THE American Dictionary OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Based on the Latest Conclusions of the Most Eminent Philologists AND COMPRISING MANY THOUSANDS OF NEW WORDS WHICH MODERN LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART HAVE CALLED INTO EXISTENCE AND COMMON USAGE Together with Pronunciations the most approved ; Etymologies based on the researches of Skeai^ Wedgwood, and their co-laborers ; and Definitions which include new meani?igs sanctioned by good modern 7isage, and old meanings foimd in the works of several of the old masters of the language, but never before published in any Lexicon. dompileJ) anb ebiteb unber tl^c imntcMote snjjcroision of PROFESSOR DANIEL LYONS. NEW YORK PETER FENELON COLLIER & SON M C M 1 1 PREFACE. ^^T IS confidently expected that this dictionary will commend itself to all those who favor books of reference on the multuni in parvo plan. Every accepted word in the English language will be found in its pages ; and, in addition, many technical terms which the advance of modern science and the recent rapid spread of useful knowledge in the United States have made part and parcel of our popular literature ; also many old words and meanings found in the writings of the Elizabethan and Queen Anne periods. It has been found necessary to enlarge upon many words, whose full and real meaning is not adequately disclosed by a mere definition. To all definitions which do not apply in this country, the American meaning has been added. Local meanings, words and phrases ; provincialisms, both English and American, and a few slang words and phrases — all of which are instructive as showing the natural growth, and in some cases the debasement, of the pure stock of our language — are given for what they are worth, and only in such instances as are to be met with in early and recent standard works. The etymology of each word will be found at the end of the definition of the primitive word. These etymologies will be found to differ materially from those found in other diction- aries, of even recent date. As it is only within the past twenty-five years that the etymology of English words has attained even the semblance of an exact science, these new etymolo- gies will be found, in general, more correct than those of any preceding work. The industrious labors of Skeat, Wedgwood and other recent authorities on English philology, leave the most patient lexicographer with many open questions upon his hands. For this very sufficient reason, the editors of this dictionary announce, simply, that they have given the latest and what to them seem the most imperative conclusions of the science of English philology — a science which, though rapidly progressing, is still, on the whole, quite incomplete. We have but to add that, in general, the aim of the editors of the " American Dictionary of the English Language " has been to give to the public a convenient lexicon which will decide all questions about words, which arise in the course of general reading, and to give to the American reading public the latest, most authentic and most complete conclusions of English philology. , New York, March i, 1892. INTRODUCTION. ■yiTHEir Pope wrote " The proper study of mankind VV is man," he gave to the world a most palpable truism. It seems to us of this age of science, that the much-quoted assertion was hardly worth the penning. Every science now leads up to and down to man. In him chemistry has its highest exponent ; zoology, its acme ; astronomy, the final object of its search among the planets as well as the final object of solar and planetary influences. If we search the stratified rocks of geology, we find his imprint and those of his animal " ancestors " in Evolution. Geographical exploration finds him, or the remnants of him, wellnigh everj'^- where. Archseology excavates and deciphers hiero- glyphics, and lo ! the buried city and the long-locked mausoleum give up the dead rulers and chieftains of prehistoric ages. For centuries learned men studied the various lan- guages and dialects of the earth. They brought the dead languages of ancient civilizations into schools and colleges. More recently they studied the rude and un- couth languages and dialects of barbarous and savage tribes. They sagely guessed at the origin of modern words, and many of their guesses were printed in books and studied as philology. Naturally, the fount- ain-head from which flowed the stream of their inves- tigations was the Syro-Chaldaic, the supposed original language of the Semitic people, spoken in the cradle of the human race. On this basic line the dead lan- guages, and many of the languages of modern Europe, were studied, their roots were unearthed and deci- phered, and the older French, German and other Con- tinental savants piled up a philological literature of enormous proportions, hopelessly locked against the nonprofessional, and for the most part utterly worth- less, in the light of modern philological research. The philological savants of England and America were content to follow the German and French scholars in this line of investigation. The old and misleading line of philological research was not seriously taken up to any extent, in even the highest English and American institutions of learning. No original investigations were attempted. The French and German scholars had pre-empted the field, and the occasional echo heard at Oxford or Harvard was from some imported Orient- alist who had studied and travelled among cuneiform inscriptions and had finished his studies at Paris or Berlin. The exception to this, in this countrj% is of course the great " Webster's Unabridged Dictionary," so long valued [for its depth and for its patient and painstak- ing selection of the results of French and German philological research up to the date of its publication. But the investigations, the systematized canons of derivation, and the classification of root-forms to be found in that great work of a laborious lifetime, will live in history as the magnificent ruin of a noble struct- ure which but for a few short years outlived its builder. In modern editions of the "Unabridged," the bulk of the philological canons and systems, which cost their author so much to get together, must be omitted ; though, despite all this, there is but one "Webster's Unabridged." Modern English etymology divides all languages into Aryan and non- Aryan. Our language is one of the former ; Hebrew and Arabic belong to the latter classification. It is easy to conclude, therefore, that no English word is dei'ived from a Hebrew or an Arabian root ; and that no word of either Hebrew or Arabian extraction could come into the English unless the word was actually borrowed and made a part of the latter through custom and constant usage. If the English- speaking people could not come in contact with the people of Arabia or Palestine, we would have no He- brew or Arabian words in our language. In the early ages of civilization, peaceable inter - visitations be- tween even neighboring peoples were few and infre- quent ; and between distant peoples, absolute non-inter- course was the rule with very slight exception. Two very important facts must be noted, as the natural and inevitable result of this. First, the two original divisions of languages found at the dawn of written history — the Aryan and the non- Aryan — ^had a tendency to diverge more and more widely from each other as time advanced. Each grew and developed and changed along different basic lines, and in obedience to different climatic, social, moral and even physiological influences. Under primitive con- ditions the divergence of the two languages had a tendency to more and more estrange the nations and peoples speaking them, to build up widely differing systems of government, religion, and the other con- comitants of civilization. At this day, therefore, we should not expect to find words in the English — one of the Aryan family of languages — whose roots are trace- able to a non-Aryan language, such as the Hebrew. We must note, secondly, that two peoples of the Aryan race, and whose remote ancestors originally spoke the same language, might, in the course of ages, become so widely separated as to develop finallj' into very different and differently-speaking communities. The original word — spoken exactly alike before their separation — would become modified so that it would be different in sound. The fact, therefore, that an English word sounds very much like a word we may find in some other language does not prove, or even tend to prove, that the two words are related. On the contrary, if the two words in question had been origi- nally the same word, they would now be very different — ■ would look but very little, if any, alike I In the study of linguistic roots we must be cautious, go slow, and not be led astray bj'^ mere appearances. The comparative studj' of languages, which is now absolutely essential to the proper study of English ety- mology, has a most important aid in the comparative study of peoples — their manners, customs, religious be- liefs and superstitions, their folk-lore and their legend- ary literature. And, conversely, since the new era of comparative philology has dawned upon the world of (V) VI INTRODUCTION. learning, much valuable information has been obtained concerning ancient and mediieval peoples and their re- lations to each other at certain periods when history itself leaves manj' important questions in doubt. In the study of borrowed words, particularly, is this the case. Words introduced into English from the Old High Ger- man and other languages of tlie Continent are admir- ably handled by Skeat and his co-laborers, so as to throw much needed light upon even so recent a period as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In order to follow the changes and modifications of root-forms from the parent stem to the present English word, it will be necessarj' at the outset to have care- fully studied Grimm's Law, a condensed summaiy of which will be found elsewhere. This Law may be justlj' regarded as the key to modern English etymology, as well as its foundation aud vital principle. The history of the English language most familiar to all persons of fair education is that it was at first Anglo-Saxon ; that, after the Norman Conquest, in 1066, man}' new words were introduced from the French of that tiuae ; and that, down to our own day, new words have been constantly added, formed lai'gel}'^ from the Latin and Greek. From the earliest Saxon times down to the present, this history has been divided into peri- ods and epochs, each mai'king the rise, progress and deca}' of some distinctive variety of literature. We have, for example, the epochs of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, the Restoration, Queen Anne, the Georg- ian, and, in our own day, the modern epoch of the En- glish language, with a well-defined and somewhat vary- ing development in the United States and in Great Britain. These epochs have been studied with reference to the development of English literature rather than the English language. This study has given glory and re- nown to the illustrious masters with whose names the English language shall be forever associated ; but it tells us nothing of the birth, parentage and growth of the words which have been the masters' servants — at times their slaves and playthings. And j'et these little words in their root-forms were serving the human race long, long before the Saxon set foot on Britain ; and they will continue to delight, and give comfort, and preserve for unborn generations the beautiful, the sublime, the good and the true thoughts and mind-pictures of the masters, long after the lai'ge majority of present and past litterateurs have ceased to be named, in literary circles ! These words have a veneraiale historj', back in those early days when man — and lovely woman — first learned they had two tongues, one in each head ! When words — these very root-forms unearthed by the learned Skeat and his co-laborers — first came into fashion the race was indeed in its infancy, non-progressive and unenterpris- ing. At that early day, we stand truly at the dawTi of a new era. Man begins to speak in words, and his fellow-man understands him. Then comes a separa- tion, and different tribes, races and nations set up, each one for itself; Is not the historj' of words, from their parent-forms to their present fair and harmonious proportions, a his- tory worth writing and studjnng? In so doing we shall not be studjnng or glorifying the ideas of great individuals, the greatest of whom must reach total or partial oblivion with the lapse of ages ; but we shall be studying and marking the progress of the human species itself, from its primitive or primeval helpless- ness to its reign of universal empire, acquired by the " communication of thought by means of words." We shall find men of a race all but extinct leaving perhaps some strange inscription on a buried temple or burial vault, by which insci'iption the learned will discover their descendants and trace a connection between the living words of to-day and the words first uttered by the human voice. We shall see the human race in its dispersion to the vainous habitable portions of the globe carrying with it to its new-found homes the precious gift of articulate language, developing into' forms as various as the scattered habitations them- selves, but still maintaining intact the germ, the root, common to the different members of the original linguistic family-. Ages pass, and men begin to visit the homes of races that were not of the same family. A conquering stranger race brings new and strange woi'ds to its conquered foe, along with its chains and its oppressions, but the language of the enslaved and captive race does not wholly perish. After long ages words of the captive race are found in the language of tlie con- quei'or. Sometimes they are kept because the\- have the same sounds ; but they are not of the same parent stock — one was Aryan, the other non- Aryan. Again, two long-separated tribes, members of the same linguistic family, are brought into contact. Their words do not sound alike. Words with the same mean- ing have invariably a different sound, and neither tribe adopts any of the words of the other. Thus their words, descended from the same parent-form, continue to grow more and more divergent, at the same time preserving a certain uniformity of variation. It is the triumph of modern etymology that it gives the rule to determine what this uniformity is and in what words it is found. Coming down to the Fall of the Roman Empire, we find two polished, highly -finished languages in Europe, the Greek and the Latin. The northern races that completed the overthrow and shared the spoils of the Empire of the West found their richest treasure, without appreciating it, in the smooth, precise and musical language of "Virgil, Horace and Cicero. The Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, found a Celtic tongue on the island of Britain in 449. The familiar modifications of the Latin, now known to us as French, Spanish and Italian, began their development at this time. It is highly probable that the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, had received additions from the Latin which ante-date the additions and modifications which affected it after the Norman Conquest. The same is probably true of the Teutonic dialect spoken by the German Franks before Clovis crossed into Gaul ; and also of the Celtic dialects spoken in Gaul and Britain, respectively, before the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish conquests of those countries. On this view of the case, the "English " which resulted from the amalgamation of the Celtic-Latin-Germanic Norman-French with the Celtic-Saxon of England must have been a verj' com- plex and heterogeneous compound. But time works many wonders. The Church Latin of the Ages of Faith no doubt added its contributions to the Old English vocabulary. It aided in toning down the harshness of the early French to the Romance dialects which succeeded. When the Conqueror won at Hastings, he brought a less uncouth language to enrich the vocabulary of England than that which was used by his pirate ancestors. The study of Latin in the monasteries and univer- sities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the use of that language by the scholars and churchmen of England, gave to many of the productions of English authors of that time a" decidedly Johnsonese tone aco pretentiousness. INTRODUCTIOIf. Vll During all this time simple, short words were quietly resting in the bosom of Old English. Some were related to the Swedish, Old High German, Scan- dinavian and Gothic. Some were Celtic in disguise, carried captive by the Frank and Roman, in Gaul, and by the Saxon, in Britain ! These little words did not die. And they were related — manj' of them — to the smoothly-flowing Latin of Cicero, and the roaring, rolling, resonant Greek of Demosthenes and Homer. These little words came to us from flie tribal settle- ments of primeval man. They are Aryan or Indo- European, and they do not come to us from the Semitic Hebrew or S^'ro-Ohaldaic, and cannot, at present, be traced to the cradle of the human race. They are the imperishable little words that Swift loved and could use so effectualljr to strike his hardest blows. They are also the " toughest " riddles that modern English et3'mology gives us to solve — thej' are so old, so often hunted down and so little. We must now brieflj' review the different languages which have contributed to the present structure and form of English words — either by adaptation or by natural descent. There is a class of words of Old Low German descent. The term includes a limited class of words, whose precise origin is enveloped in obscurity. "If not precisely English, they come very near it," says Skeat. The chief difficulty about them is that the time of their introduction into English is uncer- tain. Either they belong to Old Friesian and were introduced by the Friesians who came over to England with the Saxons, or to some form of Old Dutch or Old Saxon, and may have been introduced from Holland, possibly even in the fourteenth century, when it was not uncommon for Flemings to visit England, for com- mercial and other purposes, and end by taking up their residence there. The introduction of Dutch words into English re- ceived little attention until Skeat took up the subject. History shows that England's relations with Holland were often very close. We read of Flemish mercenary soldiers being" employed by the Normans, and of Flem- ish settlements in Wales, " where," says old Fabyan, "they remained a long wh3'le; but after, the3' sprad all Englande ouer." History tells us of the alliance between Edward III. and the free towns of Flanders ; and of the importation of Flemish weavers by the same monarch. The wool used by the cloth-workers of Flanders grew on the backs of English sheep ; closer relations between the two countries grew out of the brewing trade and the in- vention of printing, and were secured by the new bond of the Protestant faith. Caxton spent thirty years in Flanders (where the first English book was printed) and translated the Low German version of "Reynard the Fox." Tyndale settled at Antwerp to print his New Testament. After Antwerp had been captured by the Duke of Parma " a third of the merchants and manu- facturers of the ruined cit}%" saj's Mr. Green, " are said to have found a refuge on the banks of the Thames." All this must have affected the English langaiage at that time : and it is tolerably certain that dm'ing the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly the last, several Dutch words were intro- duced into England. Scandinavian or old Danish words were introduced into England b_y the Danes and Northmen who settled in the country at various times before the Conquest. Their language is best represented by Icelandic, owing to the curious fact that, ever since the first coloniza- tion of Iceland by the Northmen, about 874, the lan- guage of the settlers has been preserved with but slight changes. Hence, instead of its being strange that English words should be borrowed from Icelandic, it must be remembered that this name represents, for philological purposes, the language of those Northmen who, settling in England, became ancestors of some of the leading families in the country ; and, as they set- tled chieflj' in Northumbria and East Anglia, parts of England not strictlj' represented by Anglo-Saxon, "Icelandic" has come to be English of the English. Skeat, in some cases, derives " Scandinavian " words from Swedish, Danish or Norwegian ; but, he explains, this means that the Swedish, Danish or Norwegian words are the best representative of the Icelandic that can be found. The number of words adopted into mod- ern English from the Swedish and Danish is very small. The German language is properly called High German, to distinguish it from the other Teutonic dialects, which belong to Low German. This, of all Teutonic languages, is the furthest removed from English, and the one from which fewest words are directly borrowed, though there is a very general popular notion (due, says Skeat, to the utter want of philological training among English-speaking people) that the contrary' is the case. A knowledge of Ger- man is often the sole idea by which an Englishman or an American regulates his "derivations " of Teutonic words ; and he is better pleased if he can find the German equivalent of an English woixl than by any true account of the same word, however clearly ex- pressed. Yet it is well-established, b3' Grimm's Law of sound-shiftings, that the German and the English consonantal S3stems are ver3' different. Owing to the replacement of the Old High German p by the Modern German b, and other changes, English and German now approach each other more nearly than Grimm's Law suggests ; but we ma3' still observe the following ver3' striking difference in the dental consonants : English : cl t th day, tooth, thorn, foot. German : t z {ss) d ta^, zahn, dorn, fuss. The number of words in English that are borrowed directly from the German is quite insignificant, and the3' are all of late introduction. It is more to the purpose to remember that there are, nevertheless, a considerable number of German words that were bor- rowed indirectl\', viz., through the French. Examples of such words are, brmvn, dance, gay, guard, halbert, etc., man3' of which would hardl3' be at once suspected. It is precisely in accounting for these Frankish words that German is so useful to the English etymologist. The fact that we are highl3' indebted to German writers for their excellent philological work is veiy true and one to be thankfull3' acknowledged ; but that is quite another matter altogether. The influence of French upon English is too well known to require comment. But the method of the derivation of French words from Latin or German is often very difficult, and requires the greatest care. There are numerous French words in quite common use ; such as arse, ease, trancher, to cut, which have never yet been clearly solved : and the solution of man3' others is highlj' doubtful. Latin words often undergo the most curious transformations, as ma3' be seen by consulting Brachet's Historical Grammar. What are called " learned " words, such asmobile, which is merel3' a Latin word with a French ending, present no difRcult3' ; but the " popular " words in use since the first formation of the language are distinguished by three peculiarities : (1) the continuance of the tonic ac- cent, (2) the suppression of the short vowel, (3) the loss of medial consonant. The last two peculiarities tend to vffl INTKODUCTION. disguise the ori^n, and require much attention. Thus, in the Latin bonitatem, the short vowel i, near the mid- dle of the word, is suppressed; whence. F. bonte, E. bounty. And again, in the Latin ligare,. to bind, the medial consonant g, standing between two vowels, is lost, producing the F. Her, whence E. liable. The result is a great tendency to compression, of which an extraordinary but well-known example is the Low Latin mtaticum, reduced to edage by the suppression of the short vowel i, and again to eage by the loss of the medial consonant d ; hence F. dge, E. age. One other peculiarity is too important to be passed over. With rare exceptions, the substantives (as in all the Romance languages) are formed from the acou' sative case of the Latin, so that it is commonly a mere absurdity to cite the Latin nominative, when the form of the accusative is absolutely necessary to show how the French word arose. French may be considered as being a wholly un- original language, founded on debased Latin ; but it must at the same time be remembered that, as history teaches us, a certain part of the language is necessarily of Celtic origin, and another part is necessarily Frank- ish, that is. Old High German. It has also clearly borrowed words freely from Old Low German dialects, from Scandinavian (due to the Normans), and, in later times, from Italian, Spanish, etc., and even from En- glish and many entirely foreign languages. The other Romance languages, i. e., languages of Latin origin, are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Pro- vengal, Romansch and Wallachian. English contains words borrowed from the fli^t four of these, but there is not much in them that needs special remark. The Italian and Spanish forms are often useful for com- p;irison with, and consequent restoration of, the crushed and abbreviated Old French forms. Italian is remark- able for assimilation, as in ammirare (for admirare) to admire, ditto (for dido), a saying, whence E. ditto. Spanish, oo Hie other tiand, dislikes assimilaticMi, and carefully avoids double consonants; the only conso- nants that can be doubled are c, n, r, besides II, which is sounded as E. I followed by y consonant, and is not considered as a double letter. The Spanish ^ is sounded by y consonant, and occurs in duena, EngUshed as duenna. Spanish is also remarkable as containing many Arabic (Moorish) words, some of which have found their way into English. The ItaUan infinitives commonh' end in -are, -ere, -ire, with corresponding past participles in -ato, -uto, -ito. Spanish infinitives com- monlj' end in -ar, -er, -ir, with corresponding past par- ticiples in -ado, -ido, -ido. In all the Romance lan- guages, substantives are most commonly formed, as in French, from the Latin accusative. Words of Celtic origin form a particularly slippery subject to deal with, for want of definite information on their older forms in a conveniently accessible ar- rangement. That English has borrowed several words from Celtic cannot be doubted, but we must take care not to multiply the number of these unduly. Again, " Celtic " is merely a general term, and in itself means nothing definite, just as " Teutonic " and " Romance " are general terms. To prove that a word is Celtic, we must first show that the word is borrowed from one of the Celtic languages, as Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish or Breton, or that it is of a form which, by the help of these languages, can be fairly presumed to have ex- isted in the Celtic of an early period. The chief diffi- culty lies in the fact that Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Gaelic have all borrowed English words at various periods, and Gaelic has certainly also borrowed some words from Scandinavian, as history tells us must have been the case. We gain, however, some assistance by comparing all the languages of this class together, and again, by comparing them with Latin, Greek, San- skrit, etc., since the Celtic consonants often agree with these, and, at the same time, differ from Teutonic, Thus the word boast is probably Celtic, since it appears In Welsh, Comisb and Gbelic. CANONS FOR ETYMOLOGY. The Rev. Walter W. Skeat gives us the following excellent synopsis of this important subject in his " Etymological Dictionary of the English Language " : " In the course of the work, I have been led to adopt the follovsring canons, which merely express well-known principles, and are nothing new. Still, in the form of definite statements, they are worth giving : "1. Before attempting an etymologjs ascertain the earliest form and use of the word ; and observe chro- nology. "3. Observe history and geography; borrowings are due to actual contact. " 3. Observe phonetic laws, especially those which regulate the mutual relation of consonants in the vari- ous Aryan languages, at the same time comparing the vowel-sounds. "4. In comparing two words, A and B, belonging to the same language, of which A contains the lesser number of syllables, A must be taken to be the more original word, unless we have evidenae of contraction or other corruption. "5. In comparing two words, A and B, belonging to the same language and consisting of the same number of syllables, the older form can usually be distinguished by observing the sound of the principal vowel. " 6. Strong verbs, in the Teutonic languages, and the so-called ' irregular verbs ' in Latin, are commonly to be considered as primary, other related forms being taken from them. "7. The whole of a word, and not a portion only, ought to be reasonably accounted for; and, in tracing changes of form, any infringement of phonetic laws is to be regarded with suspicion. " 8. Mere resemblances of form and apparent con- nection in sense between languages which have differ- ent phonetic laws or no necessary connection are com- monly a delusion, and are not to be regarded. '• 9. When words in two different languages are more nearly alike than the ordinary phonetic laws would allow, there is a strong probability that one lan- guage has borrowed the word from the other. Truly cognate words ought not to be too much alike. " 10. It is useless to offer an explanation of an En- glish word which will not also explain all the cognate forms. "These principles, and other similar ones well known to comparative philologists, I have tried to ob- serve. Where I have not done so, there is a chance of a mistake. Corrections can only be made by a more strict observance of the above canons. " A few examples will make the matter clearer. " 1. The word surloin, or sirloin, is often said to be derived from the fact that the loin was knighted as Sir Loin by Charles II., or (according to Richardson) by James I. Chronology makes short work of this state- ment, the word being in use long before James I. was born. It is one of those unscrupulous inventions with which English ' etymology ' abounds, and which many people admire because they are * so clever.* The nam* ber of those who literally prefer a story about a word to a more prosaic account of it is only too large. "As to the necessity for ascertaining the oldest form and use of a word there cannot be two opinions. Yet this primary and all-important rule is continually disregarded, and men are found to rush into 'etymolo* gies ' without the slightest attempt at investigation or any knowledge of the history of the language, and think nothing of deriving words which exist in Anglo- Saxon from German or Italian. They merely ' think it over,' and take up with the first fancy that comes to hand, which they expect to be ' obvious ' to others be- cause they were themselves incapable of doing better ; which is a poor argument, indeed. It would be easy to cite some specimens which I have noted (with a view to the possibility of making a small collection of sucb philological curiosities), but it is hardly necessary. 1 will rather relate my experience — viz. : that I have fre- quently set out to find the etymology of a word with- out any preconceived ideas about it, and usually found that, by the time its earliest use and sense had been fairly traced, the etymology presented itself unasked. " 2. The history of a nation generally accounts for the constituent parts of its language. When an early English word is compared with Hebrew or Coptic, as used to be done in the old editions of "Webster's Dic- tionary," history is set at defiance ; and it was a good deed to clear the later editions of all such rubbish. As to geography, there must always be an intelligible geo- graphical contact between races that are supposed to have borrowed words from one another ; and this is particularly true of olden times, when travelling was less common. Old French did not borrow words from Portugal, nor did Old English borrow words from Prussia, much less from Finnish or Esthonian or Cop- tic, etc., etc. Yet there are people who still remain persuaded that Whitsunday is derived, of all things, from the German Pfingsten. " 3. Few delusions are more common than the comparison of L. cura with E. care, of Gr. sAtf with E. tvJwle, and of Gr. x^pt with E. charity. I daresay I myself believed in these things for many years, owing to that utter want of any approach to any philological training, for which England in general has long been so remarkable. Yet a very slight (but honest) attempt at understanding the English, the Latin and the Greek alphabets soon shows these notions to be untenable. The E. care, A. S. cearu, meant, originally, sorrow, which is only a second- ary meaning of the Latin word ; it never meant, orig- inally, attention or painstaking. But this is not the point at present under consideration. Phonetically, the A.S. c and the L. c, when used Initially, do not cor- respond ; for where Latin writes c at the beginning of a word, A. S. has h, as in L. cehare=h.. S. hel-an, to hide. Again, the A. S. ea, before r following, stands for original a, cearu answering to an older carii. But (ix) INTRODUCTION. the L. oara. Old Latin coira, is spelt with a long u, originally a diphthong, which cannot answer exactly to an original a. It remains that these words both con- tain the letter r in common, which is not denied ; but this is a slight ground for the supposed equivalence of words of wliich the primary senses were different. The fact of the equivalence of L. f to A. S. /i is com- monly known as being due to Grimm's Law. The popular notions about Grimm's Law are extremely vague. Many imagine that Grimm made the law not many years ago, since which time Latin and Anglo- Saxon have been bound to obey it. But the word law is then strangely misapprehended ; it is onlj' a law in the sense of an observed fact. Latin and Anglo-Saxon were thus differentiated in times pi-eceding the earliest record of the latter, and the difference might have been observed in the eighth cenLurj' if anj'one had had the wits to observe it. When the difference has once been perceived, and all other A. S. and Latin equivalent words are seen to follow it, we cannot consent to estab- lish an exception to the rule in order to compare a single (supposed) pair of words which do not agree in the vowel-sound, and did not oi-iginally mean the same thing. "As to the Gr. s;>.or, the aspirate (as usual) rep- resents an original ."?, so that o^lof answers to Sans. sarva, all. Old Lat. solliis, whilst it means * whole ' in the sense of entire or total. But the A. S. hdl (which is the old spelling of whole) has for its initial letter an h, answering to Gr. it, and the original sense is 'in sound health,' or 'hale and hearty.' It may much more reasonably be compared with the Gr. KoU; ; as to which see Curtius, i. 172. As to x'^pv, the initial letter is ;r, a guttural sound answering to Lat. h or g, and it is, in fact, allied to L. gratia. But in charity, the ch is French, due to a peculiar pronuncia- tion of the Lat. c, and the Fr. charite is, of course, due to the L. ace. caritatem, whence also Ital. caritate or carith. Span, caridad, all from L. cHrits, with long a. When we put wif and cHrtis side hy side, we find that the initial letters are different, that the vowels are different, and that, just as in the case of cearu and cara, the sole resemblance is that they both contain the letter r .' It is not worth while to pursue the subject further. Those who are con- firmed in their prejudices and have no guide but the ear (which they neglect to train), will remain of the same opinion still ; but some beginners maj' perhaps take heed, and if they do, will see matters in a new light. To all who have acquired any philological knowledge, these things are wearisome. " 4. Suppose we take two Latin words such as eort- tas and earns. The former has a stem car-i-tat- ; the latter has a stem car-o-, which may very easilj- turn into car-i-. We are perfectly' confident that the ad- jective came first into existence, and that the sb. was made out of it by adding a suffix ; and this we can tell by a glance at the words, by the very form of them. It is a rule in all Aryan languages that words started from monosyllabic roots or bases, and were built up by supplying- new suffixes at the end ; and, the greater the number of suflBxes, the later the formation. When apparent exceptions to thi<5 law present themselves, they require especial atten';ion '. but as long as the law is followed, it is all in the natural course of things. Simple as this canon ceems, i' is frequently' not ob- served ; the consequence being that a word A is said to be derived from B, whereas B is its own offspring. The result is a reasoning m a circle, as it is called ; we go round and round, but there is no progress upward and backward, which is the direction in which we should travel. Thus Richardson derivesr/iJMf from ' Fr. echine,' and this from 'Fr. echiner, to chine, divide, or break the back of (Cotgrave), probably from the A. S. cinan, to chine, chink or rive.' From the absurdity of deriving the ' Fr. echiner ' from the 'A. S. cinan ' he might have been saved at the outset, hy remembering that, instead of echine being derived from the verb echiner, it is ob- vious that echiner, to break the back of, is derived from echine, the back, as Cotgrave certainly meant us to understand ; see eschine, eschiner in ' Cotgrave's Dic- tionarj'.' Putting eschine and eschiner side by side, the shorter form is the more original. " 5. This canon, requiring us to compare vowel sounds, is a little more difficult, but it is extremely im^ portant. In many dictionaries it is utterly neglected, whereas the information to be obtained from vowels is often extremely certain ; and few things are more beautifully regular than the occasionally complex, yet often decisive manner in which, especialh' in the Teu- tonic languages, one vowel-sound is educed from an- other. The very fact that the A. S. e is a modification of 6 tells us at once that fedan, to feed, is a derivative otfdd, food ; and that to derive /oor? from feed is simply im'possible. In the same way the vowel e in the verb to set owes its very existence to the vowel a in the past tense of the verb to sit; and so on in countless in- stances. "The other canons require no particular com- ment." SPEECH AS A BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. If we ask. Are irrational animals endowed with the faculty of speech ? we are met by three sections of ad- vanced scientists at the very threshold of the discus- sion. The sl^eptic is in doubt as to whether there is any such distinction as tlie distinction between rational and irrational animals. The agnostic does not linow — and claims no one else can Itnow — whether there is any such distinction or not. The monistic philosopher, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, endeavors to prove in " Evo- lution of Man " that Reason, as a frontier post be- tween Man and Beast, is altogether untenable. Either we must talie Reason in its narrow sense, argues Haecl^el — and in that case it is lacking in most Men as well as in the lower animals; or we must take it in its broader and lower sense, in which case it is present in such animals as the Horse, Elephant, Dog and Ape, as well as in the human species. Under sucli circum- stances it is evident that we cannot satisfactorily dis- cuss the question by beginning at either Reason or Speech as a barrier between Man and Beast. If the atheistic evolution or development theory has been established, there is no distinction or barrier between Man and Beast, except a mere matter of higher devel- opment in the former than in the latter. Beasts have both Speech and Reason as well as Man has, and there is no barrier here. Going still further down the scale ot organisms, we reach forms of life which have noth- ing but skulless brain-bladders. The Mind in these organisms cannot develop with its organ, the brain, for the brain has not yet differentiated in them. At this point in the scale, at all events, development of Mind has not yet begun. "We hold that atheistic evolution cannot stand, un- less it stands as an entirety. The question is not. Does Reason develop in connection with its organ, the brain ? as Haeckel discusses it; but does Reason develop gradually all along the line — from the undifferentiated Amoeba, up through skulless brain-bladders, and, finally, in connection with its organ, the brain, in the higher Beasts and in Man ? Was it Reason, or merel}' intelligence, which was developing, all along the line, until Man came upon the scene ? If it is Reason, as between Man and the higher Beasts, why not Reason, as between the primitive slime and Protomonas ? If we begin to call it Reason, as distinct from intel- ligence., anywhere in the line of development, why not begin at Man ? Does not Man — even the Australian Bushman — show an intelligence which even in its de- gradation is quite distinct from the intelligence of the Ape ? Haeckel quotes with approval the lines of Goethe's " Mephistopheles " : ** He calls It Reason, but thou see'st Its use but makes him beastlier than the beast." Instinct keeps the beast within the bounds of nature, but reason conferred upon the Bushman, and upon others besides the Bushman, is a dangerous possession. It controls nature. Here is the dividing line. This is human Reason, with its almost limitless powers of investigation ; its ability to stifle the volc« of instinct, not only for high good, but for base evil ; its strange, contradictory power of either looking forward to a higher destiny in a Hereafter, or of looking backword to the unclean Ape, as a near relative, without the faintest idea of ever associating with it, or trying to form it into a new political party. Whereas the Anthi'opoid Apes are supposed to have differentiated from common Apes, and finally into Men, mostly bj' withdrawing themselves from association with the coarser Apes, this human Reason is capable, in the case of Ernst Haeckel, of looking upon the Anthropoid Ape as a more suitable ancestor than a " God-like Adam," and nevertheless develops into a giant intellect of the nineteenth century. Man can think as he sees fit about his relations with Apes and "other cattle," and yet remain Man; but if the Anthropoid Apes had not gone off by themselves and commenced to chatter and talk and get their heads to- gether, so the coarser Apes could not understand them, they would never have diffei'ontiated ; and even Evolu- tion itself could never have clianged them into even Bushmen, much less into the sagacious Lake-Dwellers of Switzerland, or the liberty-loving Mound-Builders of tliese States. With these limitations as to the development of human from brutal intelligence, we have no objections to urge against a notable article in the Atlantic Monflih; for September, 1891, by Mr. E. P. Evans, on " Speech as a Barrier between Man and Beast." In reply to Max Mliller's dictum that " no animal has ever spoken," Mr. E. P. Evans asserts that parrots and ravens utter articulate sounds as distinctly as the average cockney, and in most cases make quite as intelligent and edify- ing use of them for the expression of ideas. Again : " In the course of ages, and as the result of long proc- esses of evolution and transformation, monkeys have learned to speak, but when thej' have acquired this faculty we call them men." If we call them Men, instead of Monkeys, when they have gained the power of speech, the question is, Do we, as it were, call them by their right name ? Is it proper, scientific, to make the distinction ? If it is not, then Man is not only descended from the unclean Ape, but he is a shameless pretender, usurper and tyrant. He snatches from the monkey the priceless heritage of speech, and hies him to cities and towns, leaving in the woods of barbarous countries the sagacious little animals which he has robbed — and which now, per- force, chatter and pine away, while Man takes com- fort and enjoj's even free speech. On the other hand, if it is true that Man alone can justly lay claim to the power of speech, then, of course, speech is a barrier between mas and beast. Is it an insurmountable barrier? According to Mr. E. P. Evans, when the Monkey speaks we call it Man. In this sense the barrier of speech is an insurmountable barrier; where speech begins the beast ends. But does human speech develop from brutal speech ? (xi) mTRODUCTION. Max Miiller stops at roots or "phonetic cells " as "ul- timate facts in the analysis of languag-e,'' and virtually says to the philologist, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further, and here shall thy researches he stayed." "The scholar," he declares, "begins and ends with these phonetic types; or, if he ignores them, and I traces words back to the cries of animals or to the in- terjections of men, he does so at his peril. The philos- opher goes beyond, and he discovers in the line which separates rational from emotional language, concept- ual from intuitional knowledge — in the roots of lan- guage he discovers the true barrier between Man and Beast." Replying to this argument, Mr. Evans declares that the philologist, who recognizes in the roots of language the Ultima Thule beyond which he dare not push his investigations, confesses thereby his incom- petency to solve the problem of the origin of language, and must resign this field of inquiry to the zoopsjxhol- ogist, who, freeing himself from the trammels and illusions of metaphysics, seeks to find a firm basis for his science in the strict and systematic study of facts. Imagine the follj' of the physiologist who should say to his fellow-scientists : " In j'our researches you must begin and ejd with cells. If, in studying organic structures, you go back of cells and endeavor to dis- cover the laws underlying their origin, you do so at your peril. Beware of the dangerous seductions of cytoblast and cytogenesis and treacherous quagmires of pr toplasm." in this, Mr. E. P. Evans presumes that the " origin of cells" has been clearly traced. If there is good ad- vice to be found anj'where on the subject of the shad- owy development and spontaneous generation which precedes the cell in atheistic evolution, that advice would be. Do not say you understand how primitive slime in the bottom of the primordial sea ever became a thing of life and a cell — unless you do understand it. Unless you see that such might have been the fact, do not say that you so see. If the tracing of the roots of human language from the roots of brutal language is to depend on an^'thing like the arguments adduced by Haeckel in his attempt to make cells out of primitive slime, then indeed do the roots of monkey language need careful mu'^hing for a few more winters. But Mr. Evans admits it is only natural that the philologist should think thus, being so absorbed in the laws which govern the transmutation of words that he comes to regard these metamorphoses as finalities, and never goes behind and beyond them. We must look, therefore, not to comparative philolog.v, but to com- parative psychology, for the discovery of the origin of language. Philolopy has to do with the growth and development of speech out of roots, which are assumed to be ultimate nd unanalyzable elements, like the purely hypothetical particles which the physicist calls atoms; but as to the natum and genesis of roots them- selves the philologist of to-day is as puzzled and per- plexed as was the old Vedic poet, when, in the presence of the universe and its mysterious generation, he could only utter the pathetic and helpless crj', "Who, indeed, knows, who can declare, whence it sprang, whence this evolution?" " Show me only one root in the language of ani- mals," says Max Miiller, " such as ak, to be sharp and quick, and from it two derivatives, as a.^a, the quick one — the horse — and acufus, sharp or quick-witted ; nay, show me one animal that has the power of form- ing roots, that can put one and two together, and realize the simplest dual concept ; show me one animal that can think and say 'two,' and I should say that, so far as language is concerned, we cannot oppose Mr. Darwin's argument, and that Man has, or at least may have been, developed from some lower animal." Mr. Evans replies that according to the theorj- of evolution the language of animals has not yet reached the root stage and never can reach it ; for it would then become articulate speech, and be no longer the language of animals, but the language of Man. But this is surely no evidence or indication that one may not grow out of the other ; on the contrary, it rather suggests the possibility of such growth and develop- ment. We cannot be certain, however, that animals may not have general concepts. When a dog, in eager pur- suit of some object, yelps, ak-ak, how do we know that this sharp utterance, which expresses the strong and impatient desire of the dog to overtake the object, may not stand in the canine mind for the general concept of quickness? It is used in pursuing all animals and inanimate things — ^bird, hare, squirrel, stick or stone — and cannot therefore denote any single one of them, but must have a general signification. For aught we know, the language of animals may be made up of un- developed roots vaguely expressive of general con- cepts, or may even contain derivative sounds. Mr. Darwin asserted that, since becoming domesti- cated, the dog has learned to hark in as many as five or six distinct tones : eagerness, as in the chase ; an- ger, as well as growling- ; the yelp or howl of despair, when shut up; the baying at night ; the bark of joj', when starting on a walk with his master; and the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a door or window to be opened. Saj-s Mr. E. P. Evans: "Tiiis variety of tones, expressing different desires and emotions in an animal that, in its wild state, could not bark at all, marks a very considerable advance in the power of vocal utter- ance as the result of association with man." In closing this very curious and highly entertaining article, Mr. Evans thinks it would be superfiuous to multiply instances of the capability of understanding articulate speech manifested by monkeys, horses, dogs, cats, elephants, birds, and other animals that acquire this power, as children do, through the ear and by the exercise of attention. Thej' also show a nice discrim- ination in distinguishing between words similar in sound. A parrot or a raven masters a new sentence by repeating it, and working at it, just as a school- boy solves a hard problem. These birds associate sounds with objects, and thus invent names for them. Everj' dog is a " bow-wow," and every cat a " miau- miau." The denotive term has an onomato-poetic origin, and by the process of generalization is applied to all animals of the species ; it is not necessary that the parrot should have heard each individual dog bark or cat mew before giving it its appropriate name. A raven belonging to Gotlhard Heidegger, a clergj'man and rector of the gymnasium in Zurich, was constantly picking up words dropped in general conversation, and using them afterward in the most surprising manner. Even animals whose laryngeal apparatus is not structurally adapted to the production of articulate sounds may be taught to utter them. Leibnitz men- tions a dog which had learned to pronounce thirty words distinctly. In the Dumfries Journal of January, 1829, an account is given of a dog which called out " William " so as to be clearlj' understood ; and Mr. Romanes cites the case of an English terrier which had been taught to say, "How are you, grandmam?" The careful and systematic experiments now being made in this direction bv Professor A. Graham Bell SPEECH AS A BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. xiu and other scientists are exceedingly interesting, and may lead to important results. In view of these facts, it is evident that the barrier between human and animal intelligence, once deemed impassable, is becoming more and more imperceptible, and with the rapid progress of zoopsychological re- search will soon disappear altogether. " When we re- member," says Professor Sayce, "the inarticulate clicks which still form part of the Bushman's lan- guage, it would seem as if no liue of division could be drawn between Man and Beast, even when language is made the test." Apes make use of similar clicks for a like purpose, and these sounds are doubtless sur- vivals of speech before it became distinctively articulate. Whatever may be the value of the facts presented by Mr. Evans, it cannot be disputed that the whole theory of atheistic evolution has one apparently insur- mountable barrier to overcome before it can be gen- erally accepted by the great majority of men. This bai'rier Haeckel calls "human ari'ogance." Man's in- stinctive dislike to be told that he is the same — only a little different, owing to adaptation — as the Ape that grins at him in the menag'erie and pays no taxes ; and that Man's mind, " the liuman reason " which evolu- tionists are wont to ridicule, does not separate him from the American Ape with the flat nose that claims relationship with the Mound-Builders, nor from the foreign Ape with the up-and-down nose, that used to throw cocoanuts, worth ten cents eacli, at English sailors, to keep the sailors from climbing the trees to get them: this instinctive dislike is called "human arrogance." Haeckel avers that this prejudice is very unbecoming in people who sometimes lay claim to a proper and highly becoming humility of spirit. We propose to show, among other things, that in this Haeckel, and all who believe as he does, are turn- ing traitor to their own species. If the struggle for existence and progress among- organisms are at work among all living beings, let us think we are not related to the Ape and such cattle, even if we are. Was it not such arrogance as this, according to evolution, that caused a few choice Apes to go off by themselves as a select set and develop into Men- Apes, then into Ape- Men, and, finally, to drop the Ape from their family name altogether ? Did not this arrogance in the course of time cause them to go in out of the rain and cold and heat, so that they eventually shed their hair, for the most part ? What caused them to get their heads together and talk, instead of chattering, so that the "cawser " Apes could not know what they were saying — if it was not arrogance ? Could anything but arro- gance impel them to make flint arrowheads with which to kill the cave-bear for a grand reception dinner of the select set, instead of climbing a tree to get away from Bruin? Mere " humility of spirit " and knowing"Man's Place in Nature " as well as a disciple of Huxley says he does, would have caused the bottom to drop out of the whole enterprise ; and the other Apes would have the laugh on the select few, who had great expectations and absurd pretensions without the ability to realize on them. Huxley's Law gives, in substance, the following ac- count of the "Place in Nature " occupied, for exam- ple, by your baby boy, one year old, in whom neither reason nor speech has yet awakened : " Your child is less above the Ape of the future, and perhaps of the present, than a human of the future, or perhaps of the present, is above him. This child may be nearer to the Ape in every essential characteristic than he is to a highly-developed human. When your child is old enough to study, let him first learn ' Man's Place in Nature ' from the ' only ' Huxley. He will then entertain a fellow-feeling for the Ape as an unfortunate, poor relation who was left behind in ' natural selection or the struggle for existence ' etc., even more so than for a next-door neighbor who lacks force of character and general organic strength, because of certain habits and traits in his parents! Your child should be trained to point with pride to an ambitious, go-ahead Ape-Man from which came chil- dren who could build a fire and others ivMcJi hung head downward from a tree by their tails—and are doing it yet^ — to amuse some attractive female Ape. "It is far nobler to have such an ancestor, who had two kinds of children, some with ez^ect mien, who broke the old Man- Ape's heart by their insubordination, ar- rogance and strange, outlandish, ai'ticulate chattering —this is the crowd you and your child are descended from — and others, whe were only collateral relatives to your child and you, and who stayed with their pro- genitor, comforted his declining years by making him eat at the second table, if he could find anything, and finally let him die and rot on top of the ground to save funeral expenses. It is far nobler, we monists say, to have such a versatile, though badly used ancestor, than to be descended from a God-like Adam, whom the 'black International,' and the rest of the churches tell you about, for the sole purpose of getting your money, tickling your vanity and keeping you in ecclesiastical leading strings. Bear in mind, now, we do not saj' that Man is descended from the Ape. In fact, we hold that these low-down, flat-nosed, long-tailed American Apes are not in any way connected with Man's de- scent, and only very slightly, as a mere offshoot, with man's pedigree. What we say and can easily prove, if you will just bear in mind the natural descent of Man from the lower animal, is this : That Men and Apes are both descended from the same parent ; that this same parent form is probably extinct ; that if it is not, we will probably find him somewhere in Africa or Asia. It or he is either black, yellow or brown ; either Mongolian, Malay or Ethiopian. The real Apes that you and your little boy are descended from never came to America until they became Men." Exciting prejudice against the development theory is entirely uncalled for, as intense prejudice against it already exists. We distinctly disclaim any attempt to do so in asking the reader to take monism home to him- self, especially the "Ape Question." The argument that the foregoing enforces and illustrates is this : Adaptation is one of the mechanical causes of athe- istic evolution. In this a prominent factor is a sense of superiority, pride, arrogance, on the part of indi- viduals of a species who are about to change their habits of life, to submit to the mechanical cause or law of adaptation — to develop, as man is said to have done, from the Ape-Man parent form. This is a fixed and unalterable law ; it is necessary, this causal connection between a sense of superiority, pride and arrogance, and the change in the habits of life. If that sense of superiority was necessary as between Ape-Men and other Ape-Men — the sense of superiority on the part of Man toward Apes — the customary "arrogance" is much more necessary, and Man cannot think that he is allied to Apes. The atheistic evolutionists are men. Therefore they cannot think that their views on the Ape Question are anything- but arrant nonsense. Their readers are Men, therefore they cannot think what these monistic books try to prove. As between Men, those individuals compelled, by atheistic evolution, to rise not at all or very slowly above their present con- dition, cannot think themselves equal to those above Xt7 INTRODUCTION. them ; and those who are compelled to rise cannot but look down upon their weaker bretliren. Tliis last is a distinction within tlie species ; the other is a distinction between one species and another. Finally, what the human mind cannot think — but must think the con- trary — is not true. Therefore, by the atlieistic evolu- tionist's own laws, and according to his necessary con- nection between cause and effeQt, Man is not descended from, nor allied to, the Ape nor an Ape-Man form. In this we are grasping a really vital point, if con- nection between cause and effect everywhere is neces- sary, inevitable. When Man ditfei-entiated from Ape- Men, as the latter had previously' differentiated from Apes, it was necessary that the " progressive element," the '• only " Men in the one case, and the '• only " Ape- Men in the other, should consider themselves, after a few generations, as entireh' distinct from Apes in the one case and Ape-Men in the other. Now, instead of a few generations, give us an epocli, or even an age, or a few thousand years; then give us a general migration to a country where Apes and Ape-Men did not intrude to remind the emigrants of their discreditable pedi. gree ; add Heredity and Adaptation and the Struggle for Existence ; contemplate the weeding out of the ne'er-do-weels; bring Natural Selection upon the scene, whereby male and female of the weaker class, and of others more worthy, are snubbed and jilted and swin- dled out of their property and given over to dishonest guardians, executors, administrators and assigns, a nd allowed to die bachelors and old maids ; let this con- tinue among the emigrants for a few thousand years, and we will show you a race under the control of the fixed and unalterable laws of Heredity and Adaptation to such an extent that they cannot think themselves allied to Apes or Ape-Men. And what the human mind cannot think — but must think the contrary — ^is false. At all events, why waste ime and talents try- ing to make the human species think that, the con- trary of which the " only evolution theorj' compels ustoUunk? Table of Divisions op the Aryan Languages. Trb English language — the offspring of the Anglo-Saxon — is one of the Low Qermao dialects which form part of the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European or Aiyan languages. The Aryan iangxiages may be divided into six principal branches: L n. m. rv. V. VL inoAx. PEE8IC. CELTIt Ge^co-Latdj. SLAVONIC. 'Ihe Teatoaic branch is divided iato three classes, the Low Qerman, High Qenaaa and Scandina'' viui: 'Ssatcmax L LowGennim. Mceso-Gothic, preeerred In Ul- phUas's tropHlaUon ot tte Gospels. Anglo-baxon. EnKlish. Old Saxon. Frisian. Dutch. 3. 4. & a. Flemish. IL High German. |l. ( Is. I Old High Germafl. Middle High Germaik New High Grermao. ri. Icelandic. ffl.Scandln«Tl«». l^-^f^^'^- (4. Danish. The Celtic branch is divided into • i. Gadhelic or Erse. 1. Iriah. 9. Scottish QaettO. S. Manx. U. Cymric. I. Welsh, a Cornish (1 S. Breton. Grimm's Law op the Interchange of Consonant Sounds. The evidence that the group of languages known as the Aryan languages form a family — that is, are all sister-dialects of one common mother-tongue— consists in their grammatical forms being the same, and in their having a great many words in common. In judging whether an individual word in one of these tongues is really the same with a word in another of the tongues, we are no longer guided by mere similarity of sound ; on the contrary', identit/ of sound is generally a pre- sumption that a proposed etymology is wrong. Words are constantly' undergoing change, and each language follows its own fashion in making those changes. Cor- responding words, therefore, in the several languages must, as a rule, in the long course of ages have come to diifer greatly ; and these differences follow certain laws which it is possible to ascertain. Unless, then, a proposed identification accord with those laws, it is in- admissible. We are not at liberty to suppose any ar- bitrary omission of a letter, or substitution of one let- ter for another, as was the fashion in the old guessing school of etymology. Of the laws of interchange of sounds in the Indo- European family, the most important is that known as Grimm's Law, so called after the famous German phi- lologist who investigated it. It exhibits the relations lound to exist between the consonant sounds in three groups of the Aryan languages — namely, (1) the Clas- sical, including Sanskrit, Greek and Latin ; (2) Low German, which we may take Gothic and English as repi-esenting ; (3) High German, especially Old High German, in which the Law is more consistently carried out than in modem High German. The scope of the Law is confined to the interchanges among the following consonant sounds, which are here arranged so as to show their relations to one another : Sharp. Flat. Asptrata Labial p b t(v) Linguo-dental t d thf«; Guttural k(c) g oh(fc) The horizontal division into three orders depends on the organ chiefly used in the utterance. The differ- ences between the vertical seines are more easily felt than described. Pronounce first ip and then ib / in the first the hps are completely closed, and the sound or voice from the larynx abruptly cut off. In the second the lips are also completely shut, but a muffled voice is continued for a moment ; it is produced by the vocal chords being still kept in a state of tension, and the breath continuing to issue through them into the cavity of the mouth for a brief space after the lips are closed. Next pronounce if; in this, although the voice-sound abruptly ceases, the lip-aperture is not so completely closed but that a thin stream of breath continues to escape with the sound of a whisper. Hence the name aspirate given to such articulations. Now, inter- changes do take place between members of these vertical series — that is, one sharp takes the place of another, as in Welsh, pen ; Gaelic, k\x\ ; or in Rus- sian, i^eodor for TJieoAore. Such instances, however, are comparatively rare and sj^oradic. It is between members of the horizontal orders that interchanges chiefly take place — that is, labials with labials, dentals with dentals, etc.; and it is with these interchanges that Grimm's Law deals. The substance of the Law may be presented in a tabular form, as follows : <1) Classical Sharp. (3) Low German Aspirate. (8) High German.... Flat. Flat. Aspirate Sharp. Flat Aspirate. Sharp. The table may be thus read : A classical sharp labial, asj>, is represented in Low German by the aspirate labial /, and in High German by the flat labial b ; and so of the other orders. EXAMPLE& (A) IKTERCHANGK OF LABIA1& OUESICAL. Sans., Gr., L. pater. . Gr. pteron(peteron).. L. pulex......... L.rapina Gr. kannabis L. /ra(n)gp Gr. pftn,!.. /u LOW GEBUAN. E. /ather, Goth, fadrs E. feather E. flea, Scot. /lech... A.6. rea/, E. reave.... B. hemp E. breali,Goth. brii^an E.6e 0. B. QEBIUII. uatar. ■wedar, Ger, feder. 1)10, G«r. /lo'h. ronb. hana/, Ger. han/. prechan, Ger. fcrechen pirn (I am). (B) IKTERCHASGE OF LiNGCO-DEirrALS. L. tennis L. tectum Gr. odout^ li. dent.... L. dlngua (— lingua). Gr. thugater. Gr. tfter, L. /iero E. tJiin E. t/iatch, Goth. ehak. E. iooth, Goth. tnnthus. K tongue E. daughter, Gotb. dauhtar. Kdeer. dtmni, Ger. dtlnn. dach. £and, Ger. zalm. zunga. tohtar. tior. (C) iNTERCHAirGE OF GtrmTRAlS. L.claudtts. Gr. fcard-, L. cord-., L. octo Gr. gonn. L.aoer. Gr. c/ien, L. anser (— ftanser) L. ftortna E. ftalt E. heart E. eig/it, Goth. ah.tan. E. fence E. acre, Groth. afcrs. . . E. goose E. garden, Goth, gards ftalz. Tierza. aftte, Grer. ac/tt. c?inio. acTiar, Ger. acfcer. ftans, Ger. gans, fearto, Ger. garten. It will be observed that there are a good many ex- ceptions to the Law, especially in the case of the aspirates; the influence of adjoining letters often causes anomalies. The Law holds good oftenest in the begiooing of words. List of Abbreviations. •oc according. CKCns accnsatiTe. adj adjective. adv adverb. agrl agricultaraL (ug algebra. anat anatomy. orc/i architectara arlth. aritbmetio. agtr astronomy. B. Bible. hooMt. book-keeptng, hot botany. c century. •••... .Breton. Celtic. gbaL OialdeaOi Ooin. .«•••••. ....Oomjsfa. Dbii. Danish. Dot. Dntcb. fei a^ nm jnemlflh. It* ••••••••••••••Prencha Mi. .VHsiao. freq freqnentatlTa gen genitive. ged geology. geom geometry. gram grammar. mm gunnery. her. Heraldry. kott horticultar& tuf infinitive. imt interjection. t. optic. tnig originally. f>. participle. paint painting. 904*. past participle. OmL Gaelic. 8er. GernuuL eoth Gothic. Or. Greek. lb. Hebrew. HindnstanL Etingariaa. Icelandla Irish. Italian. Latin. .......... Litbnanian. „ B Middle EngUeb. I PWI. Mexican. W of ............Norman. Sanr. Norwegian. pass. passive. pa.t pasttenM, perf perfect. perh perhaps. pers,... person. pfx pre&x. phU ....philosophy. pi pluraL poet poetical. pass possessive. Fr.Bk Book of Commoo Prayer. pr.p present partidylt prep. preposition. pres. present. pHnt printing. priv privative. prob probably. pron pronoun. prov provincial. rhct rhetoric. stg signifying. sing. singular. svpert superlative. term termination. Test Testaotent. theol theology. unk unknown. T.I. verb intranaUiflk v.t. verb transittik tool Boology. O. Fr OldFtencb. O. Oer. Old Germaa Pera Persian. Port Portngne«e. Prov. ProvengaL Rom Romance. Bnss Russian. San& Sanskrit. Scand. Scandin a Ttifc Scot Scottish. Slav Slavonic' Sp Spanish. 6w Swedish. Tent Tentonla Turk. Tnrkldi. W Wal*. A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ■k, the (ndeflnite article, a broken-down form of An, and used before words be- ginning with the sound of a consonant. [See An.] A, used at one time before participles, as in " She lay a dying." It is now admit- ted only colloquially. -IBACK, a-bak', adv. {naut.) said of sails pressed backward against the mast by the wind — hence, Taken aback, taken by surprise. ABACUS, ab'a-kus, n. a counting-frame or table : (arch.) a level tablet on the capital of a column. ABAFT, a-baft', adv. or prep., on the aft or hind part of a ship : behind. ABANDON, arban'dun, v.t. to give up : to desert : to yield (one's self) without re- straint. AJ3ANDONED, a-ban'dund, adj. given up, as to a vice : very wicked. — n. Abandon- ment, a-ban'dun-ment, act of abandon- ing : state of being given up. ABASE, a-bas', v.t. to cast down : to hum- ble : to degrade. — n. Abasement, a-bas'- ment, state of humiliation. &BASH, a-bash', v.t. to confuse with shame or guilt. — n. Abashment, a-bash'- ment, confusion from shame. ABATE, a-bat', v.t. to lessen : to mitigate. — v.i. to grow less. ABATEMENT, a-bat'ment, n. the act of abating : the sum or quantity abated : (her.) a mark of dishonor on a coat-of- arms. SlBATIS, ABATTIS, a'bat-is, n. (fort.) a rampart of trees felled and laid side by side, with the branches towards the enemy. IBATTOIR, a-bat-war*, n. a slaughter- house. ABAXIAL, ab-ak'si-al, ac(j. not in the axis ; specifically-, in botany, applied to the embryo when out of the axis of the seed. Also Abajtile. ABBA, ab'a, n. in Chaldee and Syriac, a father. ABBACY, ab'a-si, n- the office of an abbot. ABBATIAL, ab-bashal, Abbaticai*, ab bat'ik-al, adj. pertaining to an abbey. ABBESS, ab es, n. the superior of a relig- ious community of women. [Fem. of Abbot.] ABBEY, ab'e, n. a monastery of persons of eitiier sex presided over by an abbot or abbess ; the churcli attached to it : — pi. Abbeys. jFr. ahbaye — L. abbatia — Abpa.] 4lBB0T, ab'ut, n. the father or head of an abbey.— /em. Abb'ess. [L. abbas, ab- batis — Abba.] ABBREVIATE, ab-bre'vi-at, v.t. to make brief or short : to abridge. [L. abbrevio^ •atum — ab, intensive, and brevis, short. See Brief.] ABBREVIATION, ab-bre-vi-a'shun, n. a shortening : a part of a word put for the whole. ABBREVIATOR, ab-brS'vi-ftt-UTs n. one who abbreviates. A— ABOMINATE. ABDICATE, ab'di-kat, v.t. to renounce or give up (a high office). — n. Abdica'tion, [L. ab, from or off, dico, -atum, to pro- claim.] ABDOMEN, ab-do'men, n. the lower part of the belly. [L.l ABDOMINAL, ab-clom'in-al, adj. pertain- ing to the abdomen. ABDUCTION, ab-duk'shun, n. the carry- ing away, esp. of a person by fraud or force. [L. cu), from, duco, duetum, to draw.] ABDUCTOR, ab-dukt'ur, n. one guilty of abduction : a muscle tliat draws away. ABEAM, a-bSm', adv. (naut.) on the beam, or in a line at right angles to a vessel's length. [Pfx. a (A.S. on, on), on, and Beam.] ABECEDARY, a-be-se'da-ri, n. a first principle or element : rudiment. "Such rudiments or abecedaries." — Fuller. ABED, a-bed', adv. in bed. [Prefix a, on, and Bed.] ABERRANT, ab-er'ant, adj., toandering from tlie right or straight path. [L. ab, from, erro, to wander.] ABERRATION, ab-er-a'siiun, n. a wander- ing from the right patii : deviation from trutli or rectitude. ABET, a-bet', v.t. to incite by encourage- ment or aid (used cniefly in a bad sense) : —pr.p. abett'ing ; pa.p. abett 'ed. — n. Abetment, a-bet'ment. — n. Abettor. a-bet'ur. fO. Fr. abeter — A ( — L. ad, to), and beter, to bait, from root of Bait.] -ABEYANCE, a-ba'ans, n. a state of sus- pension or expectation. [Fr. — -d (L. ad, to), and bayer, to gape in expectation, from imitative root ba, to gape.] ABHOR, ab-hor', v.t. to shrink from with horror : to detest : to loathe : — pr.p. ab- horring ;j3a.p. abhorred'. [L. See Hor- ror.] ABHORRENCE, ab-horens, n. extremfe hatred. ABHORRENT, ab-hor'ent, adj. detesting : repugnant. ABHORRING, ab-hor'ing, n. (B.) object of great liatred. ABIDE, a-bid', v.t. to bide or wait for : to endure : to tolerate. — v.i. to remain in a place, dwell, or stay i—pa.t. and pa.p. abode'. — adj. Abiding, continual. [A.S. abidan — pfx. o=Goth. MS=Ger. er, and bidan, to wait.] ABIGAIL, ab'i-gal, n. a lady's maid. [From Abigail, 1 Sam. xxv.] ABILITY, a-b.l'i-ti, n. quality of being able : power : s' rength : sldll : — pT. ABLL'lTtES, the powers of the mind. [M. R, hability Fr. liabilfti — L. habili- tas — habilis, easily handled, fit, apt, able, from habeo, to have, hold. See ABI0GENESI3T, a-bi'o-j m-c-sist, n. a be- liever in abiogenesis. a theory based on spontaneous generation as opposed to sexual generation : or, more explicitly, the production of life or living beings under certain pliysi al conditions witli- out the intervention of antecedent li\nng forms. Also Abiogenist. Abiogeny, same as Abiogenesis. Abiogenetic, adj. of. pertaining to, or produced by abio genesis. ABIRRITATE, ab-ir-ri-tat, v.t. in medicine, to deaden, as the vital phenomena of the tissues : to debilitate. ABiRRrrATrvE, ab-ir'ri-tat-iv, adj. tending to abirritate. ABJECT, ab'jekt, adj. cast away : mean : worthless. - adv. Ab'jectlt. [L. afr- jeetus— cast away — ab, away, jacio, to throw.] ABJECTION, ab-jek'shun, Abjectness, ab'jekt-nes, n., a mean or lou' state; baseness. ABJURE, ab-jOSr', v.t. to renounce on oath or solemnly. — n. Abjuration, ab- jOur-a'shun. [L. ab, from, jura, -atum, to swear.] ABLACTATION, ab-lak-ta'shun, n. a wean- ing. [L. ab, from lado, to suckle — lac, lactis, milk.] ABLATIVE, ab'lat-iv, adj. used as a n. The name of the sixth case of a Latin noun. [L. ablaVvus — ab, from, fero, latum,, to take ; as if it indicated talking away, or privation.] ABLAZE, a-blaz', adv., in a blaze : on fire. ABLE, a'bl, adj. (eomp. A'bler ; superl. Ablest), having sufficient strength, power, or means to do a thing : skillful. — adv. A'bly. [See Abiuty.] ABLEGATE, ab'leg-at, n. in the Roman Catholic Church a special commissioner charged with conveying his insignia of office to a newly appointed cardinal. ABLUTION, ab-loo'shun, n. act of wash- ing, esp. the body, preparatory to relig- ious rites. [L. dblutio — ab, away, /mo=; lavo, to wash.] ABNEGATE, ab'ne-gat, v.t., to deny. [L. ab, away, and nego, to deny. See Ne- gation.] ABNEGATION, ab-ne-gS'shun, n. denial: renunciation. ABNORltAL, ab-nor'mal, adj., not normal or according to rule : irregular. — n. As- NOE'snTY. [L. ab, away from, NoRMAL.| ABOARD, arbord', adv. or prep., onboard: in a ship. [Pfx. a, on, and Board.] Used also of thmgs on shore, as aboarci a railway train, etc. [Amer.] ABODE, a-bod', n. a dwelling-place • stay [Abide.] ABODE, a-bod-, pa.t. and pa.p. of Abide. ABOLISH, ab-ol'ish, v.t. to put an end to : to annul. [Fr. abolir — L. aboleo, -itum — ab, from, olo, olesco, to grow — ab here reverses the meaning of the simple verb.] ABOLITION, ab-ol-ish'un, n. the act of abolishing. ABOLITIONIST, ab-ol-ish'un-ist, n. one who seeks to aboUsh anything, esp slavei-y. ABOLITIONIZE, ab-ol-ish'un-Iz, v.t. to imbue with the doctrines or principlee of an abolitionist. ABOMINABLE, ab-om'in-a-bl, adj. hate- ful, det,establ«>. — adv. Abom'inably. — n, Abom'inableness. [See Abominate.] ABOMINATE, ab-om'in-at, v.t. to abhor: to detest extremely. [L. aboviinor, -atus — to turn from as of bad omen. See Omen.1 ABOMINATION ACCAD ABOIMINATION, ab-om-in-a'shun, n. ex- treme aversion : anything abominable. ABORIGINAL, ab-o-rij'in-al, adj. first, primitive. ABORIGINES, ab-o-rij'in-ez, 7i.pl the original inhabitants of a country. [L. See Origin.] ABORT, ab-ort', v.i. to miscarry in hirth. [L. aborior, abortus— ah, orior, to rise — ab here reverses the meaning.] ABORTICIDE, a-bort'i-sid, n. in obstetrics, the destruction of a monstrous fetus in utero. ABORTION, ab-or'shun, n. premature de- livery : anything tliat does not reach maturity. .ABORTIVE, ab-ort'iv, adj. born untimely : xmsucoessful : producing notiiing : ren-