and not merit chapter of accidents. Implying, whim and caprice or virtue are the controlling powers in such resorts. Je, ever, for ever. chance, hazard. Hof, court. MEN IN BUCKRAM. Hach, Men (soldiers) in fancy, ideal people, men talked of, but no where to be found; Falstaff's soldiers. Men in backe ruim ; q. e. men who are contained within the space of the mouth that brags of them; who have no other existence than in the mouth (words) of the speaker who mentions their number. Men, as with us. Backe, the space within the jaws, the mouth. Ruijm, ruijmte, ruim, space, whence our word room in all its senses; we say both there was no room in the house, for the whole space of the house, and the room in a house, as a portion of the space into which a house is divided off; and ruymte seems to have produced the word roomth as room. "The seas (then wanting ROOMTH to lay their boist❜rous load) Upon the Belgian marsh their pampered stomachs cast." Drayton, Poly Albion. Mr. Tooke supposes roomth, in that form, to be as the third person of the Anglo-Saxon ryman to dilate, and thus as rymthe; a pure whim. Our word is the Dutch ruymte, space, and nothing else. Hence ruymen, to dilate, to amplify, and also to evacuate, to empty, to leave, to remove from a place, to go elsewhere, whence the German raumen, and our to roam, formerly to romin. "And I aftir gan ROMIN to and fro, CHAUCER. "Her frendis sawe her sorowe gan to aslake, 'It mighte ben no bett, and the cause why There was no ROMIR * herbrought in the place." KICKSHAWS. IDEM. Show dishes; table-services intended more for appearance than as substantial food; unsubstantial dishes to fill up the table, and thus any thing merely ornamental [for show, decoration]. Kijck! schaé's; q. e. look! and you will find it all shadow [mere show, unsubstantial stuff]; and applies more to the festive dinners of half a century back than to those of to day, unless we include the plateau and èpergne Kijcken, to look at, to spy curiously, to pry into. Schaê, schaeye, schaede, schaeduwe, shade, shadow, appearance. JOHNSON derives it from the French words quelque chose, but that is anything but a kickshaw; quelque chose à manger is no kickshaw, but something solid. When you come to an Inn in France, and ask for quelque chose à manger, you don't mean a kickshaw nor even kickshaws, but something fit for a hungry man. concern. "Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legg'd hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny KICKSHAWs, tell William cook." SHAKSPEARE. By taking the French term, above mentioned, for the source of the phrase, JOHNSON has misconceived a passage in MILTON where it is used, and, as he supposes, in a sense different from its common use; one in relation to dancing, which is not the case. "Shall we need the Monsieurs at Paris to take our youth into their custodies, and send them over back again transformed into mimicks, apes and KICKSHOES." MILTON. For kickshoes there is as kijckschaés, the original form of the word, and means simply unsub * Larger, more roomy. + Inn, lodging, and the same word at bottom with harbour. stantialities, good only to look at, and thus trumpery things [beings]; from things solid changed into mere frivolities. A HEARSE. Spelt also a herse. The term seems to have attracted the attention of most of our etymologists. Minshew says it is apoio, a lifting up, and of course a Greek word. Junius thinks it is as the lowlatin hersia, and grounded in the Anglo-Saxon are, honour: Skynner, that it is from the Teutonick hulse, a pod, a silicle. Mr. H. Tooke, by implication, holds all these fishings of his predecessors as failures, and settles the question to his own satisfaction, by adding to the list of these errors, a worse of his own. For he surely does so, when placing the word in the predicament of hurst (a grove of trees), he tells you both terms come out of the Anglo-Saxon hyrstan, to ornament, to decorate. As for hurst, it is simply the Dutch horscht, horst, in the same sense, and the same word with forst, forest, a forest, in which form it has been amply accounted for by Huydecoper, whose work I have not by me. And with this word Mr. Tooke's Anglo-Saxon root can have no more to do than with the moon. Nor do I see how hearse is to be brought out of it either. A hearse may be ornamented, or not, and so may any other vehicle. At this rate, the term applies better to a Lord Mayor's state coach than to the funeral carriage of a corpse. It is a groundless conceit, without even the justification of being probable. I believe the term to be simply as Heers; q. e. belonging to a gentleman, a person above the ordinary condition of society, and thus the designation of the interment of one of that rank; and no more than the observation of a bystander, who says as the vehicle passes with the corpse, that is the burial of a person of superior station in the community, as distinguishing it from one of an inferior station to the grave. where the body is borne, by his fellow men on foot, Or the word may be as heer's; q. e. that is [a corpse] of a person of distinction; and as heer is, which comes to the same thing. Heer, a master, one above others, one who has others at his orders, a gentleman, a lord, as lord of the manor, and in all the senses we use the word lord or master. Either form of the phrase sounds herse, hearse. It should be always borne in mind, denominative nouns are all necessarily ellipsises, and incomplete in the sense used, without a subauditium, which I take to be here body, corpse, corse, person, or some such term; and then the. phrase is either, that is the body of a person of distinction, or, the funeral is that of a person of distinction, as distinguished from that of one of a poorer class. I know of no analogous term in any other language, for the French catafalque, and the German lyk-koets, can have no relation to its source, any more than the Italian bara or our bier. The modern Latin hersia is hearse Latinized. "So many torches, so many tapers, so many blacke gownes, so many mery mourners laughing under blacke hodes, and a gay hers."-Sir Thomas More. But here the term hers is qualified by the adjunct. gay, as shewy [fine], and this seems to have misled the author of the Diversions of Purley, who quotes the passage as the probatum est to his etymology; though in common sense a better one for gay than for HEARSE. When the word is used in the sense of a temporary monument, it is in the same direction of meaning as above given. A CORPSE, A CORSE. A dead body; as the French corps, in Dutch keurs, huers, kors, for that which surrounds the life, the soul, the existence; and thus the covering or crust of the spirit, vital spark; and of this corps the French corset, the body of a gown, is the diminutive. The word corpse [corse] is not applicable in this sense but to the dead human body. The Latin crusta and our crust, as well as the French croûte, seem to be as the metathesis of the Dutch korste in the same sense, and to belong to this family of words, as grounded in the thema gro-en in the sense of to increase, to grow (over, upon, or into)? The g c and k are kindred consonants, they intermutate in different dialects of a same language. Our corps, as the French corps, in the sense of a body or assemblage of soldiers, is, I suspect, merely the Latin cohors, per syncopen chors, cors, in the same sense, of which our cohort is another form; and has nothing in common with corps as body in the other sense. Upon his creste he bare a toure CHAUCER. "I pray to God to save the gentle CORCE."-IDEM. "But al to late comith the lectuarie When men the CORSE into the grave carie.-IDEM. "And fell aslepe wondir sone, As he that was werie for go On pilgrimage milis two To the CORPS of Saincte Leonarde, To makin lithe that evil was harde."-IDEM. MY HEART JUMPED INTO MY MOUTH. unexpected insult or though it surprised of courage [spirit to In relation to some sudden provocation; and implying, you, it did not deprive yon avenge and resist]. Mij hurt! je hummt hin toe, * Disgrace, mishap, scandal, the Dutch schande in the same sense. |