; it is now used exclusively in the sense of excessive.
The word “coincide” was primarily a mathematical term. If one mathematical point be superposed upon another, or one straight line upon another between the same two points, the two points in the first case and the two lines in the latter are said to coincide. The word was soon applied figuratively to identity of opinion, but, according to Prof. Marsh, was not fully popularized, at least in America, till 1826. On the Fourth of July in that year, the semi-centennial jubilee of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, the author of that manifesto, and John Adams, its principal champion on the floor of Congress, both also Ex-Presidents, died; and this fact was noticed all over the world, and especially in the United States, as a remarkable “coincidence.” The death of Ex-President Monroe, also, on the Fourth of July five years after, gave increased currency to the word. Our late civil war has led to some striking mutations in the meaning of words. “Contraband,” from its general signification of any article whose importation or exportation is prohibited by law, became limited to a fugitive slave within the United States’ military lines. “Secede” and “secession,” “confederate” and “confederacy,” have also acquired new special meanings.