“To curry favor” is said to be a corrupt translation of the French proverbial phrase étriller Fauveau, “to curry the chestnut horse.” It was usual to make a proper name of the color of a horse, as Bayard, Dun, Ball, Favel, etc. Hence the proverbs, “To have Ball in the stable,” “Dun in the mire,” “To curry Favel,” in which last some unknown Bentley substituted “favor” for Favel when the meaning of the latter had ceased to be understood. Another striking illustration of the freaks of popular usage by which the etymology of words is obscured, is the word “causeway.” Mr. W. W. Skeat, in a late number of “Notes and Queries,” states that the old spelling of the word was “calcies.” The Latin was calceata via, a road made with lime; hence the Spanish, calzada, a paved way, and the modern French, chaussée. “The English Word,” Mr. Skeats says, “used to be more often spelled ‘causey,’ as, for instance, by Cotgrave; and popular etymology, always on the alert to infuse some sort of meaning into a strange word, turned ‘causey’ into ‘causeway,’ with the trifling drawback that, while we all know what ‘way’ means, no one can extract any sense out of ‘cause.’”
Words from the dead languages have naturally undergone the most signal corruptions, many of them completely disguising the derivation. Sometimes the word is condensed, as in “alms,” from the Greek ἐλεημοσύνη in early English, “almesse,” now cut down to four letters; “summons,” a legal term, abbreviated (like the fi. fa. of the lawyers) from submoneas; “palsy,” an abridgment of “paralysis,” literally a relaxation; “quinsy,” in French esquinancie, which, strange to say, is the same word as “synagogue,” coming, like this last, from σύν together, and ἄγω, to draw. “Megrim” is a corruption of “hemicrany,” a pain affecting half of the head. “Treacle,” now applied only to molasses or sirup, was originally viper’s flesh made into a medicine for the viper’s bite. It is called in French thériaque, from a corresponding Greek word; in early English, “triacle.” “Zero” is a contraction of the Italian zephiro, a zephyr, a breath of air, a nothing. Another name for it is “cipher,” from the Arabic, cifr, empty.
CONTRADICTORY MEANINGS.
Among the curious phenomena of language one of the most singular is the use of the same word in two distinct senses, directly opposed to each other. Ideas are associated in the mind not only by resemblance but by contrast; and thus the same root, slightly modified, may express the most opposite meanings. A striking example of this, is the word “fast,” which is full of contradictory meanings. A clock is called “fast,” when it goes too quickly; but a man is told to stand “fast,” when he is desired to stand still. Men “fast” when they have nothing to eat; and they eat “fast” after a long abstinence. “Fast” men, as we have already seen, are apt to be very “loose” in their habits. When “fast” is used in the sense of “abstinence,” the idea may be, as in the Latin, abstineo, holding back from food; or the word may come from the Gothic, fastan, “to keep” or “observe,”—that is, the ordinance of the church. The verb “to overlook” is used in two contradictory senses; as, he overlooked the men at work, he overlooked the error.
The word “nervous” may mean either possessing or wanting nerve. A “nervous” writer is one who has force and energy; a “nervous” man is one who is weak, sensitive to trifles, easily excited. The word “post,” from the Latin positum, placed, is used in the most various senses. We speak of a “post”-office, of “post”-haste, of “post”-horses, and of “post”-ing a ledger. The contradiction in these meanings is more apparent than real. The idea of “placing” is common to them all. Before the invention of railways, letters were transmitted from place to place (or post to post) by relays of horses stationed at intervals so that no delay might occur. The “post”-office used this means of communication, and the horses were said to travel “post”-haste. To “post” a ledger is to place or register its several items.
The word “to let” generally means to permit; but in the Bible, in Shakespeare, and in legal phraseology, it often has the very opposite meaning. Thus Hamlet says, “I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me,” that is, interferes with or obstructs me; and in law books “without let or hindrance” is a phrase of frequent occurrence. It should be remarked, however, that “to let,” in the first sense, is from the Saxon, laetan; in the second, from letjan. The word “to cleave” may mean either to adhere to closely, as when Cowper says, “Sophistry cleaves close and protects sin’s rotten trunk”; or it may mean to split or to rend asunder, as in the sentence, “He cleaved the stick at one blow.” According to Mätzner, the word in the first sense is from the Anglo-Saxon, cleofan, clufan; in the last sense, it is from clifan, clifian. The word “dear” has the two meanings of “prized” because you have it, and “expensive” because you want it. The word “lee” has very different acceptations in “lee”-side and “lee”-shore.
The word “mistaken” has quite opposite meanings. “You are mistaken” may mean “You mistake,” or “You are misunderstood,” or “taken for somebody else.” In the line
“Mistaken souls that dream of heaven,”
in a popular hymn, the word is used, of course, in the former sense. The adjective “mortal” means both “deadly” and “liable to death.” Of the large number of adjectives ending in “able” or “ible,” some have a subjective and others an objective sense. A “terrible” sight is one that is able to inspire terror; but a “readable” book is one which you can read. It is said that the word “wit” is used in Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” with at least seven different meanings.