"Etymological" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enter on the etymological question, why an unsound horse is called a screw. Let that be discussed by abler hands. Possibly the phrase set out at length originally ran, that an unsound horse was an animal in whose constitution there was a screw loose. And the ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... one after the other in a belt in the sky in the order just given, and their risings and settings were important factors in the old Greek meteorological and agricultural calendars. Prof. Stern assumes that k[)e]s[i]l means Orion, and from this identification deduces the others, neglecting all etymological or traditional evidences to the contrary. He takes no notice of the employment of the same names in passages of Scripture other than that in the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. Here he would interpret the "chain," or "sweet influences" ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... high," is under so considerable a delusion as to suspect that the firmament is a firm thing; nor does it follow that Moses thought that "rakia" was a solid substance either,—even if solidity was the prevailing etymological notion in the word, and even if the Hebrews were no better philosophers than Mr. Goodwin would have us believe. The Essayist's objection is therefore worthless. GOD was content that Moses should employ the ordinary language of his day,—accommodate himself to ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... tell us that the three names of this important pedigree—Constans, Constantius, and Constantinus, have no etymological connexion with the substantive Constantia; in other words, that Constans does not mean the constant Man, just as prudens means the prudent, or sapiens the wise. No such signification will account for the forms in -ius and -inus. To this it ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... the other is more contemplative, drooping the head as if in reflection. The contrast suggests the distinction of early theology between the seraphim and cherubim, the former being, according to etymological significance, the spirits who love and adore, and the latter, those who know and worship. This distinction was scrupulously adhered to in early art by representing the seraphim as red, and the cherubim as blue. Although later artists ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... vain and futile reasonings, derived from the scattered passages of some early writers, from the ambiguous silence of others—and, above all, from the dreams of etymological analogy or mythological fable, I believe the earliest civilizers of Greece to have been foreign settlers; deducing my belief from the observations of common sense rather than from obscure and unsatisfactory research. I ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that word with that of Tshud, the title of the vanished supernatural inhabitants of the land amongst the Finns and other "Altaic" Turanian tribes of Russia, as in other places he has endeavoured to trace a connection between the Finns and the Feinne. Into these etymological questions I have no intention to enter, since I am not qualified to do so, nor is it necessary, as they have been fully dealt with by Mr. Nutt, whose opinion on this point is worthy of all attention.[B] But it may be permitted to me to inquire how far Mr. MacRitchie's views tally with the facts ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... that is, the wild choral-singing of the worshippers of Dionysus. But Dithyrambus seems to have been, in the first instance, the name, not of the hymn, but of the god to whom the hymn is sung; and, through a tangle of curious etymological speculations as to the precise derivation of this name, one thing seems clearly visible, that it commemorates, namely, the double birth of the vine-god; that [26] he is born once and again; his birth, first of fire, and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... i.e., "emperor," or shui fu "water man," i.e., "water carrier." In the latter case we may as well frankly write shui-fu as a single word, the meaning of the compound as a whole being as divergent from the precise etymological values of its component elements as is that of our English word typewriter from the merely combined values of type and writer. In English the unity of the word typewriter is further safeguarded by a predominant ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... possession of the Rev. John Jamieson, D.D., probably long before the publication of his Etymological Dictionary in 1808, where he mentions his having two MSS. of Knox's History, (this, and the one marked No. VIII.) in his list of authorities; but neither of them was known, and consequently had never been examined ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... the name is Semitic is no longer seriously questioned by any scholar. The underlying stem suggests etymological relationship with the god Ashur. If this be so, Ishtar may mean 'the goddess that brings blessing' to mankind, but all this is tentative, as are the numerous other ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... etymological signification of "demonstration," "extraordinary," "accumulated," "Nova Scotia," "annually," ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... First French Reading-Book. Containing Fables, Anecdotes, Inventions, Discoveries, Natural History, and French History. With Grammatical Questions, Notes, and a Copious Etymological Dictionary. On the Plan of Dr. Smith's Principia Latina. 12mo, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sowing, not so much in the consequences of the war as in the fruits of his peerage policy. The fourteenth century which nationalized the Commons, isolated the Lords; and the baronage shrank into the peerage. The word "peer" is not of English origin, nor has it any real English meaning. Its etymological meaning of "equal" does not carry us very far; for a peer may be equal to anything. But the peers, consisting as they do of archbishops, dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, bishops, and barons, of peers who are lords of parliament and of peers who are neither ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... JOHN, a Scotch antiquary, born in Glasgow; bred for the Church; was Dissenting minister in Nicolson Street Church, Edinburgh; widely known as author of the "Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language"; wrote other works of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... etymological sense, this word "Trinity" seems to signify the one essence of the three persons, according as trinity may mean trine-unity. But in the strict meaning of the term it rather signifies the number of persons of one essence; and on ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... that arouses all the romanticism of our poet, as was the case with Walt Whitman, who, to be sure, was no cynic at all. The short poem Anne Rutledge is one of the few that strictly conform to the etymological meaning of the title of the book; for "Anthology" is a union of two Greek words, signifying a ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... to this spectral appearance believed in in Scotland, where the apparition is called Wraith, which word is defined in Jameson's Etymological Dictionary, published by ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... literary works of national importance which can only be performed by co-operative labor, and will never be undertaken by that spirit of trade which at present preponderates in literature. The formation of an English Etymological Dictionary is one of those works; others might be mentioned; and in this way literature might gain much by receiving national encouragement; but Government would gain a great deal more by bestowing it. Revolutionary governments ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... in Europe, could show a work of such industry, erudition, and philological completeness at that time. Professor H. H. Wilson declared that it must ever be regarded as a standard authority, especially because of its etymological references to the Sanskrit, which supplies more than three-fourths of the words; its full and correct vocabulary of local terms, with which the author's "long domestication amongst the natives" made him familiar, and his unique ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... the amber which preserves the thought of man. We need not dig far into the etymological strata to be impressed by the unenviable place which the dog has made for himself in the tradition and experience of our race. The name itself, and still more its variations, such as cur, hound, puppy, and whelp, are anything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... considers this use of the word "unusually bold, to say the least." It is simply the etymological meaning, to call forth (Latin, provocare). ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Gish-du-bar, but that we must read the first sign as Gish and the third as Mash, while for the second we must assume a reading Gn or Gi. This would give us Gish-g(n)-mash which is clearly again (like En-ki-d) not an etymological writing but a phonetic one, intended to convey an approach to the popular pronunciation. Gi-il-ga-mesh might well be merely a variant for Gish-ga-mesh, or vice versa, and this would come close to Gish-gi-mash. Now, when we have ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... of the intellect tend to transform matter into an instrument of action, that is, in the etymological sense of the word, into an organ. Life, not content with producing organisms, would fain give them as an appendage inorganic matter itself, converted into an immense organ by the industry of the living being. Such is the initial ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... Triticum repens of Linnaeus, and the common English monosyllable Bog, by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morassin Latin, Palus. But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious etymological derivations, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass, or, to speak scientifically, the Triticum repens of Linnaeus, does not grow within a quarter of a mile of this castrum or hill-fort, whose ramparts are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf; and that we must seek a ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... which lack the r. The Westerner would have to write scahf, in order to express to his own mind the New-England sound of scarf. Hitherto, the present critic has called no notice to rhymes of this type; and has, indeed, frequently employed them himself; but recognition of etymological principles involved will hereafter impel him to abandon and discourage the practice, which was not followed by the older classicists. To the New-England author this renunciation means relinquishment of many rhymes which are to his ear perfect, yet in the interests of tradition and universality ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... broom—certainly not to brandish it offensively or defensively against her conjugal ally, neither for witchcraft, but for the more harmless uses for which the besom was first invented—the idea involved being thus not less homely than the etymological derivation of the English wife (weaver) and daughter (duhitar, milkmaid). Without confining the sphere of woman's activity to Kueche, Kirche, Kinder, as the present German Kaiser is said to do, the Bushido ideal of womanhood was ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... of life is also the true substance, the reliable and changeless something, upon which we may forever depend. We use the word substance in its etymological sense (from sub, under and stare, to stand), and since Spirit or Mind is the reality that underlies every material or sensible object, there is no substance to ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... always valuable to find a place or work called after an individual, because it may help to support some tradition of his existence or his actions. But it is requisite that care be taken not to push the etymological dissection too far. Thus, "Caer Arianrod" should be taken simply as the "Camp of Arianrod," and not rendered the "Camp of the silver circle," because the latter, though it might possibly have something to do with the reason for ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... languages do not admit the use of Th; in English, likewise, where this combination of letters represents a special sound, the name should be spelt with T only. But the present fashion of thus writing it in Latin, German, French, and other languages, which generally maintain the etymological spelling, is intolerable: The name is Greek, and was placed on the calendar in honour of a noble Spanish lady, St. Therasia, who became the wife of a Saint, Paulinus of Nola, and a Saint herself. See Sainte Therese, Lettres au R. P. Bouix, by the Abbe ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... the etymological subtleties of the French language down to the chaste reluctances of female moles. He touched everything and he touched nothing that ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... "yoked together," and Samadhi derived from the root dha, "to place," with the prepositions sam and a, meaning "completely together". Samadhi, therefore, literally means " fully placing together," and its etymological equivalent in English would be " to compose " (comsam; posita place). Samadhi therefore means "composing the mind," collecting it together, checking all distractions. Thus by philological, as well as by practical, investigation the two words yoga and samadhi ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... "Llemenig," might be a proper name, for we find that one of "the three free guests of the court of Arthur," was so called. Nevertheless, as it would in that character appear somewhat out of place here, we have chosen the etymological sense in preference. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... term of contempt, and means not one who is really reasonable, but would like to pass for such." Of course the Doctor concludes that the word is a most flagrant and unrighteous misnomer; but we accept his philology and return him our thanks for his etymological study. ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... addition to the literal. It is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but the medium of representation is not necessarily language. An allegory may be addressed to the eye, and is often embodied in painting, sculpture or some form of mimetic art. The etymological meaning of the word is wider than that which it bears in actual use. An allegory is distinguished from a metaphor by being longer sustained and more fully carried out in its details, and from an analogy by the fact that the one appeals to the imagination ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Mu^{r}yi, mole or gopher; mu^{r}iyawu, moon. There maybe some Hopi legend connecting the gopher with the moon, but thus far it has eluded my studies, and I can at present do no more than call attention to what appears to be an interesting etymological coincidence.] ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... Thus, Edwards in his 'History of the West Indies,' and Gregory in his 'Economy of Nature,' Pope, Hoole, etc., restore mold to its true spelling; and it would be no small convenience to revive the etymological spelling of aker. Cullen, in his translation of 'Clavigero,' follows Bacon and Davenport in the true Saxon orthography of drouth; and the elegant Blackstone has corrected the orthography of nusance and duchy. The diphthongs ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... justification; for crazier analogies than that between Andromache and Andrew Mackay have been gravely insisted on by persons who, like the author of "Amilec," believed that the true secret of philosophizing est celui de rever heureusement. It is only within a few years that etymological investigations have been limited by anything; like scientific precision, or that profound study, patient thought, and severity of method have asserted in this, as in other departments of knowledge, their superiority to point-blank guessing and the bewitching generalization conjured out ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various |
