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In Longman's Edward the Third, vol. ii. p. 15, we have mention of a fourteenth-century form

gossip-red.

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But the enmity between the "English by blood" and "English by birth still went on, and the former married with the Irish, adopted their language, laws, and dress, and became bound to them also by "gossipred fosterage."

66

and

The words of this formation seem to be specially adapted for the expression of human relationships, whether natural, moral, or social. This is the case with the three already instanced, as well as with others belonging to the Saxon stage of the language. We must not omit the word neighbourhood, which is one of these terms of social relationship, and which was originally 'neighbourred,' as we find it far into the transition period. Thus in the Old English Homilies, ed. Morris (Early English Text Society), p. 137.

'Mon sulðe his elmesse penne he heo gefed swulche monne de he for scome wernen ne mei for nezeburredde.'

Man sells his alms when he giveth it to such a man as he for very shame cannot warn off [= decline giving to] by reason of the ties of neighbour

hood.'

few now,

-lock, -ledge. These are very and were not numerous in Saxon, where the termination was in the form -lac: as, brydlac, marriage; guolac, battle; reaflac, spoil; scinlac, sorcery, &c. The word lac here is an old word for play, and still exists locally in the term lake-fellow for playfellow. To lake is common in Cumberland and Westmoreland in the sense of ' to play.' It is not generally known, I believe, it certainly was not known to me until I learnt it by a friendly annotation on this sheet,-that when tourists. to the Lakes are called lakers, the natives imply the double meaning of Lake-admirers and idlers.

Examples:-charlock, wedlock; and in an altered form,

knowledge.

T

Guthlac was not only a word for battle, but was also a man's name, to wit, of the Hermit of Croyland. So that the personal signification of warlock does not prevent us from regarding it also as one of this class, at least by assimilation. It is probably a modification of the Saxon war-loga, which Grein eloquently translates veritatis infitiator, and which was applicable to almost any sort of intelligent being that was perfidious, and under a ban, and beyond the pale of humanity.

-hood was an independent substantive in Saxon literature, in the form of hád. This word signified office, degree, faculty, quality. Thus, while the power and jurisdiction of a bishop was called 'biscopdom' and 'biscopric,' the sacred function which is bestowed in consecration was called biscophád. Sax. Chron. (E) 1048. And the verb for ordaining or consecrating was one one which signified the bestowal of hád, viz. 'hadian.'

Examples:-boyhood, brotherhood, childhood, hardihood, likelihood, maidenhood, manhood, sister hood, widowhood.

An altered form is -head, as in Godhead, an alteration which makes it difficult for many to see that it is the analogue of manhood, and as if God-hood. It is sometimes written -hed, as lustihed, maidenhed (virginitas), sainthed. This is Spenser's form, with the single or double D, -hed or -hedd, as in his description of a comet :

dreryhedd.

All as a blazing starre doth farre outcast

His hearie beames, and flaming lockes dispredd,
At sight whereof the people stand aghast;

But the sage wisard telles, as he has redd,

That it importunes death and dolefull dreryhedd.'

bountihed.

The Faerie Queene, iii. 1. 16.

'She seemed a woman of great bountihed.'

Id. iii. I. 41.

The word livelihood merits notice by itself. It has been assimilated to this class by the influence of such forms as likelihood. The original Saxon word was lif-ladu (vitae cursus), the course or leading of life. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was written liflode, and was the commonest word for 'living' in the sense of means of life, where we now have the (unhistorical) form livelihood.

This formative is represented in German by -heit, as echt, genuine; Echtheit, genuineness.

-ship is from the old verb SCAPAN to shape; and indeed it is the mere addition of the general idea of shape on to the noun of which it becomes the formative abstract. It corresponds to the German -schaft, as Gesell, companion; Gesellschaft, society.

Examples: doctorship, fellowship, friendship, lordship, ladyship, ownership, proctorship, trusteeship, workmanship, worship (= worth-ship).

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Illustrations:-
:-

The proctorship and the doctorship.'-Clarendon, History, i. § 189.

Trusteeship has been converted into ownership.'-Edward Hawkins, D.D., Our Debts to Cæsar and to God, 1868.

In the translation of Bunsen's Gott in der Geschichte, by S. Winkworth, vol. i. p. 292, there is the form acquaintanceship.

The Dutch form is -schap, as in Landschap, German Landschaft-a word which we have borrowed from the Dutch artists, and which we retain in the form of landscape.

The form -ric is an old word for rule, sway, dominion, jurisdiction. We have but one word left with this formative, viz. bishopric. There used to be others, as cyneric, which we now call kingdom, but which the Germans call Königreich. They would not regard the last syllable in this word as a

formative, but as an independent substantive Reich, and they would regard Königreich as a compound. We cannot so regard bishopric, simply because we have lost ric as a distinct substantive. But when the word bishopric was first made, it was made as a compound.

The same is true of all this group of nouns in -dom, -ness, -had, -red, -ship, that they were originally started as compounds, but the latter syllable having lost its independent hold on the speech, it has come to be regarded as a mere formative attached to the body of the word by flexional symphytism.

At the end of the Saxon list it seems most natural to mention a few words which make their appearance for the first time with the modern English language, and of which the origin is obscure. Such are boy, girl, pig, dog.

The next forms of nouns were those which we obtained from the French in the period when our language was still in a nascent state. Some of our French nouns are not easy to classify. As examples we may name madam, beldame (Spenser often), and the word garden (French jardin) which the people all over the country have such an inclination to terminate with -ing. In this there may possibly be some reminiscence of a French pronunciation. At any rate in America (where the rapid disappearance of the uncultivated forms of speech is teaching writers to prize them) we have good authority for its recognition.

The second series of Mr. Lowell's Biglow Papers was inscribed to Judge Hoar, who is the judge celebrated in the following lines:

An' I've ben sence a-visitin' the Jedge,
Whose garding whispers with the river's edge,
Where I've sat mornin's lazy as the bream
Whose on'y business is to head-up the stream

(We call 'em punkin-seed), or else to chat
Along 'ith the Jedge, who covers with his hat

More wit, an' gumption, an' shrewd Yankee sense
Than is mosses on an ole stone fence.'

To the above may be added bargain, truant, minion, range, issue, and the word aunt, old French ante (Latin amita), which they have since altered to tante by prefixing a merely euphonic 1.

Not unfrequently the French nouns which came into English had been previously borrowed from the Franks, or some race of Gothic stock. Thus guardian, which occurs in every chief language of Europe, is from an Old High Dutch word, which corresponds to the last syllable in the Saxon name Edward. In our form warden, we cast off the French guise of the first syllable, but retained the Romanesque termination, Latin -ianus, French -ien.

Among the most thoroughly domesticated of the French

forms is

-ry or -ery (French -erie) e.g. cavalry, chapelry, deanery, fishery, imagery, Jewry, mockery, poetry, pottery, poultry, rookery, sorcery, spicery, swannery, trumpery (French tromperie), witchery.

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Illustrations:-shrubbery is from the old homely word scrub in the sense which it bears in Wormwood Scrubs,' and in the following quotation:

'It [the barony of Farney] was then a wild and almost unenclosed alder plain, and consisted chiefly of coarse pasturage interspersed with low alder scrub.-W. Steuart Trench, Realities of Irish Life, p. 66.

fopperies, trumperies.

'What a world of fopperies there are-of crosses, of candles, of holy water, and salt, and censings! Away with these trumperies.'-Bishop Hall.

mockeries.

'I think we are not wholly brain,

Magnetic mockeries.'-In Memoriam, cxix.

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