Before a sleeping giant.”
“To prevent,” which now means to hinder or obstruct, signified, in its Latin etymology, to anticipate, to get the start of, and is thus used in the Old Testament. “Girl” once designated a young person of either sex. “Widow” was applied to men as well as women. “Sagacious” once meant quick-smelling, as in the line
“The hound sagacious of the tainted prey.”
“Rascal,” according to Verstegan, primarily meant an “il-favoured, lean, and worthelesse deer.” Thus Shakespeare:
“Horns! the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal.”
Afterward it denoted the common people, the plebs as distinguished from the populus. A “naturalist” was once a person who rejected revealed truth, and believed only in natural religion. He is now an investigator of nature and her laws, and often a believer in Christianity. “Blackguards” were formerly the scullions, turnspits, and other meaner retainers in a great household, who, when a change was made from one residence to another, accompanied and took care of the pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils, by which they were smutted. Webster, in his play of “The White Devil,” speaks of “a lousy knave, that within these twenty years rode with the ‘black guard’ in the Duke’s carriage, amongst spits and dripping-pans.” “Artillery,” which to-day means the heavy ordnance of modern warfare, was two or three centuries ago applied to any engines for throwing missiles, even to the bow and arrow. “Punctual,” which now denotes exactness in keeping engagements, formerly applied to space as well as to time. Sir Thomas Browne speaks of “a ‘punctual’ truth”; and we read in other writers of “a ‘punctual’ relation,” or “description,” meaning a particular or circumstantial relation or description.
“Bombast,” now swelling talk, inflated diction without substance, was originally cotton padding. It is derived from the Low Latin, bombax, cotton. “Chemist” once meant the same as alchemist. “Polite” originally meant polished. Cudworth speaks of “polite bodies, as looking-glasses.” “Tidy,” which now means neat, well arranged, is derived from the old English word “tide,” meaning time, as in eventide. “Tidy” (German, zeitig) is timely, seasonable. As things in right time are apt to be in the right place, the transition in the meaning of the word is a natural one. “Caitiff” formerly meant captive, being derived from captivus through the Norman-French. The change of signification points to the tendency of slavery utterly to debase the character,—to transform the man into a cowardly miscreant. In like manner “miscreant,” once simply a misbeliever, and applied to the most virtuous as well as to the vilest, points to the deep-felt conviction that a wrong belief leads to wrong living. Thus Gibbon: “The emperor’s generosity to the ‘miscreant’ [Soliman] was interpreted as treason to the Christian cause.” “Thought,” in early English, was anxious care; e.g., “Take no ‘thought’ for your life” (Matt, vi, 25). “Thing” primarily meant discourse, then solemn discussion, council, court of justice, cause, matter or subject of discourse. The “husting” was originally the house-thing, or domestic court.
“Coquets” were once male as well as female. “Usury,” which now means taking illegal or excessive interest, denoted, at first, the taking of any interest, however small. A “tobacconist” was formerly a smoker, not a seller, of tobacco. “Corpse,” now a body from which the breath of life has departed, once denoted the body of the living also; as in Surrey,
“A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met.”
We have already spoken of the striking change which the word “incomprehensible” has undergone within the last three centuries.