This principle of a divided meaning is also seen in ‘persecute’ and ‘pursue,’ the latter of which was known in English before we became acquainted with the former. ‘Pursue’ is from the French ‘poursuivre,’ and is used in the general sense of following after eagerly. ‘Persecute,’ from the Latin ‘persecutus,’ the participle of ‘persĕqui,’ is distinguished from ‘pursue’ by the meaning of ‘to follow after with an intent to injure.’

Two other words of this class are ‘superficies’ and ‘surface.’ The former is pure Latin; and is compounded of ‘super,’ ‘upon,’ and ‘facies,’ a face. But this word is only used in a scientific or mathematical sense; whereas ‘surface’ has a more general signification, and means whatever we can see of the outside of any material substance.

We find a similar difference of meaning, as well as form, between ‘potion’ and ‘poison.’ Both these came originally from the Latin ‘potare,’ to drink. The former is the direct Latin, the latter the French form, and both are now English. But the second denotes a species of the first; for ‘poison,’ as is well known, is that species of ‘potion’ which destroys life.

This power of dividing a word into two meanings is not peculiar to English; for many instances of it may be found in German, French, and Italian. But it is of great advantage. It has the effect of providing a large number of terms to express shades of thought by slight differences of meaning, and it thus materially assists in making language a more perfect exponent of human thought.

The following list exhibits some of these double forms:—

outerutternibneb
morrowmornpersonparson
lancelaunchbeaconbeckon
winevinetotoo
windvent (peg)tonetune
wiseguisediscreetdiscrete
whyhowsaucesouse
wagonwainscattershatter
deploydisplaystickstitch
cattlechattelscapcape
crosscruisequellkill
milkmilchglassglaze
makematchgrassgraze
metalmettle&c.&c.

III. The third division of this class consists of Low Latin, or, as they are sometimes called, ‘monkish Latin’ words. These have their origin in classical Latin; but they are all corruptions of that language, and were formed at a time when it had fallen into decay. To this division belong such English words as ‘chance,’ ‘esquire,’ ‘ewer’, ‘forest,’ ‘justle,’ ‘manage,’ ‘noise,’ ‘noon,’ ‘pillage,’ ‘rear,’ &c. In all these we may recognise a Latin origin, though the words themselves were unknown to the ancient Romans.

From the Greek verb ‘βάλλειν,’ to cast, probably came the Italian ‘ballo,’ the French ‘bal,’ and the English ‘ball.’ Playing at ball was, in the middle ages, often associated with singing and dancing. Hence the Romance word ‘ballare,’ and the Old Spanish ‘ballar,’ which both meant ‘to sing.’ The French ‘ballade’ and the English ‘ballad’ may be thus accounted for. Apropos of ‘ball,’ it may be here noted that the word ‘bull,’ as in the ‘Pope’s bull,’ is derived from ‘bulla,’ the Latin for ‘ball.’ It was the custom, in the middle ages, after writing any document or letter, to affix to it a seal in the form of a ‘ball,’ so that the Pope’s ‘bull’ really means the Pope’s ‘ball.’

Our word ‘chance’ was in old French ‘chéance,’ from ‘cheoir.’ These are all from the Latin verb ‘cadĕre,’ to fall (out) or happen. The French adjective ‘méchant’ is derived from the old participle ‘més-chéant,’ from ‘més-choir,’ to fall out badly or unluckily. We have not adopted this adjective, but our noun ‘mischance’ may be traced to this source.