TANTALISE—PAMPHLET
Occasionally a verb is formed from a proper name. On the model of tantalise, from the punishment of Tantalus, we have bowdlerise, from Bowdler, who published an expurgated "family Shakespeare" in 1818; cf. macadamise. Burke and boycott commemorate a scoundrel and a victim. The latter word, from the treatment of Captain Boycott of Co. Mayo in 1880, seems to have supplied a want, for Fr. boycotter and Ger. boycottieren have become every-day words. Burke was hanged at Edinburgh in 1829 for murdering people by suffocation in order to dispose of their bodies to medical schools. We now use the verb only of "stifling" discussion, but in the Ingoldsby Legends it still has the original sense—
"But, when beat on his knees,
That confounded De Guise
Came behind with the 'fogle' that caused all this breeze,
Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him,
The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burk'd him."
(The Tragedy.)
Jarvey, the slang name for a hackney coachman, especially in Ireland, was in the 18th century Jervis or Jarvis, but history is silent as to this modern Jehu. A pasquinade was originally an anonymous lampoon affixed to a statue of a gladiator which still stands in Rome. The statue is said to have been nicknamed from a scandal-loving cobbler named Pasquino. Florio has pasquino, "a statue in Rome on whom all libels, railings, detractions, and satirical invectives are fathered." Pamphlet is an extended use of Old Fr. Pamphilet, the name of a Latin poem by one Pamphilus which was popular in the Middle Ages. The suffix -et was often used in this way, e.g., the translation of Æsop's fables by Marie de France was called Ysopet, and Cato's moral maxims had the title Catonet, or Parvus Cato. Modern Fr. pamphlet, borrowed back from English, has always the sense of polemical writing. In Eng. libel, lit. "little book," we see a similar restriction of meaning. A three-quarter portrait of fixed dimensions is called a kitcat—
"It is not easy to see why he should have chosen to produce a replica, or rather a kitcat."
(Journal of Education, Oct. 1911.)
The name comes from the portraits of members of the Kitcat Club, painted by Kneller. Kit Kat, Christopher Kat, was a pastrycook at whose shop the club used to dine.
Implements and domestic objects sometimes bear christian names. We may mention spinning-jenny, and the innumerable meanings of jack. Davit, earlier daviot, is a diminutive of David. Fr. davier, formerly daviet, is used of several mechanical contrivances, including a pick-lock. A kind of davit is called in German Jütte, a diminutive of Judith. The implement by which the burglar earns his daily bread is now called a jemmy, but in the 17th century we also find bess and betty. The French name is rossignol, nightingale. The German burglar calls it Dietrich, Peterchen, or Klaus, and the contracted forms of the first name, dyrk and dirk, have passed into Swedish and Danish with the same meaning. In Italian a pick-lock is called grimaldello, a diminutive of the name Grimaldo.
GRIMALKIN—JUG