This is all the more ludicrous when we reflect that shift, i.e. change of raiment, is itself an early euphemism for smock; cf. Ital. mutande, "thinne under-breeches" (Florio), from a country and century not usually regarded as prudish. The fact is that, just as the low word, when once accepted, loses its primitive vigour (see pluck, p. [83]), the euphemism is, by inevitable association, doomed from its very birth.
SEMANTIC ETYMOLOGY
I will now give a few examples of the way in which the study of semantics helps the etymologist. The antlers of a deer are properly the lowest branches of the horns, what we now call brow-antlers. The word comes from Old Fr. antoilliers, which answers phonetically to a conjectured Lat. *ante-oculares, from oculus, eye. This conjecture is confirmed by the Ger. Augensprosse, brow-antler, lit. eye-sprout.
Eng. plover, from Fr. pluvier, could come from a Vulgar Lat. *pluviarius, belonging to rain. The German name Regenpfeifer, lit. rain-piper, shows this to be correct. It does not matter, etymologically, whether the bird really has any connection with rain, for rustic observation, interesting as it is, is essentially unscientific. The honeysuckle is useless to the bee. The slow-worm, which appears to be for slay-worm, strike-serpent,[76] is perfectly harmless, and the toad, though ugly, is not venomous, nor does he bear a jewel in his head.
Kestrel, a kind of hawk, represents Old Fr. quercerelle (crécerelle), "a kastrell" (Cotgrave). Crécerelle is a diminutive of crécelle, a rattle, used in Old French especially of the leper's rattle or clapper, with which he warned people away from his neighbourhood. It is connected with Lat. crepare, to resound. The Latin name for the kestrel is tinnunculus, lit. a little ringer, derived from the verb tinnire, to clink, jingle, "tintinnabulate." Cooper tells us that "they use to set them (kestrels) in pigeon houses, to make doves to love the place, bicause they feare away other haukes with their ringing voyce." This information is obtained from the Latin agriculturist Columella. This parallel makes it clear that Fr. crécerelle, kestrel, is a metaphorical application of the same word, meaning a leper's "clicket."
The curious word akimbo occurs first in Mid. English in the form in kenebowe. In half a dozen languages we find this attitude expressed by the figure of a jug-handle, or, as it used to be called, a pot-ear. The oldest equivalent is Lat. ansatus, used by Plautus, from ansa, a jug-handle. Ansatus homo is explained by Cooper as "a man with his arms on kenbow." Archaic French for to stand with arms akimbo is "faire le pot a deux anses," and the same striking image occurs in German, Dutch, and Spanish. Hence it seems a plausible conjecture that kenebowe means "jug-handle." This is confirmed by the fact that Dryden translates ansa, "the eare or handle of a cuppe or pot" (Cooper), by "kimbo handle" (Vergil, Ecl. iii. 44). Eng. bow, meaning anything bent, is used in many connections for handle. The first element may be can, applied to every description of vessel in earlier English, as it still is in Scottish, or it may be some Scandinavian word. In fact the whole compound may be Scandinavian. Thomas' Latin Dictionary (1644) explains ansatus homo as "one that in bragging manner strowteth up and down with his armes a-canne-bow."
DEMURE—LUGGER
Demure has been explained as from Mid. Eng. mure, ripe, mature, with prefixed de. But demure is the older word of the two, and while the loss of the atonic first syllable is normal in English (p. [61]), it would be hard to find a case in which a meaningless prefix has been added. Nor does the meaning of demure approximate very closely to that of ripe. It now has a suggestion of slyness, but in Milton's time meant sedate—
"Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure."
(Penseroso, l. 31.)