participle present of hooren in the sense of to belong to, to appertain to, to be fitting for, and thus as befitting the occasion. 'N, aen, aan, on, upon, of. Mat, broken down, feeble, worn out, tired. JOHNSON defines the phrase, perhaps mad as a cuckold; but what difference can there be between the madness of a cuckold and that of any other man. If he knew he should have told us: it is a mere whim. The phrase has, in its true form, no more relation to the connubial than to the single state. It is the accidental falling in of the term horn into the travesty, which has brought in this mis-direction in the meaning of the expression; and HORN as the familiar symbol, relative to marriage, is, I suspect, simply the travesty of hoon, in German hohn, disgrace, ignominy, and refers to the fraudulent adultress, as her who is disgraced by her breach of faith; and in no other way to the husband than if he be a voluntary partaker in her infamy. The term has no other relation to him, beyond that of being the victim of such a wife. Mat had once with us the same meaning as above in the shape of mate. The French phrase porter les cornes, and the Italian far le corne, are borrowed from us; the Latin cornu (cornua) was never used in such relation. "Him thoughtin that his herte wou'de all to breke, I was al MATEt, and wende full wele Of blode t'have lorne a full grete dele.-IDEM. * Broken down, reduced by fortune. + Weak, exhausted. + Forlorn. MADCAP. An injudicious person, one defective in prudence; not under the guidance of a sound judgment. Matkop; q. e. a head destitute of judgment (reason); a poor weak head. Kop, head, the seat of reason; hence the Latin caput, the Italian capo, and Spanish cabeça, in which we trace the change of the o into a in this phrase. Een goed kop is, a right-headed man. Mat has been explained in the preceding article, and is here as poor, wretched; and we say, he has a wretched head; in the sense of he has nothing valuable in his head. But the travesty bringing with it the form of our word mad, has infused the idea of fury (rage), one which does not belong to the original phrase. Mad in its true meaning is grounded in maed, gemaed, cut down, destroyed; and a mad-man is a man cut down in regard to that which is the distinction of his kind, namely, reason; one destroyed as man and reduced to the brute state of animal existence (no longer to be known by the mark of his kind, viz. reason). And man is here as humankind, human nature, quality of kind. "Suffisith The but that thy wits be *MAD, To have as grete a grace as Noe had."-CHAUcer. Mr. Tooke's derivation of mad from the old verb to met (mete) in the sense of, to dream, seems a mere whim; for to dream is as much in the order of nature as to sleep; but to be mad is to be in a state out of the order of nature. Maed, made, (a maggot) belongs to the same stock as the participle maed, and we say, he is a magotty man; in the sense of, a man of unsound head, understanding. "I hold a Mous 'is wit not worth a leke + To run to. And if that failin then all is undo. I bare* him on hond, he had chantid† me, CHAUCER. RAGAMUFFIN. A somewhat supercilious expression for a man whose exterior denotes want; whose appearance bespeaks more plainly the asker of a favour than the bestower of one; a beggarly looking man. Rag er mof in; q. e. poverty shews itself in that countenance; literally, the Westphalian boor predominates in his person. Mof, is the nickname of the Westphalian labourer, who, like the Irish labourer with us, is habitually driven, by the penury of his home, to seek a livelihood among his neighbours. Like the Savoyard in Paris, the Gallician in Madrid, he is the habitual drudge of the place he resorts to, performing all the hardest and most forbidding offices of it, such as no one else can be found to undergo at so easy a rate. The word mof, is founded in the thema mo-en, in the import of, to cut, to mow; and the term means strictly, a mower; and thus one who performs the hardest of agricultural labours. Moffin is the female of this class; and she also emigrates in search of employment in the refuse drudgeries of society, among which was that of carrying and crying the baker's cakes and pastry about the streets to sell. And I have no doubt our term muffin is the ellipsis of moffinkoeck, the pastry of the moffin who cries it, as that which she is employed to carry about to dispose of. Ragen [to be prominent, to project, to come out, to show itself] has become obsolete in the Dutch, but survives in the same form and sense in the GerThe word is used here in the third person present of the subjunctive mood; in the indicative * Made him believe. man. + Bewitched. § Dreamed. Mother. it would be ragt. Er, there. Formerly this class of Westphalians emigrated annually in droves, spreading themselves over Holland and the adjoining districts in search of work, as the Irish still do with us. LIKE A CAT LOOKING IN THE BIBLE. In reference to a sharp clever apt person in his department, but who has lit upon a concern which he can't manage; and infers the confused, but arch look of one in that predicament; the look of subdued archness; the surprise of the knowing one who has stumbled upon that which he cannot master. Lyck er guit lucking in de by beul; q. e. like the thief when the hangman happens to fall in with him; implying the consequent look of habitual archness emerging through a cloud of distress and surprise. Guit, ruffian, nightly robber. Lucken, gelucken, to hit upon, to light upon, in the old form of the participle present, lucking; in the modern luckend. In de by, on the spot, in the place; by is here in a substantive import, as in our phrase, by the by. Beul, Jack Ketch, the executioner, and sounds bel, ble. HIPS AND HAWES. The berries (fruit) on the hedges; but to which the idea of the hep as the fruit of the wild rose, is attached; an idea grounded solely on the corruption of the original phrase. Haps aen haeghes; q. e. the chance produce of the hedges, the fruit of the hedges. Hap, a chance bit, a piece of luck, chance food; a snap, bait, bite. Aen, in, on; haeghes, haags, hedges. So that the phrase heps and haws is simply as the chance food or fruit of the hedges. The French phrase, la fortune du pot, is, in the same way, the chance of the stew-pot in the fire; and so is our pot luck; instead of which this phrase is as hedge luck, the food chance throws in the way of the birds, as those that have no other. Haeghes has the sound of hawes, the plural of hawe, the ellipsis of hawe-berry, haw-fruit; for hawe of itself is haagh, hedge. "Whether wenest* thou (quoth she), that this world be governed foolishly by HAPPES+ and fortunes, or else wenest thou that there be in it any government of reson?" "Certes (quoth I), I ne trowe that in no maner that so certaine thinges shulde be moved by fortinous fortune, but I wot wel that God, maker and maister, is governour of his werke, ner was nevir yet day that might put me off the sothnesse of that sentence."-CHAUCER. Boeth. "This is the ill that love thei call, Who lovith in no wise mai doe well, The joie maie no while endure, Is mochil tribulacion, The joie is so short lasting And but in HAPET is the getting."-IDEM. ON THE HIP. of In the power of another, in the hold of another; caught, hooked. Aen de hap; q. e. on the bait, and so on the hook; taken, and so in the power the taker. The phrase is always used in the sense of power obtained by some over-reaching [unfair] means. Hap, bait, bite; and the same word as * head. Imagine, as the Dutch waenen, to fancy, to take into the + Changes, happenings. Know, as Dutch weeten, to know. Bit, the Dutch deel, share, part, portion, piece. to the state of celibacy of the priesthood. ¶ Chance; the getting of what you love, is after all a mere chance, an event you can't foresee. |