Commonly speaking, the older generation gives the main impulse to change of meaning, controlling, as it does, the whole usage of language. But the younger generation has great power in aiding the process of change, from the fact that the very first time that a word has presented itself to one of its members, the word may have been used in an ‘occasional’ sense, which would by him have been taken to be its regular use. Thus, a child might often hear a horse spoken of as a bay, or a dolt as an ass. In such cases he understands the secondary meaning only; nor does he even mentally connect this meaning with any other.
The change in ‘usual’ signification, then, takes its rise from modification in the ‘occasional’ application of the word. The most common case of change in signification owing to such modification, is where the meaning of the word is specialised by the narrowing of its comprehension and the enrichment of its contents. In the English word stamp we have a good instance of the difference between ‘occasional’ and ‘usual’ specialisation. The word may be employed of any object used as a particular mark. It may be used for a receipt stamp or for a bill stamp, or, again, metaphorically, as the stamp of nobility. These are instances of ‘occasional’ specialisation. But, while it requires some definite situation to make us think of stamp in its other significations, it immediately occurs to us to think of it as a postage stamp, and we then think little, if at all, of the general idea of stamping, but rather of an object of definite shape and construction and used for the definite purpose of franking letters. We must thus admit that this meaning has parted from the more general meanings, and stands independently as a special meaning; in fact, that it is specialised and ‘usual.’ Other examples are the use of frumentum for ‘corn’ in Latin; fruit for the produce of certain trees as distinguished from ‘the fruits of the earth;’ pig, originally the young of animals;—in Danish, pige, a young girl. Corn, in English, is restricted to ‘wheat,’ and, in America, to maize, or Indian corn; while, in German, korn denotes any species of grain: fowl, in English, means specially ‘a barn-door fowl;’ a bird means, in the language of sportsmen, ‘a partridge;’ a fish, ‘a salmon:’ ὄρνις, in the conventional language of Athens, as disclosed by the Comic poets, means ‘a barn-door fowl:’[14] and a special usage of this kind is seen in the names of materials themselves employed to denote the products of materials; as, glass, horn, gold, silver, paper, copper,—as when we talk of paper in the sense of paper money, etc.
Proper names owe their origin to the change of the ‘occasional’ concrete meanings of certain words into ‘usual’ meanings. All names of persons and places took their origin from names of species; and the usage κατ’ ἐξοχήν was the starting-point for this process. We are able to observe it distinctly in numerous instances of names both of persons and of places. Such ordinary names as the following are very instructive for our purpose: Field, Hill, Bridges, Townsend, Hedges, Church, Stone, Meadows, Newton, Villeneuve, Newcastle, Neuchâtel, Neuburg, Milltown, etc. Such names as these served in the first instance merely to indicate to neighbours a certain person or town: and they were sufficient to distinguish such person or town from others in the neighbourhood. They passed into regular proper names as soon as they were apprehended in this concrete sense by neighbours too far removed to judge of the reasons why they received their special name: cf. names like Pont newydd: and names like Bevan, Pritchard, from ab (son) Evan and ap Richard. There are, no doubt, beside these, many place-names which began by resembling real proper names, in so far as they are derived from names of persons: such are Kingston, St. Helens.
There is also one kind of specialising process which begins to operate as soon as ever a word comes into use. Instances of this may be seen in the case of words which may be derived at will, according to the ordinary laws of any language, from other words in common use, but which are not employed till a special need calls them into play. Such words as these are sometimes found, in the first stage of their descent from the root-word, to bear a more special meaning than the derivative, as such, would naturally bear. Thus the substantive formations in -er (A.S. -er, -e)[15] denote properly a person who stands in some relation to the idea of the root-word—commonly speaking, expressing the agent: but in the case of single words thus terminated the most varied instances of specialisation are found.[16] The ‘pauser’ reason (Macbeth, II. iii. 117) would naturally mean reason that pauses or halts; but Shakespeare uses it as the ‘reason that makes us pause;’—similarly, there is no reason why the word scholar (M.E. scolere), an imitation of Lat. scholaris, should not signify ‘he who schools or teaches;’ but, as a matter of fact, it always seems to have borne its present sense. In English, indeed, it bears the special sense of ‘a student enjoying the benefit of a foundation.’ A poulterer is one who vends poultry: a fisher is one who tries to catch fish; a burgher, one who dwells in a burgh; a falconer, one who trains falcons, or one who hawks for sport: while a pensioner is one who receives a pension. Take, again, the case of verbs derived from substantives, like to butter, to head, to top, to badger, to earwig, to dust, to water, to pickle, to bone (a fowl,) to skin, to clothe, to book (a debt). In many of these cases, the meaning of the verb is derived from a metaphorical sense of the substantive. In this case, too, the usage can only be formed gradually, and according to the general fundamental conditions of language.
When language demands the expression of a conception hitherto undenoted, one of the most obvious expedients is to choose a word expressive of the most prominent characteristics of the conception, as to name the horse ‘the swift animal’ (Sans. açvas), or the wolf the ‘grey animal’ or ‘the tearer.’ Many substantives have arisen in this way (cf. the old terms ‘a grey’ and ‘a brock’[17] for a badger), but we must not therefore conclude that there was any general rule for such formation; such as, for instance, that all substantives proceeded from verbs.
The second principal kind of change in signification is the converse of the kind already spoken of. It is where the application of the term is limited to one part only of its original content, though such reduction on one side is commonly accompanied by amplification on another.
The great number of phenomena occurring under this head renders it hard to classify them: but certain ones of marked peculiarity may be mentioned. In some cases we name the object from its appearance to our sight: as in the case of the eye of a potato, the head or heart of a cabbage, the arm of a river, the cup of a flower, the bed of a river. A statue or a picture is named after what it represents; as, an Apollo, a Laocoon, the Adoration of the Magi: or, again, a work of art is named after its executor; as, a Phidias, a Praxiteles. In all such cases the original signification has been limited in one direction and amplified in another. For instance, in the case of ‘the bed of a river,’ we exclude from consideration other beds, such as beds for sleeping on; but, on the other hand, the word may be applied in its novel sense to as many rivers as flow and have beds. We call a part of one object after the part of another object which corresponds to it in position; we talk of the neck or belly of a bottle, of the shoulder of a mountain, the foot of a ladder, the tail of a kite. The different uses of caput are mostly reproduced in our own use of head; as, caput urbis; capitolium; caput fontis, fountain head; caput montis, κορυφή; caput conspirationis; Ital. capo; caput arboris; caput libri, chapter, κεφάλαιον; caput pecuniæ, capital; cape. We call a measure by the name of some object which in some way resembles it in dimensions; as, a cubit, an ell, a foot, a barley-corn. A pen or feather writes: and so ‘a pen’ and ‘une plume’ may mean a steel pen. We transfer words expressive of conceptions of time to conceptions of place, and vice versâ, as in long and short; before, after; behind, before: and thus in the case of many other adverbs and prepositions. We transfer the impressions made on one sense to those made on another, as in the cases of sweet; beautiful; loud (originally applicable to hearing alone), in the phrase ‘loud colours;’ and the Fr. voyant, in such a phrase as une couleur voyante, originally applicable to the sense of sight alone. Words which in their proper sense denote sensual and corporeal ideas only, are transferred to the denotation of ideas spiritual and intellectual: as in the cases of apprehension, comprehension, reflection, spirit, inclination, penchant, appetite, penser (lit. peser = to weigh, etc.). Consider, again, the various applications of such words as to feel, to see; bitter, lovely, fair, mean, dirty, great, small, lofty, low, warm; taste, fire, passion; to sting, to thrill, etc. Words which properly denote one species only are given a wider extension; as, cat, crab, apple, rose, moon (as in Jupiter’s moons), fishery (as in whale-fishery, lobster-fishery, after the analogy of the herring-fishery, etc.), le sanglier (l’animal solitaire, singularis), le fromage (lac formaticum, milk made into shape), le baudet (O.Fr. bald, baud, the spirited animal,—originally the male ass). We make proper names pass into class names, as when we speak of a Cicero, a Nelson, a Cato; an Academy, from Plato’s gymnasium near Athens, called Ἀκαδημία; Palace, from Palatium, the seat of Augustus’ Palace. Thus, again, we actually talk of a wooden house as being dilapidated. And we have such further development as a martinet; a cannibal; a vandal; Tom, Dick, and Harry; John Doe and Richard Roe. Such adjectives as romantic, Gothic, pre-adamite, may also serve as illustrations of the development, which is also manifest in the case of sehr, ‘very,’ formerly meaning ‘painful,’ of Eng. sore, with the like use in ‘sore afraid.’ So compare schlecht (schlechterdings, schlichten) with slight, primitive signification ‘plain;’ silly with selig, etc. The transference in the case of verbs is seen in such cases as ‘I was sorry to find you out when I called;’ ‘He enjoys poor health,’ etc. This development is similar to that illustrated above by apprehension, reflection, etc., to which we may add understand, verstehen, ἐπίστασθαι, transpire.
The third principal division of change in meaning is the transference of the idea to what is connected with the fundamental conception of the word by some relation of place, or time, or cause.
The simplest sub-division of this is when a part is substituted for the whole—the figure called by rhetoricians synecdoche, and referred to before on p. 58. The part is, in such cases, always a prominent characteristic; it suggests, as a rule, that aspect of the whole which it is desired to bring into prominence for rhetorical effect. Thus, ‘all hands to the pumps;’ ‘they sought his blood;’ ‘the blade,’ for ‘the sword;’ ‘a maid of twelve summers.’ The German word Bein (leg) = Eng. bone, has been thus used by synecdoche: it retains its older value in Gebeine, Elfenbein. Persons and animals are named after characteristic features in the body or the mind; as, grey-beard, curly-head, thick-head, red-breast, fire-tail; a good soul, a bright spirit: in French blanc-bec, grosse-tête, rouge-gorge, rouge-queue, pied-plat, gorge-blanche, mille-pieds: esprit fort, bel esprit. Names, again, are given to objects from some prominent feature with which they are commonly connected: such are those taken from garments; as, blue-stocking, green-domino, a red-coat, a blue-jacket; cf. the use of un cuirassier. Other names are transferred from one object to another included in it: such as the town, for ‘the talk of the town;’ the smiling year, for ‘the spring;’ the cabinet, the church, the court, etc. Conversely, we find the idea transferred from the object to its surroundings, as in the Round Table, the Porch, the Mountain, the Throne, the Altar, etc. Sometimes the name of a quality is transferred to the person or thing possessing the quality, as in the case of age, youth, plenty:— ‘The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme,
The young man’s vision and the old man’s dream,’
as Dryden calls the Duke of Monmouth:[18] cf. also desert, bitters. Other examples of this are—his worship, the Godhead, your highness, his majesty, his excellence, his holiness, etc. It will thus be seen that collective names take their rise in this way as well as the names for single persons or things; we can speak of their worships, meaning the magistrates. But these words do not always form substantives.
Nouns of action suffer the same transference as names of qualities. By nouns of action we mean names denoting activities generally, and conditions which are derived from verbs, such as overflow, train, income, government, providence, gilding, warning, influence. In the instances given, the name of the action has been transferred to its subject: but it is equally capable of being transferred to its object, if ‘object’ be taken in the widest sense. Thus, it may be transferred to a consequence or result of the verbal activity: such as rift, spring, growth, a rise, assembly, union, education: or to an object affected by the activity, such as seed, speech, doings, lamentations, bewailings, resort, excuse, dwelling. Writings are denoted by the name of their author; as, ‘Have you read Shakespeare?’ A person is named after some favourite word of his own; as, Heinrich jasomir Gott: ‘Cedo alteram’ (Tacitus, Annals, book iii.):[19] animals are named from their utterances, in nursery language, as a bow-wow; or from those used to appeal to them, as a gee-gee: besides these, we may add the names of such plants as puzzle-monkey, noli me tangere, forget-me-not, etc.