A select glossary of English words used formerly in senses different from their present

by Richard Chenevix Trench

Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,

‘These are their causes—they are natural;’

For, I believe, they are portentous things

Unto the climate that they point upon.

Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, act i. sc. 3.

This climate of Gaul [hanc Galliarum plagam] is enclosed on every side with fences that environ it naturally.—Holland, Ammianus, p. 47.

Climate, a portion of the earth contained between two circles parallel to the equator.—Phillips, New World of Words.

Clumsy. Although of no very frequent use in our early literature (it does not once occur in Shakespeare), this word cannot be said to be very rare; and where it occurs, it is in a sense going before its present, namely, in that of stiff, rigid, contracted with cold. It is familiar to all how ‘clumsy,’ in our modern use of the word, the fingers are when in this condition, and thus it is easy to trace the growing of the modern meaning out of the old. On its probable etymology see Mätzner’s Dictionary (s. v. clumsen).

Rigido: Starke, stiffe, or num through cold, clumzie.—Florio, New World of Words (A.D. 1611).

Havi de froid: Stiffe, clumpse, benummed.—Cotgrave, A French and English Dictionary.