The most obvious etymology needs to be proved up to the hilt, and the process is rich in surprises. Cambridge appears to be the bridge over the Cam. But the river's older name, which it preserves above the town, is the Granta, and Bede calls the town itself Grantacester. Camden, in his Britannia (trad. Holland, 1637), notes that the county was called "in the English Saxon" Grentbrigseyre, and comments on the double name of the river. Nor can he "easily beleeve that Grant was turned into Cam; for this might seeme a deflexion some what too hardly streined, wherein all the letters but one are quite swallowed up." Grantabrigge became, by dissimilation (see p. [57]), Gantabrigge, Cantabrigge (cf. Cantab), Cantbrigge, and, by assimilation (see p. [56]), Cambridge, the river being rechristened from the name of the town.
A beggar is not etymologically one who begs, or a cadger one who cadges. In each case the verb is evolved from the noun. About the year 1200 Lambert le Bègue, the Stammerer, is said to have founded a religious order in Belgium. The monks were called after him in medieval Latin beghardi and the nuns beghinæ. The Old Fr. begard passed into Anglo-French with the meaning of mendicant and gave our beggar. From béguine we get biggin, a sort of cap—
"Sleep with it (the crown) now!
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,
As he, whose brow with homely biggin bound,
Snores out the watch of night."
(2 Henry IV., iv. 4.)
Cadger, or rather its Scottish form cadgear, a pedlar, occurs about one hundred and fifty years earlier than the verb to cadge. We find, noted as foreign words, in 16th-century Dutch, the words cagie, a basket carried on the back, and cagiaerd, one who carries such a basket. These must be of French origin, and come, like the obsolete Eng. cadge,[155] a panier, from cage, for the history of which see p. [109]. Cadger is used in Scottish of an itinerant fish merchant with his goods carried in paniers by a pony—
"Or die a cadger pownie's death,
At some dyke-back."
(Burns, Epistle to J. Lapraik.)
Tobacco does not take its name from the island of Tobago, but from the native name of the tube through which the Caribs smoked it.
The traditional derivation of vaunt is from Fr. vanter, and this from a late Lat. vanitare, to talk emptily, used by St Augustine. This looks very simple, but the real history of these words is most complicated. In Mid. English we regularly find avaunt, which comes from Old Fr. avanter, to put forward, from avant, before. This gets mixed up during the Tudor period with another vaunt from Fr. vanter, to extol, the derivation of which can only be settled when its earliest form is ascertained. At present we find venter as early as vanter, and this would represent Lat. venditare (frequentative of vendere, to sell), to push one's goods, "to do anything before men to set forth himselfe and have a prayse; to vaunt; to crake; to brag" (Cooper).
ETYMOLOGICAL TESTS