[109] But the early use of the word in the sense of middle-man points to contamination with some other word of different meaning.
[110] But the usual Italian past participle of dire is detto.
[111] Hooks used for stretching cloth.
CHAPTER XI
HOMONYMS
Modern English contains some six or seven hundred pairs or sets of homonyms, i.e., of words identical in sound and spelling but differing in meaning and origin. The New English Dictionary recognises provisionally nine separate nouns rack. The subject is a difficult one to deal with, because one word sometimes develops such apparently different meanings that the original identity becomes obscured, and even, as we have seen in the case of flour and mettle (p. [144]), a difference of spelling may result. When Denys of Burgundy said to the physician—
"Go to! He was no fool who first called you leeches."