(3 Henry VI., v. 1.)
LIST—MATELOT
A list, in the sense of enumeration, is a "strip." The cognate German word is Leiste, border. We have the original meaning in "list slippers." Fr. bordereau, a list, which became very familiar in connection with the Dreyfus case, is a diminutive of bord, edge. Label is the same word as Old Fr. lambel (lambeau), rag. Scroll is an alteration, perhaps due to roll, of Mid. Eng. scrow or escrow, from Old Fr. escroue,[71] rag, shred. Docket, earlier dogget, is from an old Italian diminutive of doga, cask-stave, which meant a bendlet in heraldry. Schedule is a diminutive of Lat. scheda, "a scrowe" (Cooper), properly a strip of papyrus. Ger. Zettel, bill, ticket, is the same word. Thus all these words, more or less kindred in meaning, can be reduced to the primitive notion of strip or scrap.
Farce, from French, means stuffing. The verb to farce, which represents Lat. farcire, survives in the perverted force-meat. A parallel is satire, from Lat. satura (lanx), a full dish, hence a medley. Somewhat similar is the modern meaning of magazine, a "store-house" of amusement or information.
The closest form of intimacy is represented by community of board and lodging, or, in older phraseology, "bed and board." Companion, with its related words, belongs to Vulgar Lat. *companio, companion-, bread-sharer. The same idea is represented by the pleonastic Eng. messmate, the second part of which, mate, is related to meat. Mess, food, Old Fr. mes (mets), Lat. missum, is in modern English only military or naval, but was once the usual name for a dish of food—
"Herbs and other country messes
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses."
(Allegro, l. 85.)
With mate we may compare Fr. matelot, earlier matenot, representing Du. maat, meat, and genoot, a companion. The latter word is cognate with Ger. Genosse, a companion, from geniessen, to enjoy or use together. In early Dutch we find also mattegenoet, through popular association with matte, hammock, one hammock serving, by a Box and Cox arrangement, for two sailors.
Comrade is from Fr. camarade, and this from Span. camarada, originally a "room-full," called in the French army une chambrée. This corresponds to Ger. Geselle, comrade, from Saal, room. The reduction of the collective to the individual is paralleled by Ger. Bursche, fellow, from Mid. High Ger. burse, college hostel; cf. Frauenzimmer, wench, lit. women's room. It can hardly be doubted that chum is a corrupted clip from chamber-fellow.[72] It is thus explained in a Dictionary of the Canting Crew (1690), within a few years of its earliest recorded occurrence, and the reader will remember Mr Pickwick's introduction to the chummage system in the Fleet (Ch. 42).