"You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts."
(Lear, iii. 2.)
When the initial vowel is a-, its loss may have been helped by confusion with the indefinite article. Thus for anatomy we find atomy, for a skeleton or scarecrow figure, applied by Mistress Quickly to the constable (2 Henry IV., v. 4). Peal is for appeal, call; mend for amend, lone for alone, i.e., all one. Peach, used by Falstaff—
"If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this."
(1 Henry IV., ii. 2.)
is for older appeach, related to impeach. Size, in all its senses, is for assize, Fr. assise, with a general meaning of allowance or assessment, from Fr. asseoir, to put, lay. Sizars at Cambridge are properly students in receipt of certain allowances called sizings. With painters' size we may compare Ital. assisa, "size that painters use" (Florio). We use the form assize in speaking of the "sitting" of the judges, but those most familiar with this tribunal speak of being tried at the 'sizes. The obsolete word cate, on which Petruchio plays—
"For dainties are all cates—and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation."
(Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1.)
is for earlier acate, an Old French dialect form corresponding to modern Fr. achat, purchase. The man entrusted with purchasing was called an acatour or catour (whence the name Cator), later cater, now extended to caterer, like fruiterer for fruiter, poulterer for poulter and upholsterer for upholdster or upholder.[46]
Limbeck has been squeezed out by the orthodox alembic—