Surnames and Place-names
Before leaving the subject of the preservation of old words in the dialects, one other store-chamber of words no longer current in the standard speech is worth a passing notice. Many old words which have ceased to be used as common nouns, have become crystallized in surnames, and it is interesting to compare them with the existing cognates in the dialects. I am aware that any attempt to go etymologizing among surnames or place-names is treading on dangerous ground. It is so easy to rush in with a fair sounding derivation, which is in reality nothing more than a worthless guess. I shall not, therefore, venture far afield.
Amongst the names here brought together, I have not included those which have now no living representative, as for example: Hordern, which is the O.E. hord-ærn, a treasury, a storeroom, lit. a hoard-house. The word ærn is, as far as I know, wholly obsolete, all except its final n remaining in barn, literally, a barley-house. Or again, Newbottle, Newbold, which contain the forms O.E. botl, bold, a house, a dwelling, now no longer used as a simple word, remaining only in surnames and place-names.
Words denoting Occupations
The O.E. suffix -estre was originally used in forming feminine nomina agentis, but already in later O.E. we find bæcestre used to denote a male as well as a female baker, the name changing hands with the trade. During the M.E. period -estre became -ster and was felt to be only an emphatic form of the masculine -er, and could be used indifferently for men or women, so that when baking, brewing, dyeing, weaving, &c., ceased to be feminine pursuits, the terms bakester, brewester, litester, webster ceased to convey any tinge of feminine gender, and in course of time they became the surnames Baxter, Brewster, Litster, Webster. To sit and spin was, however, an occupation to which the ladies held undisputed claim, and spinster continued to designate a woman as distinct and apart from a man, even when the trade was forgotten, so the term has never become a surname. As a common noun backster for baker is known in a few northern dialects, but its use is dying out. In the form bakester it is, however, used in Cornwall. In the same districts brewster for brewer holds a similar position. Litster for dyer is practically obsolete now, though the verb lit, to dye, remains in Scotland and the North. It is a Scandinavian word, from O.N. lita, to dye, already occurring in M.E., cp. ‘That thi fote be littid in blode,’ Hampole, c. 1330, Ps. lxvii. 25. Webster belongs also to Scotland and the North, but it is rapidly disappearing in favour of the ordinary word weaver. Where the A.V. has: ‘My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,’ Job vii. 6, Wyclif wrote: ‘My daies passiden swiftliere thanne a web is kit down of a webstere.’
Words denoting Physical Features
The name Brewis means broth, pottage, cp. brewis, browis (Sc. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Chs. Wal. Der. Shr.), broth, or bread soaked in hot water, gravy, &c., originally a French word, O.Fr. broez, broth, in M.E. brouis, brois, cp.:
And y shal yeue þe ful fair bred,
And make þe broys in þe led.
Havelok, ll. 923, 924.