| Silly, | } |
| Silliness. |
A deep conviction of men that he who departs from evil will make himself a prey, that none will be a match for the world’s evil who is not himself evil, has brought to pass the fact that a number of words, signifying at first goodness, signify next well-meaning simplicity; the notions of goodness and foolishness, with a strong predominance of the last, for a while interpenetrating one another in them; till at length the latter quite expels the former, and remains as the sole possessor of the word. I need hardly mention the Greek ἄκακος, εὐήθης, εὐήθεια: while the same has happened in regard of the O.E. ‘sǽlig,’ which (the same word as the German ‘selig’) has successively meant, (1) blissful, (2) innocent, harmless, (3) weakly foolish.
Oh God, quod she, so worldly selynesse,
Which clerkes callen fals felicite,
Imedled is with many a bitternesse.
Chaucer, Troylus and Cryseyde (Morris, p. 258).
O sely woman, ful of innocence.
Chaucer, Legend of Fair Women, 1252.
This Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight (the silly children lying in their beds) came into the chamber, and suddenly lapped them up among the clothes.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III.
| Sincere, | } |
| Sincerity. |