(Skelton, Elynour Rummyng.)
Sterling has an obscure history. It is from Old Fr. esterlin, a coin which etymologists of an earlier age connected with the Easterlings, or Hanse merchants, who formed one of the great mercantile communities of the Middle Ages; and perhaps some such association is responsible for the meaning that sterling has acquired; but chronology shows this traditional etymology to be impossible. We find unus sterlingus in a medieval Latin document of 1184, and the Old Fr. esterlin occurs in Wace's Roman de Rou (Romaunt of Rollo the Sea King), which was written before 1175. Hence it is conjectured that the original coin was named from the star which appears on some Norman pennies.
When Horatio says—
"It is a nipping and an eager air."
(Hamlet, i. 4.)
we are reminded that eager is identical with the second part of vin-egar, Fr. aigre, sour, Lat. acer, keen. It seems hardly possible to explain the modern sense of nice, which in the course of its history has traversed nearly the whole diatonic scale between "rotten" and "ripping." In Mid. English and Old French it means foolish. Cotgrave explains it by "lither, lazie, sloathful, idle; faint, slack; dull, simple," and Shakespeare uses it in a great variety of meanings. It is supposed to come from Lat. nescius, ignorant. The transition from fond, foolish, which survives in "fond hopes," to fond, loving, is easy. French fou is used in exactly the same way. Cf. also to dote on, i.e., to be foolish about. Puny is Fr. puîné, from puis né, later born, junior, whence the puisne justices. Milton uses it of a minor—
"He must appear in print like a puny with his guardian."
(Areopagitica.)
Petty, Fr. petit, was similarly used for a small boy.
In some cases a complimentary adjective loses its true meaning and takes on a contemptuous or ironic sense. None of us care to be called bland, and to describe a man as worthy is to apologise for his existence. We may compare Fr. bonhomme, which now means generally an old fool, and bonne femme, good-wife, goody. Dapper, the Dutch for brave (cf. Ger. tapfer), and pert, Mid. Eng. apert, representing in meaning Lat. expertus, have changed much since Milton wrote of—