Scot. brose, or brewis, was in Mid. Eng. browes, from Old Fr. brouez, plural of brouet, a word cognate with our broth. From this association comes perhaps the use of broth as a plural in some of our dialects. Porridge, not originally limited to oatmeal, seems to be combined from pottage and Mid. Eng. porrets, plural of porret, leek, a diminutive from Lat. porrum. Porridge is sometimes used as a plural in Scottish—
"They're fine, halesome food, they're grand food, parritch."
(Kidnapped, Ch. 3.)
and in the northern counties of England people speak of taking "a few" porridge, or broth. Baize, now generally green, is for earlier bayes, the plural of the adjective bay, now used only of horses; cf. Du. baai, baize. The origin of the adjective bay, Fr. bai, forms of which occur in all the Romance languages, is Lat. badius, "of bay colour, bayarde" (Cooper). Hence the name Bayard, applied to FitzJames' horse in The Lady of the Lake (v. 18), and earlier to the steed that carried the four sons of Aymon. Quince is the plural of quin, from the Norman form of Old Fr. coin (coing), which is derived from Gk. κυδώνιον. Truce is the plural of Mid. Eng. trewe (lit. truth, faith) with the same meaning. Already in Anglo-Saxon it is found in the plural, probably as rendering Lat. induciæ. Lettuce, Mid. Eng. letows, seems also to be a plural, from Fr. laitue, Lat. lactuca.
Earnest in the sense of pledge—
"And, for an earnest of a greater honour,
He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor."
(Macbeth, i. 3.)
has nothing to do with the adjective earnest. It is the Mid. Eng. ernes, earlier erles, which survives as arles in some of our dialects. The verb to earl is still used in Cumberland of "enlisting" a servant with a shilling in the open market. The Old French word was arres or erres, now written learnedly arrhes, a plural from Lat. arrha, "an earnest penny, earnest money" (Cooper). The existence of Mid. Eng. erles shows that there must have been also an Old French diminutive form. For the apparently arbitrary change of l to n we may compare banister for baluster (see p. [60]).
The jesses of a hawk—
"If I do prove her haggard,[92]
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune."