"Etymology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the assassination of a gallant who had given the queen an apple. As beliefs of this type are an integral part of the character of the lower orders, I am certain that the passage in Petronius is not devoid of sarcasm; and if such is the case, "contus" cannot be rendered "pole." The etymology of the word contumely is doubtful but I am of the opinion that the derivation suggested here is not unsound. A recondite rendering of "contus" would surely give a sharper point to the joke and furnish the riddle with the sting of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... exterminated by the wooden clubs of the Ainu, they raised their eyes to heaven, and, weeping, cried aloud to the gods, "Why were we made so small?" It should be said that Professor Schlegel and Mr. Savage Landor both seem to prefer the former etymology. ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... seemed to me very possible that Coleridge invented the name, but it was highly probable that he brought it to England from Germany, where, with Wordsworth, he visited Klopstock in 1798, about the period of the first part of the poem. The Germans have names of a kindred etymology and, even if my guess proved wide of the truth, it might still be a fact that the name had German relations. Another conjecture that seemed to me a reasonable one was that Coleridge evolved the name out of the incidents of the ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... The summit has an altitude of 1269 metres. In Italian they call it the Verna, in Latin Alvernus. The etymology, which has tested the acuteness of the learned, appears to be very simple; the verb vernare, used by ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... began historically to manifest itself on earth, taking root first in the people of Israel, whom therefore the Deity addresses, saying, "I am the Eternal, thy God," signifying, "by thee alone acknowledged hitherto." It also establishes the immutable eternity of the absolute Being, conveyed in the etymology of the ineffable Name; next, his indivisible unity, indicated in the word El, which denotes the sum of all the powers, and the aggregation of all the attributes, in one and the same essence. The same text proceeds then to arouse the feelings of gratitude, which must bind especially this people ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... last able to say we have tasted it. With our tea we get some excellent sponge cake called "casutira," a corruption of the Spanish word "castile," said to be, until very recently, the only word of European etymology in the language. The Jesuits first introduced the cake from Spain, and taught the people how to make it. Whatever its origin, it is very good. You get chop-sticks handed you too, which, after a few ineffectual and ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... a very old word, and goes back, with the cognate terms in Italic, Hellenic, Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic, and Indo-Aryan speech, to the primitive Indo-European language, and, like mother, it is of uncertain etymology. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... seems to follow from the tradition, according to which Cambyses left his treasures at Gaza during the Egyptian campaign, and the town was thence called Gaza, "the treasury." The etymology is false, but the fact that suggested it is probably correct, considering the situation of Gaza and the part it must necessarily play in an ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... now remained but one large and important State, towards the annexation of which he directed all his efforts. After elaborate preparations which extended over more than two years, at the beginning of which (1616) the term Manchu (etymology unknown) was definitively adopted as a national title, Nurhachu, in 1618, drew up a list of grievances against the Chinese, under which he declared that his people had been and were still suffering, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... a drunkard, a gambler, a debauchee, a parasite, a helpless potterer; he may be a man of spotless life, able and honest; but he must on no account be a man with broad palms, a workman amongst workmen. The 'gentleman' is not necessarily gentle; but he is necessarily genteel. Etymology is not at fault here; gentility, and gentility alone, is the qualification ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... River—letters from people a thousand miles away, saying if they couldn't raise $1,500 to pay off a mortgage they would be sold out, and wouldn't I send it to them—letters of good advice, telling me how to preach, and the poorer the syntax and the etymology the more insistent the command. Many encouraging letters were a great help to me. Some letters of a spiritual beauty and power were magnificent tokens of a preacher's work. Most of these letters were lacking ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... published. And as all authors are liable to mistakes, which others may copy, general rules should have more weight than particular examples to the contrary. "The right spelling of a word may be said to be that which agrees the best with its pronunciation, its etymology, and with the analogy of the particular class of words to which it belongs."—Philological Museum, Vol. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... as high as the time of Vespasian, where the Saxons after seated, in whose thin-filled maps we yet find the name of Walsingham. Now if the Iceni were but Gammadims, Anconians, or men that lived in an angle, wedge, or elbow of Britain, according to the original etymology, this country will challenge the emphatical appellation, as most properly making the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... had, from another pen[545], a long detail of what had been done in this country by prior Lexicographers; and no doubt Johnson was wise to avail himself of them, so far as they went: but the learned, yet judicious research of etymology[546], the various, yet accurate display of definition, and the rich collection of authorities, were reserved for the superior mind of our great philologist[547]. For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... according to the etymology of its name, a "little picture." Tennyson's Idylls of the King are rather more epic than idyllic in the strict sense of the term. The terms idyll and pastoral are ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... contains a list of Kassite or Kossean words with their signification; in other cases we have Mitannian, Elamite, and Canaanite words quoted, with their meanings attached to them. Nor did the philological curiosity of the scribe end here. He busied himself with the etymology of the words in his own language, and just as a couple of centuries ago our own dictionary-makers endeavored to find derivations for all English words, whatever their source, in Latin and Greek, so, too, ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... the capitalization and pronunciation of all words. It makes a feature of the derivation or etymology of the words. In some dictionaries the etymology occupies only a secondary place, in many cases no derivation being given at all. In the American Illustrated practically every word ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... gallant correspondent to whom we are indebted for the foregoing satisfactory, because early and documentary, evidence of the etymology of the now familiar term GROG, informs us that there is a still earlier ballad on the subject. We trust that he will be enabled to recover that also, and put it on ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... is only the Hebrew for my angel with a Latin termination. That St. Bernard was aware of the significance of the name, and liked to dwell upon it, is clear from Sermon ii. Sec. 5. It may be added that the legend just mentioned is connected with a folk-etymology of the word Bangor (Bennchor) which explained it as "white choir." For the true etymology see Kuno Meyer, "Zur Keltischen Wortkunde," Sec. 66 (Preuss. ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... He said, 'Without doubt the Italian.' He then discussed the genius of the English language, and the merits of our poets and historians, read, and made me read, a passage of an English book, and then examined the etymology and pronunciation of several words. He has never been out of Italy, or further in it than Leghorn, talks of going to Rome, but says it is so difficult to leave his library. He is very pleasing, simple, and communicative, and it is extraordinary, with his wonderful ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... our author's inspiration are notable. He relies on St. Dionysius the Areopagite for heaven and the angels, Aristotle for Physics and Natural History, Pliny's Natural History, Isidore of Seville's Etymology, Albumazar, Al Faragus, and other Arab writers for Astronomy, Constantinus Afer's Pantegna for Medical Science, and Physiologus, the Bestiarium, and the Lapidarium for the properties of gems, animals, etc. Besides these he quotes many other writers (a list of whom is given in an appendix) little ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... reduced to etymology in several tongues. In Arabia their speech is called naoua; in Chinese, ming; in Greek, larungizein; in Sanscrit, madj, vid, bid; in German, miauen; in French miauler; and in English, ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... going on," said the fool. "My wine is capital; you are capital, capitalist, intellectual capital, capital wine,—all the same etymology, don't you see? hein? Capital, 'caput,' head, Head of Vouvray, that's ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Latin dictionaries appeared, in which every word was traced back to a Hebrew root. No supposition was too absurd in this attempt to square Science with Scripture. It was declared that, as Hebrew is written from right to left, it might be read either way, in order to produce a satisfactory etymology. The whole effort in all this sacred scholarship was, not to find what the truth is—not to see how the various languages are to be classified, or from what source they are really derived—but to demonstrate what was supposed necessary to maintain what was then held to be the truth of Scripture; ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Historical derivation? That part of etymology which treats of the foreign sources ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... traditional nasalisation and, as in Australia, by climatic influences, is American and, therefore, the purest of English utterances. The obsolete vocabulary often obsolete in England without just reason—contrasting with a modern disfigured etymology which strips vocables of their genealogy and history, is American and ergo admirably progressive. The spurious facetiousness which deals mainly in mere jargon words ill-spelt and worse pronounced; in bizarre contrast of ideas, and in ultra-Rabelaisian exaggeration, is American wit ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... here playing on the etymology, of [Greek: nomos], law, assignment, that which assigns ([Greek: nemei]) to every ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... of under a root or in a cranny of rock he repeated their many-syllabled names. Curious to know what these names literally meant and whence derived, the writer made inquiry, sometimes hazarding a conjectural etymology. To his astonishment and dismay he found this "scientist," whom he had looked up to, entirely ignorant of the meaning of the terms he employed. They were just arbitrary terms to him. The little hopping ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... expresses the essential notion of Futurity. You think, perhaps, of shall and will. Well, these words have come now to convey the notion of Futurity; but they do so only in a secondary fashion. Look to their etymology, and you will see that they imply Futurity, but do not express it. I shall do such a thing means I am bound to do it, I am under an obligation to do it. I will do such a thing means I intend to do it, It is my present ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... them in this irascible row; being that they are as the rest, both causes and symptoms of this disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied with anguish and pain. The common etymology will evince it, Cura quasi cor uro, Dementes curae, insomnes curae, damnosae curae, tristes, mordaces, carnifices, &c. biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets [1742]call them, worldly ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Bacchus, whose nocturnal festivals were celebrated in debauchery. Arnobius and Julius Firmicus Maternus inform us that in these festivals they slipped a golden serpent into the bosoms of the initiated, and drew it downwards; but this etymology is too far-fetched: the people who gave the name of sabbath to the assemblies of the sorcerers wished apparently to compare them in derision to those of the Jews, and to what they practiced in their synagogues ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... medical superintendent of the District Lunatic Asylum, Kilkenny, informs me that the superstition has nearly died out since this asylum was opened, about thirty years ago. Dr. Woods gives a different etymology, namely, bright, for galt; the valley in that case deriving its name in contradistinction to that on the other side of the hill, Emaloghue, on which the sun scarcely ever shines. He thinks the superstition arose from persons labouring under melancholy going from the sunless ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... "earnest co-operation?" Is it too much to hope that it springs from an increased reverence for the Truth, from an intenser craving after a knowledge of it—whether such Truth regards an event on which a throne depended, or the etymology of some household word now familiar ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime.[33] Its highest degree I call astonishment; the subordinate degrees are awe, reverence, and respect, which, by the very etymology of the words, show from what source they are derived, and how they stand distinguished ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Editor, is only conjecture, in reply to "ALPHA's" query (No. 12 p. 185.); but perhaps you will receive it, if no better etymology of the word ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... am aware of the etymology; but I contend that there is an universal and immutable truth, deducible ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... around this dilapidated village attest its former size. Like the neighboring village, it takes its name from a rock near by, which is used as a place for the deposit of votive offerings, but the etymology of the term can not ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... 310; that is, 414 out of 674, or about four-sevenths of the whole Shakespearian host beginning with those two letters. In doubtful cases I have considered those words only as classical the first etymology of which in Webster is from a classical or Romance root. In the biblical words used once only the classical portion is enormous—namely, not less than sixty-nine per cent.—while the classical percentage ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... a subsequent letter he is described as learning French, etymology, casting of accounts, playing at weapons, and other such exercises.—ELLIS, third ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... plain and easily conveyed. Yet the unlearned may have this help given them by the way to know what Galaxia is or Pactolus, which perchance they have not read of often in our vulgar rhymes. Galaxia (to omit both the etymology and what the philosophers do write thereof) is a white way or milky circle in the heavens, which ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... rendering many of the names occurring in this and the succeeding slokas. I retain, however, those names that are of doubtful etymology, as also those that are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubtful. "The hungry young," he says, "looked up to their spiritual Nurses; and, for food, were bidden eat the east-wind. What vain jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical Manipulation falsely named Science, was current there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the most. Among eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be wanting some eleven eager to ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... themselves hitherto in explaining the structure of the Gaelic language, in respect of its inflections, construction, and collocation, this cannot be said to be the case with regard to Etymology. Much has been attempted, and something has been done, toward analysing single vocables, particularly names of places. But this analysis seems to have been too often made rather in a way of random conjecture than ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... officers of state, with the most familiar access to the person of the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they were usually favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial court, the true etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted Fathers of the emperor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... not been satisfied with the common explanation of the name, and have stated that it was originally composed with the word tan['e] (seed, or grain), and the word hata (loom). Those who accept this etymology make the appellation, Tanabata-Sama, plural instead of singular, and render it as "the deities of grain and of the loom,"—that is to say, those presiding over agriculture and weaving. In old Japanese pictures the star-gods are represented ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... misleading one, which has done less than justice both to the Greek and to the Hebrew genius. It has associated Greece with the idea of lawless and licentious paganism, and Israel with that of a forbidding and joyless austerity. Paganism is an interesting word, whose etymology reminds us of a time when Christianity had won the towns, while the villages still worshipped heathen gods. It is difficult to define the word without imparting into our thought of it the idea of the contrast ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... signifies the officer in charge of the king's stables, the groom. He had a military command. A later designation of the same office is marshal (from two old German words, one of which means a horse, as seen in our word mare, having the same etymology, and the other means ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... Golden Mirrour, Bk. lett. 4to. Lond., 1580. Containing Poems on the Etymology of the names of several Cheshire Families; from the exceedingly rare copy formerly in the collection of Richard Heber, Esq., (see Cat. pt. iv. 2413,) and ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... that "Nothing Succeeds Like Success." What is Success? If we consult the dictionaries, they will give us the etymology of this much used word, and in general terms the meaning will be "the accomplishment of a purpose." But as the objects in nearly every life differ, so success cannot mean the same ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... minutely set forth later on. As a detail of no little interest, it may be noted that the events here related took place at a period neither very remote nor very recent. It may also be said that Orbajosa (called by the Romans Urbs Augusta, although some learned moderns, enquiring into the etymology of the termination ajosa[*] are of the opinion that it comes by it from being the richest garlic-growing country in the world) is neither very near Madrid nor very far from it; nor can we say whether its glorious foundations are ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... subordinate themselves with difficulty to one of those general ideas which are expressed in the Aryan roots. Besides these words are, even in their oldest attainable forms, already so weather-beaten, that in most cases it is impossible even to guess their etymology and original meaning. We see that the names for two and eight are dual, while those for three and four clearly have plural endings. But why eight in the primitive Aryan was a dual, and what were the two tetrads, which, combined in asht-au, oct-o, {GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... so intent upon what he had discovered of the foundation, as to conclude his task without once looking up at the superstructure? Here, as in other instances throughout the volume, the judicious Author's mind is enthralled by Etymology; he takes up the original word as his guide and escort, and too often does not perceive how soon he becomes its prisoner, without liberty to tread in any path but that to which it confines him. It is not easy to find out how imagination, thus ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... immortalized coffee. It is in seven chapters. The first treats of the etymology and significance of the word cahouah (kahwa), the nature and properties of the bean, where the drink was first used, and describes its virtues. The other chapters have to do largely with the church dispute in Mecca ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... he began, 'you have been a long time over that lesson; let us see how much of it you have learned. What is etymology?' ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... two columns of the Temple. The symbolic meaning of these columns we shall leave for the present unexplained, only adding that Entered Apprentices keep their working-tools in the column JACHIN; and giving you the etymology and literal meaning of the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... much discussion, but Japanese annalists are for the most part agreed that "Ito" should be read "I-no-na," which corresponds with the ancient Na-no-Agata, the present Naka-gori in Chikuzen, an identification consistent with etymology and supported by the fact that, in 1764, a gold seal supposed to be the original of the one mentioned above, was dug out of the ground in that region. In short, Na-no-Agata is identical with the ancient Watazumi-no-Kuni, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... directly relating to Rabelais, is full of observations and curious remarks which are very useful additions to Le Duchat. One fault to be found with him is his further complication of the spelling. This he did in accordance with a principle that the words should be referred to their real etymology. Learned though he was, Rabelais had little care to be so etymological, and it is not his theories but those of the modern ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... wall, at the entrance to Cock Lane in Giltspur Street, a short distance to the south-west. The place took its name from the "Court of Pie-Powder," which was held during the fair here, as at similar gatherings throughout the country, to deal expeditiously with disturbers of the peace. The etymology is traced to the old French pied pouldre, with supposed reference to the dusty feet of pedlars and others who came before the court—now extinguished in the more modern ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... singular epocha in geography; a doubt having arisen from it, whether to a land of such magnitude the name of island or that of continent may more properly be applied. To this question it may be answered, that though the etymology of the word island,* and of others synonymous to it, points out only a land surrounded by the sea, or by any water, (in which sense the term is applicable even to the largest portions of the habitable globe) yet it is certain that, in the usual acceptation, an ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... ingenuity and learning, that it is in no department of science more necessary to be upon the guard against plausible theories.—There are others who contend for the Teutonic origin of the town, and refer to etymology with equal zeal, and with greater plausibility. The word Eu, otherwise spelt Ou or Au signifies a meadow, in Saxon; and the same name was likewise originally applied to the river Bresle,[163] which washes the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... guides to the sources of linguistic corruption, and the best teachers of its processes. Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII., writes worle for world. Chapman has wan for wand, and lawn has rightfully displaced laund, though with no thought, I suspect, of etymology. Rogers tells us that Lady Bathurst sent him some letters written to William III. by Queen Mary, in which she addresses him as 'Dear Husban.' The old form expoun', which our farmers use, is more correct than the form with a barbarous d tacked on which has taken its ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Lauds. Etymology, Definition, Symbolism, Origin, Antiquity. Reasons for Hour, Structure, Rubrics Antiphons, Capitulum (Title XXX) Benedictus Oratio, Collect (Title XXX) Rubrics and explanation of ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... inhabited by the Macquarrys; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but of antiquity, which most other families are content to reverence. The name is supposed to be a depravation of some other; for the Earse language does not afford it any etymology. Macquarry is proprietor both of Ulva and some adjacent Islands, among which is Staffa, so lately raised to renown ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... been chiefly gained from the outside world and not from books. I have heard him lay it down as a fact that the word "Bible" had its etymology from the word "by-bill" (hand-bill). "It was writ," he said, "in small parcels, and they was passed around by them that writ 'em, like by-bills; and so when they hove it all into one, they called ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... (No. 15. p. 230., and No. 17. p. 269.).—The following etymology of "heaviers" will probably be considered as not satisfactory, but this extract will show that the term itself is in use amongst the Scotch deerstalkers in ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal Caesar. So also of minds: look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the common city clerk: Look at—had you only patience, you should have examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens—yes, and knaves too—more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after all, what with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... die Welt eingerichtet haben." Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Voelker, Bd. I. s. 169. It is not of any importance that Herodotus' etymology is incorrect: what I wish to show is that he and his contemporaries entertained the conception of the gods as the authors ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... of these blunders the author must not be commended for; it is attributable to a facetious mistake of the printer. In giving the etymology of the Thermometer, it should have been "measure of heat," and not "measure of feet." We scorn to deprive our devil of a joke so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... more from Corbeil, on the right bank of the Seine, is one of the most charming villages in the environs of Paris, despite the infernal etymology of its name. The gay and thoughtless Parisian, who, on Sunday, wanders about the fields, more destructive than the rook, has not yet discovered this smiling country. The distressing odor of the frying from coffee-gardens does not there stifle the perfume ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... word, which occurs in Ben Jonson and some other writers, seems to have the same meaning as our numps. I am ignorant of its etymology.—Steevens. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... ancient, some would derive the word from hand, because they of the society plight their faith by that action; others derive it from Hansa, which in the Gothic tongue is council; others would have it come from Hander see, which signifies near or upon the sea, and this passeth for the best etymology, because their towns are all seated so, or upon some navigable river near the sea. The extent of the old Hans was from the Nerve in Livonia to the Rhine, and contained sixty-two great mercantile towns, which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... constant exercise of reason on religious subjects, but in studying the matter historically I soon found that it is the same with this word as with many others which, having lost their original meaning, now express an idea directly contrary to that which their etymology seems to indicate. It is indisputably true that God, in granting reason to man, has not forbidden its exercise. As religion, the queen of all minds, possesses indestructible rights over them, so has human reason also rights which cannot be disputed. Kant has justly said, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... of Norway and Little Fin of Denmark, are undoubtedly real; and there seems no good reason to suppose that the dwarf Fin of Hebridean tradition was not equally real. Whether they were three separate people is a problem. "Fin" appears to have been at one time a not uncommon name, whatever its etymology and that of "Fian" may be. At any rate, there is nothing in history (which speaks of a close intercourse between Scandinavia and the British Isles, in former times), and nothing in the ethnology of North-Western Europe, to make us regard as mythical the capture and enthralment ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... antiquaries, inform me whether the "Isping Geil" mentioned in this passage is the name of a person, or of some locality in that city now obsolete? In either case I should be glad of any information as to the etymology of so singular {550} a designation, which may possibly have undergone some change ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... translation which is made literally exact by using them is at the same time made actually inaccurate, or at least inadequate. Dole and dolent are doubtless the exact counterparts of dolore and dolente, so far as mere etymology can go. But when we consider the effect that is to be produced upon the mind of the reader, wretchedness and despairing are fat better equivalents. The former may compel our intellectual assent, but the latter ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... degradations, my brethren," said he, "is only too well known to you. He is a monster whose destiny is providentially proclaimed by his name, for it is derived from the Greek word, pyros, which means fire. Eternal wisdom warns us by this etymology that a Jew was to set ablaze the country ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... ruin visited in the Red-rock country was called, following Hopi etymology, Honanki; but the nomenclature was adopted not because it was so called by the Hopi, but following the ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed, and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution to philological science so valuable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... to it a relish and piquancy as salt does to food; besides they add energy and force to expression so that it irresistibly compels attention and interest. There are four kinds of figures, viz.: (1) Figures of Orthography which change the spelling of a word; (2) Figures of Etymology which change the form of words; (3) Figures of Syntax which change the construction of sentences; (4) Figures of Rhetoric or the art of speaking and writing effectively which change the mode ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... of Text-books.—In one class are those that aim chiefly to present a course of technical grammar in the order of Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody. These books give large space to grammatical Etymology, and demand much memorizing of definitions, rules, declensions, and conjugations, and much formal word parsing,—work of which a considerable portion is merely the invention of grammarians, and has ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... gathered in some wady among the grim cliffs of the wilderness of Judah, which broke the dreariness of that savage stretch of country with perhaps verdure and a brook, and there they 'blessed the Lord.' The chronicler gives a piece of popular etymology, in deriving the name, 'the valley of blessing,' from that morning's worship. Perhaps the name was older than that, and was given from a feeling of the contrast between the waste wilderness, which in its gaunt sterility seemed an accursed land, and the glen ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... test words for trying a modern German dictionary, I will advise the student to look for the words—Beschwichtigen Kulisse, and Mansarde. The last is originally French, but the first is a true German word; and, on a question arising about its etymology, at the house of a gentleman in Edinburgh, could not be found in any one, out of five ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence: thou pimp of gender: thou Lion Herald to silly etymology: thou antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of the speech-distracting builders of the Tower of Babel; thou lingual confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of syntax: thou scavenger of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Rules of Genders of Nouns, and the Prter-perfect-tenses and Supines of Verbs, and those of Concordance and Construction in the latter part of the Accidence, I would not have a child much troubled with them, till by the help of this Book he can perfectly practise so much of Etymology, as concerns the first part of his Accidence only. For that, and this book together, being thoroughly learn'd by at least thrice going them over, will much prepare children to go chearfully forward in their Grammar and School-Authors, especially, if ...
— The Orbis Pictus • John Amos Comenius
... is the beginning of everything. The word that this singer uses is one that only appears in this place, and if we regard its etymology, there lies in it a very tender and beautiful expression of the warmth of the divine love, for it is probably connected with words in an allied language which mean the bosom and a tender embrace, and so the picture that we have is of that great divine Lover folding 'the people' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gods. Again, in another passage of Genesis, God is described as saying, "Let us make man in our image (I, 26)," and further on, "The man is become as one of us." It becomes evident to him that the Hebrews, like their neighbors, worshiped "baalim" or the gods of the heathens. The "teraphim," the etymology of which is unknown, were little portable idols which seem to have been the Lares of the ancient Hebrews. David owned some (I Samuel XIX, 13-16), and the prophet Hosea, in the eighth century before Christ, seems still to have considered the "teraphim" as indispensable in worship (Hos. III, 4). These ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... an interesting fact, as showing the antiquity of the names of the chiefs in the foregoing list, that at least a fourth of them are of doubtful etymology. That their meaning was well understood when they were borne by the founders of the League cannot be questioned. The changes of language or the uncertainties of oral transmission, in the lapse of four centuries, ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... de Chambre de la Royne de Navarre," there are three little volumes of tales in prose, in the quaint or the coarse pleasantry of that day. The following is not given as the best, but as it introduces a novel etymology of a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... long moments of perfectly awful failure in Jane Eyre. There are phrases that make you writhe, such as "the etymology of the mansion's designation", and the shocking persistency with which Charlotte Bronte "indites", "peruses", and "retains". There are whole scenes that outrage probability. Such are the scenes, or parts of scenes, between Jane ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... supposing that a peculiar meaning is implied in the spelling bearth (Paradise Lost, IX. 624), which he interprets as "collective produce," though in the only other instance where it occurs it is neither more nor less than birth, it should seem that Milton had hit upon Horne Tooke's etymology. But it is really solemn trifling to lay any stress on the spelling of the original editions, after having admitted, as Mr. Masson has honestly done, that in all likelihood Milton had nothing to do with it. And yet he cannot refrain. On the word voutsafe ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... parasang (Gr. {Greek}), which Ibn Khall. (iii. 315) reduces to three miles, has been derived wildly enough from Fars or Pars (Persia proper) sang (mile) stone. Chardin supports the etymology, "because leagues are marked out with great tall stones in the East as well as the West, e.g., ad primam (vel ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... much discussion among antiquaries respecting the etymology of an ancient Roman road, called the Watling Street Way, which commencing from Dover, traces its course to London, St. Alban's, Weedon, over Bensford Bridge,[1] High Cross, Atherstone, Wall, Wroxeter, and Chester, from which last place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... etymology in his acceptance of the word amateur as meaning a tyro rather than a genuine and disinterested artist—forgets that a relapse to cruder standards would totally unfit the United for serving that staunch element which has ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Westcote, the Britons began to be called "Corn-Welshmen or Cornishmen," and he gives an elaborate etymology of the name, but adds that he need speak no further of Cornwall, "being eased of that labour by the industrious labours of the right worthy and worshipful gentleman Richard Carew, who . . . hath ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... by definition but by etymology a reasoned knowledge or theory of a God or gods, it becomes desirable, before we proceed further, to define the sense in which I understand and shall employ the word God. That sense is neither novel nor abstruse; it is simply the sense which I ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... pharmacy is further complicated by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, in which probably ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... the existence of a class of men, who were indeed known from the letters of Hammurabi and the contemporary contracts, but whose functions are not easy to fix. They were the rid sabi and the bairu. By their etymology these titles seemed to mean "slave-driver," and "catcher." But the Code sets them in a clearer light. They were closely connected, if not identical, officials. They had charge of the levy, the local quota for the army, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... dominions, while the sub-colonies, the privately owned village estates which prevailed in the South, were alone called plantations. In the Creole colonies, however, these were known as habitations—dwelling places. This etymology of the name suggests the nature of the thing—an isolated place where people in somewhat peculiar groups settled and worked and had their being. The standard community comprised a white household in the midst of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... variety. We need not here analyse chance, or discuss the philosophic value of the term. It is enough that we all know what we mean by it in common parlance. It may be well, however, to look into the etymology of the two words we are considering. They both come ultimately, from the Latin "cadere," to fall. Chance is a falling-out, like that of a die from the dice-box; and coincidence signifies one falling-out on the top of another, the concurrent happening of two or more chances which ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... this pamphlet and its own intrinsic merits, that a translation of it has not already been executed by some competent scholar. The present translation, though pretending to no scholarship, is dutifully literal, excepting, however, the omission of a few lines relating to the etymology of the words Sarira and Deha, and one or two other things which, though interesting in themselves, have no direct bearing on the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... denoting the world or something in it conveys a meaning which has its proper consummation in Brahman only: in other words all terms whatsoever denote Brahman in so far as distinguished by the different things which we associate with those terms on the basis of ordinary use of speech and etymology.—The text 'that art thou' we therefore understand merely as a special expression of the truth already propounded in the clause 'in that all this has ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the truth. I am not even certain whether it is a noun or a preposition, but the point is immaterial. Along with other canons of military matters, its virtue lies in its application rather than in its etymology. What the eye doth not see the trench mortars do not trouble is as true to-day as when Noah first mentioned the fact; and camouflage is the application of this ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... below the boxes, "Tools" and "Eating," already mentioned, are two large iron cases, labelled "Prog,"—a brief announcement which vastly troubled the brains of several French visitors, whose English etymology did not extend to such ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of words, however interesting in itself, can tell us little of the uses to which words are put after they have come into being. If we turn from etymology to history, and review the labors of the men whom the world has agreed to call philosophers, we are struck by the fact that those who head the list chronologically appear to have been occupied with crude physical speculations, ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... name: as Karshnayana means a member of the Krishna-family and Ranayana a man belonging to the family of Rana, so Narayana would naturally denote a person of the family of Nara. But Nara itself signifies a man: is the etymology therefore reduced to absurdity? Not at all: Nara is also used as a proper name, as we shall see.[21] Probably the name really means what naturally it would seem to mean, "a man of the Nara family"; that Narayana ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... as he had expected, over seven years. The result, then, of very great labor, the 'Dictionary' appeared in 1755. It had distinct limitations. The knowledge of Johnson's day was not adequate for tracing the history and etymology of words, and Johnson himself on being asked the reason for one of his numerous blunders could only reply, with his characteristic blunt frankness, 'sheer ignorance.' Moreover, he allowed his strong prejudices to intrude, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... interested in etymology?' I asked. 'To my mind there is nothing more fascinating than the derivation of words—it's full of the romance and wonder of real life and history. Think of Magic, for instance; it comes, as no doubt you know, from the Magi, or ancient ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... make students familiar with "the Greek (and Latin) in English," i.e. with the etymology and history of words in our own language which had their origin in or through Greek ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... the sun loved Prokris the dew, and slew her by his arrows. Then when the first meaning of the names for sun, dew, and rays was lost, Kephalos, a shepherd, loved Prokris, a nymph, and we have a second tale which, by a folk-etymology, became the Story of Apollo, the Wolf. Tales were told of the sun under his frog name; later people forgot that frog meant "sun," and the result was the popular tale, A Frog, He Would ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... woman have ever so little guile, she must have tact, if she is a true woman. Now, tact, if its etymology is to be trusted, implies a fine sense and power of touch; so, in virtue of her sex, she pats a horse before she rides him, and a man before she drives him. There, ladies, there is an indictment in two counts; traverse either of them ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and every measure which she was supposed to approve. In the hurly-burly of wind and dust that was blown up under that passing cloud, it is not to be wondered that Dickens and copyright were as completely forgotten as orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody, and whatever else goes to the art of using language correctly. A strip of land that would not purchase the copyright of an almanac, became the subject of the fiercest congressional ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... home near Reate (an ancient Sabine town) upon Latium, whence they expelled the Siceli and subsequently settled down as Latini under a King Latinus (Dion Halic. i. 9. 60). The most generally accepted etymology of the name (ab origine), according to which they were the original inhabitants ( Gk. autochthones) of the country, is inconsistent with the fact that the oldest authorities (e.g. Cato in his Origines) regarded them as Hellenic immigrants, not as a native Italian people. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... passed seventeen. I'd die of mortification. And, oh, that fact holds a suggestion. Pardon me if I make a note of it, and—and—how do you spell accomplished, Captain Stewart? I really have so little time to give to etymology." ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... was their chief; Anthony, being the given name; and Mow, that of the breed of which he came;" rejoined Eben with confidence, satisfied that he had finally produced a sufficiently sonorous appellative and a perfectly lucid etymology. But criticism was diverted from its aim by the action of the prisoner, as these equivocal sounds struck his ear. Ruth recoiled, and clasped her little namesake closer to her side, when she saw the dazzling brightness of his glowing eyes, and the sudden and expressive dilation of his nostrils. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... discoverer of the inscription was pleased to insist, with great warmth, upon the etymology of the word patria, which signifying, says he, the land of my father, could be made use of by none, but such whose ancestors had resided here; but, in answer to this demonstration, as he called it, I only desired ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Sclavonian alphabet, never suspecting it to be a modern character. And, if you were to send a 'poulet' to a fine woman, in such a hand, she would think that it really came from the 'poulailler'; which, by the bye, is the etymology of the word 'poulet'; for Henry the Fourth of France used to send billets-doux to his mistresses by his 'poulailler', under pretense of sending them chickens; which gave the name of poulets to those short, but expressive manuscripts. I have often told you that every ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... DICTIONARY of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, combining Explanation with Etymology, and Illustrated by Quotations from the best Authorities. The Words with those of the same Family in German, Dutch, and Swedish, or in Italian, French, and Spanish, are traced to their Origin. The Explanations are deduced from the Primitive Meaning through their various usages. The Quotations ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire class, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,' short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... were the English language, the plays of Shakespeare, and the poets from Cowley to his own day. There can be no question of the services he rendered to the English language. His Dictionary, as was inevitable, had many faults, especially of etymology: but its publication marks an epoch in the history of English. It was a kind of challenge to the world. Other nations had till then inclined to look upon our language and literature as barbarous: and we had not been very sure ourselves that we had any right to a place on the Parnassus ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... 'Aroint thee, witch!' I find in several books of that age the words aloigne and eloigne—that is,—'keep your distance!' or 'off with you!' Perhaps 'aroint' was a corruption of 'aloigne' by the vulgar. The common etymology from ronger to gnaw ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... this curious "monk-bane" etymology is its absurdity. The real origin of the word has given etymologists ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... dictatorial power of individuals." By what violence to reason and to language is the word democracy applied to the system described by Lenine? To use words with such scant respect to their meanings, established by etymology, history, and universal agreement in usage, is to invite and indeed compel the contempt of minds disciplined by reason's practices. As for the claim that there is no contradiction in principle between democratic ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... Vera, at that point in Mindanao, south from Lake Lanao. Puerto de la Sabanilla was anciently called Tuboc, on account of the springs that flow there ... which form the river now named Malabang. The etymology of this last name indicates the formation of land by the deposits made by the river, which may also be seen in the delta of the Rio Grande of Mindanao. (Retana and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... the French viewpoint. Jardin[3] opines that, as regards the etymology of the word coffee, scholars are not agreed and perhaps never will be. Dufour[4] says the word is derived from caouhe, a name given by the Turks to the beverage prepared from the seed. Chevalier d'Arvieux, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... moment of writing this, and seems to be cheerful and enjoying himself. He asks me to read him something of ours, but I told him that without you the oracle was dumb. Pray prepare to renew your services to our Muses. My promise shall be performed on the day named: for I have taught you the etymology of fides.[734] Take care to make a complete recovery. I shall be ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the similarity in sound between the names for "wolf" and "brightness." Aryan mythology furnishes numerous other instances of this confusion. The solar deity, Phoibos Lykegenes, was originally the "offspring of light"; but popular etymology made a kind of werewolf of him by interpreting his name as the "wolf-born." The name of the hero Autolykos means simply the "self-luminous"; but it was more frequently interpreted as meaning "a very wolf," in allusion to the supposed ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... although historians have neglected to record information about the very substance by which they sought to keep and transmit the chronicles they most desired to preserve. From the beginning of the Christian era to the present day, "Ink" literature, exclusive of its etymology, chemical formulas, and methods of manufacture, has been confined to brief statements in the encyclopedias, which but repeat each other. A half dozen original articles, covering only some particular branch ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... particular theory of cosmic evolution. As a mental attitude Atheism is quite independent of any theory of cosmic working, so long as that theory does not involve an appeal to deity. As we shall see, Atheism, from the point of view both of history and etymology, stands for the negation of theism, and its final justification must be found in the untenability of the ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... the Anglo-Saxons and kindred tribes, who crossed over to Britain under Hengist and Horsa in the fifth century, were direct descendants of Abraham, their very name Sakkasuna, that is, sons of Isaac, vouching for the truth of the theory. The radical falseness of the etymology is patent. The gist of their argument is that the tribe of Dan settled near the source of the Jordan, becoming the maritime member of the Israelitish confederacy, and calling forth from Deborah the rebuke that the sons of Dan tarried in ships when the ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... premise an investigation as regards the name of the town of Nazareth. Since that name occurs in the New Testament only, different views might arise as to its orthography and etymology. One view is this: The name was properly and originally [Hebrew: ncr]. Being the name of a town, it received, in Aramean, in addition, the feminine termination [Hebrew: a]. And, finally, on account of the original appellative signification of the word, a [Hebrew: ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... requires special circumstances for another to install himself there and take possession of it, nevertheless it is certain that, in normal life, our spiritual tribunal, our for interieur,—as the French have called it, with that profound intuition which we often discover in the etymology of words,—is a kind of forum, or spiritual market place, in which the majority of those who have business there come and go at will, look about them and pick out the truths, in a very different fashion and much more freely than we would have to ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... was borrowed from the US... churchyarder: Sounding as if dying—ready for the churchyard cemetery cobber: mate, friend. Used to be derived from Hebrew chaver via Yiddish. General opinion now seems to be that it entered the language too early for that—and an English etymology is preferred. fiver: a five pound (sterling) note (or "bill") fossick: pick out gold, in a fairly desultory fashion. In old "mullock" heaps or crvices in rocks. jackaroo: (Jack kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)—someone, in early days a new immigrant ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... a clue to the common idea running through all these meanings, the author refers to the etymology of the word, which, in most languages, points to something ordained by law. Even although there be many things considered just, that we do not usually enforce by law, yet in these cases it would give us pleasure if law could be brought to bear upon offenders. When we think a person bound ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... be interpreted by comparison with myths in the Rig Veda. Their origin was to be ascertained by discovering the Aryan root and original significance of the names of gods and heroes, such as Saranyu—Erinnys, Daphne—Dahana, Athene—Ahana. The etymology and meaning of such names being ascertained, the origin and sense of the myths in which the ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... Irish leith bhrogan, the one-shoemaker (cf. brogue), according to Dr. Hyde. He is generally seen (and to this day, too) working at a single shoe, cf. Croker's story "Little Shoe," l.c. pp. 142-4. According to a writer in the Revue Celtique, i. 256, the true etymology is luchor pan, "little man." Dr. Joyce also gives the same etymology in Irish Names and Places, i. 183, where he mentions ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... are other forces now drawing into the field to support the long-neglected claims of tradition. Etymology, which professed to settle doubts by an appeal to the elementary sounds of words, was banished from the politer and more influential circles of English learning by a decree as arbitrary as that pronounced on the poems of Ossian. It has come back with a new commission ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... grammar it has been customary to learn the kinds of sentence and the parts of speech in a simple form in the third and fourth grades and in each succeeding year to review these topics, gradually enlarging and expanding the definitions, inflections, and constructions into a fuller etymology and syntax. In United States history we are beginning to adopt a similar plan of repetitions, and the frequent reviews in arithmetic are designed to make good the lack of thoroughness and mastery which should characterize each successive grade ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... thing to be done, as I thought when I wrote my Essay, was to throw out all discussions of the word contagion, and this I did effectually by the careful wording of my statement of the subject to be discussed. My object was not to settle the etymology or definition of a word, but to show that women had often died in childbed, poisoned in some way by their medical attendants. On the other point, I, at least, have no controversy with anybody, and I think the student will do well to ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... tales of transformation and transmigration which are found all over the world. That the same view of the body as a mere clothing of the soul was taken by our Teutonic and Scandinavian ancestors, is evident even from the etymology of the words leichnam, lkhama, used to express the ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... in rabbinical learning plunged the child into the mazes of Talmudic casuistry as soon as he could read; frequently he had not read the Bible or studied the rudiments of grammar. The Gaon insisted that every one should first master the twenty-four books of the Bible, their etymology, prosody, and syntax, then the six divisions of the Mishnah with the important commentaries and the suggested emendations, and finally the Talmud in general, without wasting much time on pilpul, which brings no practical result. "These few lines," says a writer, "contain a more thorough ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... hand. He sat down at the table, put the three heavy volumes of Gazis's Dictionary, the Syntax of Asopios, and his other handbooks of study in their usual order, then set out his ink and paper, and found in his "Iliad" the page marked for the next day. He began his work by noting the etymology of each word, the syntax of every phrase, and the peculiarities of each hexameter. His class had reached the sixth book of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual order and unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no earthly or ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... by MS. Harl. 2258, and Lansd. 225. f. 431. as quoted by Mr. Nicholas, in the Retrosp. Rev. vol. i. N.S. The former of these MSS. states: Euery standard and Guydhome [whence the etymology of the word is obvious] to have in the chief the crosse of St. George, to be slitte at the ende, and to conteyne the creste or supporter, with the posey, worde, and devise of the owner." It adds, that "a guydhome must be two yardes and a halfe, or three yardes longe." ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... word "Renaissance" has a broader meaning than its strict etymology would imply. It was a "new birth," but something more than the revival of Greek learning and the study of nature entered into it. It was the grand consummation of Italian intelligence in many departments—the arrival at maturity of the Christian ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... by name. Only this younger had children,—serene Kaiserinn that now is, one of them: The elder died childless, [1731, Michaelis, i. 132.] precisely a few months before the times we are now got to; reigning Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, ["Welf-BOOTHS" (Hunted Camp of the Welfs), according to Etymology. "Brunswick," again, is BRAUN'S-Wick; "Braun" (Brown) being an old militant Welf in those parts, who built some lodge for himself, as a convenience there,—Year 880, say the uncertain old Books. Hubner, t. 149; Michaelis, &c.] all but certain Apanages, and does not concern us ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... territory accorded to the Parisii could not have exceeded more than ten or twelve leagues, adjoining to the lands of a people termed Silvanectes on the one side, and to those of the Carnutes on the other. It is conjectured that the name of Parisii received its etymology from their being a people who inhabited the borders, as Par and Bar are synonymous from the P and the B having had the same signification, and which are often confused together at the present time by the Germans; and Barisii or Barrisenses, signifying a people inhabiting a space between other ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... brand of deep disgrace. The Chamberlain is of course quoting from the Latin text of the law.] 196 [Militem (soldier) here signifies a full-fledged gentleman, of ancient lineage. Skartabell (a word of uncertain etymology) was a term applied to a newly created noble, who was not yet entitled to all the privileges of ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... British usage, and he produced a work of great originality and value. Unfortunately, like many other clever men, he had the notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own consciousness as well as definitions, and he included in his work so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of the facts which did happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, these ...
— The evolution of English lexicography • James Augustus Henry Murray
... in the Spanish. The translation follows the French version. The text perhaps is corrupt. The word introfatibles is not found in any of the Spanish dictionaries nor is it a learned compound whose meaning is apparent from its etymology. Professor H.R. Lang suggests that cosas corruptibles may be the proper reading. The sentence is omitted in the corresponding ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... the spring begins with March. The connection with Mars suggests a possible etymology for the Morris,—which is usually explained, for want of something better, as a Morisco or Moorish dance. There is some resemblance between the Morris and the Salic dance. The Salic games are said to have been instituted by the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various |
