Carnival of the Etymologies
A regular Thursday feature of "Done with Mirrors"
The headlines said, U.S. Senate apologizes for shame of lynchings. But whence came such an odd word?
The earliest form of it on record is Lynch law (1811), which originally referred to any sort of summary justice, especially by flogging. That's an important difference to bear in mind when reading early 19th century sources. The narrowing of lynching to mean "extralegal execution by hanging" is a 20th century development.
The whole phenomenon likely is named after William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania, Virginia, who c.1780 led a vigilance committee to keep order there during the American Revolution. Other sources trace the name to Charles Lynch (1736-96) a Virginia magistrate who fined and imprisoned Tories in his district c.1782. But the connection to him is less likely than that to William Lynch.
The surname can be either English or Irish; the English version derives from Old English hlinc "hill;" while the Irish form is from Irish loingseach "sailor."
Michael Jackson's trial got me thinking about legal terms, which, like sailors' words, are among the most conservative in the language. They retain older meanings that have fallen away elsewhere, which lends them an oddness amid their familiarity.
Acquit, for instance, obviously has as its root quit, which has come into Modern English as a verb meaning "to give up." But the original sense of the verb in Middle English was "to set free, redeem" (usually of a debt or suspicion). That sense has all but vanished from quit, but it survives in acquit, a compound formed in Old French as acquitter, from à "to" and quite.
The root of both quit and acquit is Latin quietus which meant both "free" (in Medieval Latin, "free from war, debts, etc.") and "calm, resting." So both words are related to quiet, and from an ancient root *qwi- meaning "rest" (also source of while, via Old English hwil "space of time").
Verdict is a re-Latinized form of Middle English verdit, which also comes from an Old French compound, in this case ver "true" and dit "to have said." Presumably the sense was "to have said what (or which version) is true."
Again, an older sense is preserved, as the modern descendant of the first element is very, which before it acquired the sense of "actual, sheer" (14th century) meant "true, real, genuine." The Latin root is verus "true;" and its relatives in Germanic include Old English wær "faith, a compact" (preserved in the first element of warlock, which in Old English was wærloga and meant "traitor, liar, enemy") and German wahr "true."
Old French dit, of course, is from Latin dictio, the source of a great many words in Modern English having to do with "speak, expression, word" (including dictionary). The Proto-Indo-European root is *deik- "to point out." The Greek form of this, deiknynai, came to mean "to prove," which drifts toward the sense in verdict; the native English forms of the root also tended that way: Anglo-Saxon teon "to accuse" and tæcan "to teach," source of teach.
But the word our Anglo-Saxon forebears would have used for what now goes by verdict would be ordeal (Old English ordel), which originally meant "judgment, verdict," a definition that still adheres to its German cousin, urteil.
It comes from a Proto-Germanic noun *uzdailjam, which literally meant "that which is dealt out" (by the gods). That's the connection to the verb deal "to share out." The prefix or-, which survives in English only in this word, was a common one in Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic languages (Gothic ur-, Old Norse or-) and was originally an adverb and preposition meaning "out."
The notion of an ordeal preserves memories of an ancient Teutonic mode of trial by the kind of arduous physical test (such as walking blindfolded and barefoot between red-hot plowshares) that was believed to determine a person's guilt or innocence by immediate judgment of the deity.
The word ordeal is curiously absent in Middle English, however, and perhaps the modern word is a 16th century reborrowing from Medieval Latin or Middle French, both of which picked it up from Germanic tongues. The main modern meaning of "anything which tests character or endurance" is a metaphoric extension first attested in 1658.
The wholesale replacement of native Anglo-Saxon legal terms by French ones took place by the 13th century, and reflects, of course, the use of French as the courtly and legal language of England under William the Conqueror and his successors.
Trial, too, preserves the older sense of try, which was "examine judiciously, sit in judgment of." The main modern sense of "attempt to do" is not found before the early 14th century. The English word comes from a word that arose in the Dark Ages in France, *triare, of unknown origin.
Suicide bombers plague the U.S. mission in Iraq, and cut a tragic swath through the lives of Iraq's people. The word suicide, though compounded of Latin terms, does not seem to have existed in ancient Latin. In fact, it probably was a 17th century coinage of English-speakers, who mangled the Latin in forming the word, much to the ire of Latin purists.
The components are sui "of oneself" and -cidium "a killing." But, as one Latinist has pointed out, the word "may as well seem to participate of sus, a sow, as of the pronoun sui."
The noun meaning "person who kills himself deliberately" is an even later development, not seen before 1728. Earlier, the legal term for this was Anglo-Latin felo-de-se, literally "one guilty concerning himself."
In England, suicides were legally criminal if sane, but not if judged to have been mentally deranged. The criminal ones were given degrading burial in roadways until 1823.
The headlines said, U.S. Senate apologizes for shame of lynchings. But whence came such an odd word?
The earliest form of it on record is Lynch law (1811), which originally referred to any sort of summary justice, especially by flogging. That's an important difference to bear in mind when reading early 19th century sources. The narrowing of lynching to mean "extralegal execution by hanging" is a 20th century development.
The whole phenomenon likely is named after William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania, Virginia, who c.1780 led a vigilance committee to keep order there during the American Revolution. Other sources trace the name to Charles Lynch (1736-96) a Virginia magistrate who fined and imprisoned Tories in his district c.1782. But the connection to him is less likely than that to William Lynch.
The surname can be either English or Irish; the English version derives from Old English hlinc "hill;" while the Irish form is from Irish loingseach "sailor."
Michael Jackson's trial got me thinking about legal terms, which, like sailors' words, are among the most conservative in the language. They retain older meanings that have fallen away elsewhere, which lends them an oddness amid their familiarity.
Acquit, for instance, obviously has as its root quit, which has come into Modern English as a verb meaning "to give up." But the original sense of the verb in Middle English was "to set free, redeem" (usually of a debt or suspicion). That sense has all but vanished from quit, but it survives in acquit, a compound formed in Old French as acquitter, from à "to" and quite.
The root of both quit and acquit is Latin quietus which meant both "free" (in Medieval Latin, "free from war, debts, etc.") and "calm, resting." So both words are related to quiet, and from an ancient root *qwi- meaning "rest" (also source of while, via Old English hwil "space of time").
Verdict is a re-Latinized form of Middle English verdit, which also comes from an Old French compound, in this case ver "true" and dit "to have said." Presumably the sense was "to have said what (or which version) is true."
Again, an older sense is preserved, as the modern descendant of the first element is very, which before it acquired the sense of "actual, sheer" (14th century) meant "true, real, genuine." The Latin root is verus "true;" and its relatives in Germanic include Old English wær "faith, a compact" (preserved in the first element of warlock, which in Old English was wærloga and meant "traitor, liar, enemy") and German wahr "true."
Old French dit, of course, is from Latin dictio, the source of a great many words in Modern English having to do with "speak, expression, word" (including dictionary). The Proto-Indo-European root is *deik- "to point out." The Greek form of this, deiknynai, came to mean "to prove," which drifts toward the sense in verdict; the native English forms of the root also tended that way: Anglo-Saxon teon "to accuse" and tæcan "to teach," source of teach.
But the word our Anglo-Saxon forebears would have used for what now goes by verdict would be ordeal (Old English ordel), which originally meant "judgment, verdict," a definition that still adheres to its German cousin, urteil.
It comes from a Proto-Germanic noun *uzdailjam, which literally meant "that which is dealt out" (by the gods). That's the connection to the verb deal "to share out." The prefix or-, which survives in English only in this word, was a common one in Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic languages (Gothic ur-, Old Norse or-) and was originally an adverb and preposition meaning "out."
The notion of an ordeal preserves memories of an ancient Teutonic mode of trial by the kind of arduous physical test (such as walking blindfolded and barefoot between red-hot plowshares) that was believed to determine a person's guilt or innocence by immediate judgment of the deity.
The word ordeal is curiously absent in Middle English, however, and perhaps the modern word is a 16th century reborrowing from Medieval Latin or Middle French, both of which picked it up from Germanic tongues. The main modern meaning of "anything which tests character or endurance" is a metaphoric extension first attested in 1658.
The wholesale replacement of native Anglo-Saxon legal terms by French ones took place by the 13th century, and reflects, of course, the use of French as the courtly and legal language of England under William the Conqueror and his successors.
Trial, too, preserves the older sense of try, which was "examine judiciously, sit in judgment of." The main modern sense of "attempt to do" is not found before the early 14th century. The English word comes from a word that arose in the Dark Ages in France, *triare, of unknown origin.
Suicide bombers plague the U.S. mission in Iraq, and cut a tragic swath through the lives of Iraq's people. The word suicide, though compounded of Latin terms, does not seem to have existed in ancient Latin. In fact, it probably was a 17th century coinage of English-speakers, who mangled the Latin in forming the word, much to the ire of Latin purists.
The components are sui "of oneself" and -cidium "a killing." But, as one Latinist has pointed out, the word "may as well seem to participate of sus, a sow, as of the pronoun sui."
The noun meaning "person who kills himself deliberately" is an even later development, not seen before 1728. Earlier, the legal term for this was Anglo-Latin felo-de-se, literally "one guilty concerning himself."
In England, suicides were legally criminal if sane, but not if judged to have been mentally deranged. The criminal ones were given degrading burial in roadways until 1823.
Labels: etymology
