We find, in the Latin, the substantive deliciæ, delight, pleasure, enjoyment; and the adjective (derived from the same root, and guiding us to the original meaning of the substantive) delicatus, which amongst other meanings, has that of tender, soft, gentle, delicate, dainty.
As the early English scholars were not very particular about the form of the words they introduced from the Latin, or indeed of those which were purely English, for they changed them at their pleasure,—and that this is the case, I presume no one at all versed in the literature of the time of Henry VIII. will dispute,—it requires no great exertion of fancy to believe, that, finding
the substantive deliciæ Englished delight, they rendered the adjective delicatus delighted. The fact that they did use the words delight and delicate as synonymous, is proved by a passage in "a boke named the Gouernour deuised by Syr Thomas Elyot, Knyght, Londini, 1557;" in which, at folio 203., p. 1., we find Titus, the son of Vespasian, who was ordinarily termed "the delight of mankind," called "the delicate of the world."
We are therefore to conclude that the words delicate and delighted were used indifferently by writers of the age of Shakspeare, as well as by those previous to him, to express the same thing; and that by the phrase "delighted spirit" in Measure for Measure, "delighted beauty" in Othello, "delighted gifts" in Cymbeline, we are to understand, exquisitely tender, delicate, or precious.
I cannot agree with Dr. Kennedy that deliciæ, delicatus come from deligere rather than delicere; since, if my memory does not deceive me, the former is as often, if not oftener, used by good writers to express to drive away, to upset, to remove from, or detach—as to select or choose—which is the only meaning the word has akin to deliciæ; whereas delicere is actually used by one of the earlier Latin poets for to delight.
The word dainty, I may inform Dr. Kennedy, is from the obsolete French dein or dain, delicate; which probably came from the still older Teut. deinin, minuta (vid. Schilter).
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.