"Memory the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only."
(Macbeth, i. 7.)
and prentice has given way to apprentice. Tire and attire both survive, and maze persists by the side of amaze with the special sense which I have heard a Notts collier express by puzzle-garden (cf. Ger. Irrgarten). Binnacle is a corruption, perhaps due to association with bin, of earlier bittacle, from Lat. habitaculum, a little dwelling. It may have come to us through Fr. habitacle or Port. bitacola, "the bittacle, a frame of timber in the steerage, where the compass is placed on board a ship" (Vieyra, Port. Dict., 1794). As King of Scotland, King George has a household official known as the limner, or painter. For limner[47] we find in the 15th century lumner and luminour, which is aphetic for alluminour, or enlumineur. Cotgrave, s.v. enlumineur de livres, says, "we call one that coloureth, or painteth upon, paper, or parchment, an alluminer."
APHESIS
But confusion with the article is not necessary in order to bring about aphesis. It occurs regularly in the case of words beginning with esc, esp, est, borrowed from Old French (see p. [56]). Thus we have squire from escuyer (êcuyer), skew from Old Fr. eschuer, to dodge, "eschew," ultimately cognate with Eng. shy, spice from espice (épice), sprite from esprit, stage from estage (étage), etc. In some cases we have the fuller form also, e.g., esquire, eschew; cf. sample and example. Fender, whether before a fireplace or slung outside a ship, is for defender; fence is always for defence, either in the sense of a barrier or in allusion to the noble art of self-defence.[48] The tender of a ship or of a locomotive is the attender, and taint is aphetic for attaint, Fr. atteinte, touch—
"I will not poison thee with my attaint."
(Lucrece, l. 1072.)
Puzzle was in Mid. Eng. opposaile, i.e., something put before one. We still speak of "a poser."
Spital, for hospital, survives in Spitalfields, and Spittlegate at Grantham and elsewhere. Crew is for accrewe (Holinshed). It meant properly a reinforcement, lit. on-growth, from Fr. accroître, to accrue. In recruit, we have a later instance of the same idea. Fr. recrue, recruit, from recroître, to grow again, is still feminine, like many other military terms which were originally abstract or collective. Cotgrave has recreuë, "a supplie, or filling up of a defective company of souldiers, etc." We have possum for opossum, and coon for racoon, and this for arrahacoune, which I find in a 16th-century record of travel; cf. American skeeter for mosquito. In these two cases we perhaps have also the deliberate intention to shorten (see p. [66]), as also in the obsolete Australian tench, for the aphetic 'tentiary, i.e., penitentiary. With this we may compare 'tec for detective.
APHESIS