CHAPTER XX

DEGENERATION OF MEANING

DESCENT is easy, and words, like people, show a propensity to fall away from their better selves. The degeneration is sometimes due to special causes. Usually, however, the word takes its first step in the downward path when it is used in slight, perhaps in jocose, disparagement. As time goes on, it gets into worse and worse odor, until at last it may become a term of extreme contempt or reprobation.

A good example is our word villain (from the French vilain). Villain originally signified a farm-laborer.' It is derived from the Latin villa, farmhouse,' through villanus, a slave attached to one's country-place.' In English it was at first merely a descriptive term for a particular station in life, replacing the native word churl (A.S. ceorl), which had the same sense. Soon, however, it became a term of contempt for one who did not belong to the gentry. Gradually there was built up a set of ideas associating with villain and villany all the qualities opposed to the comprehensive word courtesy,1 which signified in the Middle Ages the continent of what part a gentleman would see.' Thus villain was applied to a 'low fellow' in general, and villany was used for low conduct, or low

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1 The injustice which Tennyson has done to the character of the matchless Gawain, with his olde curteisye,' comes in part from too limited and modern an understanding of this fine old word.

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language, or low thoughts. From this to the present meaning is a short step; the implied moral reprobation has simply been intensified. In this process villain and villany have quite lost their association with any particular rank in life. A king, as well as a peasant, may be described as a villain, if he is morally wicked.1 Several other words which properly mean farm-hand,' or the like, have become more or less debased. Thus churl no longer means 'serf,' or 'bumpkin,' but is applied to any one who is rude in his manners or a curmudgeon in disposition. But the word is little used; boor, literally farmer,' has taken its place.2 In this country, farmer itself is sometimes jocosely applied to a ‘greenhorn,' or to a person who has made himself ridiculous, particularly by awkwardness or stupidity. If our language were not so fixed by the conservative forces of literature and education, it is not impossible that farmer would go the way of its predecessors. Clown was perhaps contemptuous in its very origin. It seems to have meant literally a clod.' It appears in English in the senses of rustic' and 'jester' at about the same date (late sixteenth century), but there is evidence that the latter is a derived meaning. At all events, the comic clowns' of the drama frequently represented countrymen who amused the audience by their mingled simplicity and mother-wit.

Knave has had a history similar to that of villain.

It

1 When villain was borrowed from the French, it had both the first and the second meanings here given to it, so that the development indicated did not take place in English. Both the more primitive and the more developed sense were borrowed at the same time.

2 See p. 347.

3 Cf. clod for a gross or stupid fellow. A clodpoll or clotpoll is a man who had a sod or a clod of earth for a head (cf. blockhead). Cf. Emilia's 'as ignorant as dirt,' in Othello. Clodhopper tells its own story.

meant originally (like Ger. Knabe) boy'; then servant, from the habit of calling servants 'boys' (as in Greek and Latin, and the South before the war). Thus it came to be used as a general term of disparagement for a person of inferior station, and finally it developed the sense of moral worthlessness. Valet and varlet are Old French diminutives of vassal. They literally meant boy' or 'youth,' just as vassal meant 'man.' Specialized in the sense of servant,' however, they tended to deteriorate, and varlet became, in English, a synonym for 'saucy fellow.' All such words, as soon as they acquire a reproachful or contemptuous connotation, tend to go out of use in their literal descriptive meaning, for the knave or villain in the old sense refuses to answer to the discredited name. Vassalage is an interesting example of a word which has been specialized in two directions. Since the vassal was his lord's inferior, vassalage sank to the sense of servitude.' On the other hand, it rose by an equally obvious chain of thought to the meaning of ' valorous deeds,' 'splendid service in war,' such as a vassal performs for his suzerain, and this is its meaning in Chaucer.

Several words for 'woman' or 'girl' have lost caste in one way or another. Wench was once perfectly respectable; it meant nothing but daughter,' orphan,' or 'pupil' (A.S. wencel, wencle, from wencel, weak' and so needing protection). Quean (A.S. cwene) is cognate with Gr. yvvý (guné), and meant woman.' A related word (A.S. cwen) has given us queen, and the Sanskrit gna, another related term, is even more dignified, since it stands for 'goddess.' Hussy is from housewife. The German Dirne, loose woman,' once meant 'virgin,' and in Old High German is even applied to the Virgin Mary. It

would be hard to find a more extraordinary instance of verbal degradation. Woman and Ger. Weib have also gone down in the world (see p. 326).

Fellow, now either contemptuous or else used lightly for 'man' in general, once meant 'partner.' It was A.S. feolaga,1-one who laid down his property (fee) along with yours. Hence came the meaning of 'companion,' then idle companion,' and thus we arrive at the slighting modern sense. The literal meaning has also been preserved, by virtue of certain combinations into which fellow had entered before it began to lose caste, such as fellowship, fellow-feeling, yokefellow, and compound words like fellow-Christian. Fellow of a college'

is a translation of socius; its academic isolation has preserved its dignity.

Companion and mate were also used contemptuously at one time, probably because they were synonymous with fellow. Chapman, the native English word for 'merchant,' is obsolete, except as a proper name. The clipped form chap, however, is still used disparagingly, and in older English both chapman and merchant were common terms of contempt for a saucy or otherwise objectionable person. Observe that companion, merchant, and mate have succeeded in rehabilitating themselves - always a difficult feat for either a word or a person to accomplish.

Caitiff is an old French word for 'captive' (modern chétif, L. captivus). It often meant poor creature,' since the condition of captives was peculiarly miserable, and it was quite as often applied in pity as in contempt. Borrowed by us in both the literal and the developed meaning, it was later specialized in the peculiarly odious sense of 'coward.' It is now obsolete in common language, though

1 From O.N. felage, in the same sense.

it is one of those curious words which everybody knows but nobody uses. Compare the history of wretch, the Anglo-Saxon word for exile.'1

Almost any term of reproach or word that suggests inferiority may come to imply moral badness: as, — low, base, degraded (literally 'put down a step, or grade'), debased, sunk very low. Rascal means first the rabble,' and probably comes ultimately from L. rado, rasus, 'scrape': cf. the offscourings of society.' So Chaucer speaks of Jove, Apollo, Mars, and the other heathen gods, as rascaille.' In hunting-language a rascal was a lean deer, out of condition and not fit for venison.

The degradation of a descriptive term may tell a sad story of human frailty. Tax-gatherers are never welcome guests, but the mere word suggests no moral turpitude. It was otherwise with the Roman publicans, whose business became a synonym for extortion.3 The English escheators (or cheaters) had a similar fate. They were officers who looked out for lands that might revert to the king in default of heirs (French, from ex- and cadere, fall away'). But their actual or supposed dishonesty gave their name an evil sense.

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Simple, guileless, and innocent are good words, but they have not remained so in the corrupted currents of this world.' Even silly once meant 'blessed' or 'good,' being

1 Wrecca, from wrecan, 'to drive out or punish,' whence wreck and wreak.

2 O. Fr. rascaille (modern racaille).

3 The modern sense of 'keeper of a public house' originated in an obvious pun, and has never become serious.

4 A.S. salig, M.E. sely. Another adjective, sellic, 'strange,' is thought by some to have become confused with sely, and thus to have helped it down, but no such contamination is necessary to account for its fall from grace. The Greek evens, 'good-hearted,' came to mean 'foolish,' and our good-natured often has a slighting connotation.