Dictionary of English Etymology, Volume 2 |
Common terms and phrases
applied bird bird-lime blow Bohem boil Bret called Castr cattle chatter Chaucer Chitterling cloth commonly corn corruption crack dabble derivation Diez equivalent Esthon explained expression flap flutter formerly Fris gabber Gael gambeson give glima glisa Goth grimmen Grisons ground hair hand hang Hence horse idea imitation kind knob knot laager language leggia light liquid Lith look loose lourche lump mesti mouth mutter nasalized noise notion one's original meaning pick piece Piedm prick probably properly Prov quod radical meaning representing the sound Romance languages root Rouchi Russ seems sense shake shine shiver signifying slack snarl soft speak Swab Swiss syllable taken tattle term thence thick thing tion Venet verb Walach Westerwald whence wlap word
Popular passages
Page 242 - Sir, against one o'clock prepare yourself; Till when you must be fasting; only take Three drops of vinegar in at your nose, Two at your mouth, and one at either ear; Then bathe your fingers...
Page 163 - And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here, and watch with me.
Page 441 - These, when a child haps to be got, Which after proves an idiot, When folks perceive it thriveth not, The fault therein to smother, Some silly doating brainless calf, That understands things by the half, Says that the fairy left this aulf, And took away the other.
Page 149 - who know very little of arts or sciences, or the powers of nature, will laugh at us Cardiganshire miners, who maintain the existence of knockers, in mines ; a kind of good-natured impalpable people, not to be seen but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines ; that is to say, they are the types, or forerunners, of working in mines, as dreams are of some accidents which happen to us.
Page 343 - Ars ista poetica nuncupatur ars macaronica a macaronibus derivata, qui macarones sunt quoddam pulmentum farina, caseo, botiro, compaginatum, grossum, rude et rusticanum; ideo macaronices nil nisi grassedinem, ruditatem et vocabulazzos debet in se continere.
Page 175 - Platt-Deutsch yitdc, a company, corporation, society of burghers meeting on stated occasions for the purpose of feasting and merrymaking. The primary meaning is a feast, then the company assembled ; and the same transference of signification will be observed in the word company itself, which, signifying in the first instance ' a number of persons eating together...
Page 149 - The miners have a notion that the knockers are of their own tribe and profession, and are a harmless people who mean well. Three or four miners together shall hear them sometimes, but if the miners stop to take notice of them, the knockers will also stop ; but let the miners go on at their own work, suppose it is boring...
Page 519 - I know our country disposition well ; In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks They dare not show their husbands ; their best conscience Is not to leave undone, but keep unknown.
Page 347 - That fir'd thy youth, flames unsubdued by age ! Though wealth, nor fame, now touch thy sated mind, Still tinge the canvas, bounteous to mankind ; Since after thee may rise an impious line, Coarse manglers of the human face divine, Paint on, till Fate dissolve thy mortal part* And live and die the monarch of thy art.
Page 194 - A great many Indians in canoes came to the ship to-day for the purpose of bartering their cotton, and hamacas or nets in which they sleep/ It is supposed that this name owes its being to the hamack tree, from the bark of which they were woven. However that may be, the modern hammock of these tropical Red Men is so light and so delicate in texture that during the day one may wear it as a sash, while at night it forms an incomparable couch.