[87] Of uncertain origin. Lat. putare, to cut (cf. amputate), or Gk. ἔμφυτος, implanted?
[88] From oculus, eye, in the sense of bud.
CHAPTER IX
FOLK-ETYMOLOGY
The sound, spelling, and even the meaning of a word are often perverted by influences to which the collective name of folk-etymology has been given. I here use the term to include all phenomena which are due to any kind of misunderstanding of a word. A word beginning with n sometimes loses this sound through its being confused with the n of the indefinite article an. Thus an adder and an auger are for a nadder (cf. Ger. Natter) and a nauger, Mid. Eng. navegor, properly an instrument for piercing the nave of a wheel. Apron was in Mid. English naprun, from Old Fr. naperon, a derivative of nappe, cloth. The aitch-bone was formerly the nache-bone, from Old Fr. nache, buttock, Vulgar Lat. *natica for nates. Nache is still used by French butchers. Humble-pie is a popular perversion of umble-pie, i.e., a pie made from the umbles, or inferior parts of the stag. But umble is for earlier numble, Old Fr. nomble, formed, with dissimilation, from Lat. lumbulus, diminutive of lumbus, loin; cf. niveau (p. [58]). Thus humble-pie has etymologically no connection with humility. Umpire represents Old Fr. non per (pair), not equal, the umpire being a third person called in when arbitrators could not agree. This appears clearly in the following extract from a medieval letter—
"And if so be that the said arbitrators may not accord before the said feast of Allhalowes, then the said parties be the advise abovesaid are agreed to abide the award and ordinance of an noumper to be chosen be the said arbitrators."
(Plumpton Correspondence, 1431.)
For the sense we may compare Span. tercero, "the third, a broaker, a mediator" (Percyvall). An eyas falcon is for a neyas falcon, Fr. niais, foolish, lit. nestling, related to nid, nest. Rosenkrantz uses it in the literal sense—