Stories That Words Tell Us

by Elizabeth O'Neill

Many of these pairs of words seem to have no relation at all with each other, so much has one or the other, or both, changed in meaning from that of the original word from which they come. A familiar pair of doublets is dainty and dignity, both of which come from the Latin word dignitas. Dignity, which came into the English language either directly from the Latin or through the modern French word dignité, has not wandered at all from the meaning of the Latin word, which had first the idea of "merit" or "value," and then that of honourable position or character which the word dignity has in English. Dainty has a quite different meaning; though it, too, came from dignitas, but through the less dignified way of the Old French word daintie.

The English words dish, dais, desk, and disc all come from the Latin word discus, by which the Romans meant first a round flat plate thrown in certain games (a "quoit"), and secondly a plate or dish. In Old English this word became dish. In Old French it became deis, and from this we have the English dais—the raised platform of a throne. In Italian it became desco, from which we got desk; and the scientific men of modern times, in their need of a word to describe exactly a round, flat object, have gone back as near as possible to the Latin and given us disc. It is to be noticed that the original idea of the Latin word—"having a flat surface"—is kept in these four descendants of a remote ancestor.

The words chieftain and captain are doublets coming from the Late Latin word capitaneus, "chief;" the former through the Old French word chevetaine, and the latter more directly from the Latin. Frail and fragile are another pair, coming from the Latin word fragilis, "easily broken;" the one through Old French, and the other through Modern French.

Both these pairs of words have kept fairly close to the original meaning; but caitiff and captive, another pair of doublets, have quite different meanings from each other. Both come from the Latin word captivus, "captive," the one indirectly and the other directly. Caitiff, which is not a word used now except occasionally in poetry, means a "base, cowardly person;" but captive has, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word.

Another pair of doublets, which are quite different in form and almost opposite to each other in meaning, are guest and hostile. These two words come from the same root word; but this goes further back than Latin, to the language known as the Aryan, from which nearly all the languages of Europe and the chief language of India come. Hostile comes from the Latin hostis, "an enemy;" but hostis itself comes from the same Aryan word as that from which guest comes, and so these two words are doublets in English. They express very different ideas: we are not generally "hostile" or "full of enmity" against a "guest," one who partakes of our hospitality.

Another pair of doublets not from the Latin are shirt and skirt, which are both old Germanic words. Skirt came later into the language, being from the Scandinavian, while shirt is an Old English word.

The word cross and the many words in English beginning with cruci—such as crucial, crucifix, and cruciform—the adverb across, as well as the less common word crux, all come from the Latin word crux, "a cross." The word cross first came into the English language with Christianity itself, for the death of our Lord on the cross was, of course, the first story which converts to Christianity were told. It came through the Irish from the Norwegian word cros, which came direct from the Latin. All the words beginning with cruci come straight from the Latin. Cruciform and crucifix refer to the form of a cross, and so sometimes does the word crucial. But, as a rule, crucial is used as the adjective of the word crux, which means the "test," or "difficult point," in deciding or doing something. The Romans did not use crux in this sense; but it is interesting to notice that they did use it in the figurative sense of "trouble" just as we do. This came from the fact that the common form of execution for all subjects of the Roman Empire except Roman citizens was crucifixion.

Two such different words as tavern and tabernacle, the one meaning an inn and the other the most sacred part of the sanctuary in a church, are doublets from the Latin word tabernaculum, "tent." The first comes from the French taverne, and the second directly from the Latin.

The words mint and money both come from the Latin word moneta, which was an adjective attached by the Romans to the name of the goddess Juno. The place where the Romans coined their money was attached to the temple of Juno Moneta, or Juno the Adviser. From this fact the Romans themselves came to use moneta as the name for coins, or what we call money. The word passed into French as monnaie, which is still the French word both for money and mint, the place where we coin our money. In German it became munze, which has the same meanings. In English it became mint. But the English language, as we have seen, has a fine gift for borrowing. In time it acquired the French word monnaie, which became money as the name for coins, while it kept the word mint to describe the place where coins are made.

The words bower, formerly the name of a sleeping-place for ladies and now generally meaning a summer-house, and byre, the place where cows sleep, both come from the Old English word bur, "a bower." The word flour (which so late as the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson did not include in his great dictionary) is the same word as flower. Flour is merely the flower of wheat. Again, poesy and posy are really the same word, posy being derived from poesy. Posy used to mean a copy of verses presented to some one with a bouquet. Now it stands either for verses, as when we speak of the "posy of a ring," or more commonly a bunch of flowers without any verses.