Leeds.
RESTIVE.
Can the editor, or any of the readers of "N. & Q." account for the very prevalent misuse of the word restive or restiff? Of course, everybody knows that the affix ive or iff does not imply "privation," but the opposite; and that therefore restive means—as we find it defined in our dictionaries—"unwilling to stir," "inclined or determined to rest," &c.; but yet the most common use of the word now would require it to mean "unwilling to rest," "restless," "unquiet," &c. As the word is most frequently employed in newspaper paragraphs, in describing accidents arising from the restiveness, or much more frequently restlessness, of horses, we can easily account for the misuse of the word in such cases: as the free use of the whip, which is sure to follow the restiveness of a horse or ass, is almost as surely followed by a sudden restlessness, at least when the nobler animal is under chastisement; what ends in restlessness and running away has thus got confounded with what it only has become, in some cases; while in others nothing is more common than to find the sudden shying and starting off of a horse, which has been anything but restive, described as such by some forgetfulness of the meaning of the word. Were the misuse of the word confined to such cases, however, it might not be worthy of notice in "N. & Q.", but I think it will be found to extend further: for instance, in The Eclipse of Faith (recently published), although evidently written by a scholar, and one who weighs the meaning of words, I find the following passage:
"'But,' said Fellowes, rather warmly, for he felt rather restive at this part of Harrington's discourse," &c.
Here the word is evidently employed (instead of restless[[1]]) figuratively for impatient; although I am not aware that a "bumptious" person might defend the word actually used, in the sense that the listener refused to go along further with the speaker. Still I think restlessness was the idea intended to be conveyed in the above passage, and that "impatient" would have been the better word, considering that it follows "he felt."
J. R.
Brompton.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
Or instead of "fidgetty," as one would likely have expressed it in familiar conversation.