Stories That Words Tell UsO'Neill, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Speakman)
History
Stories That Words Tell Us
O'Neill, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Speakman)
English language -- Etymology
Many common English words are really metaphors made from old English
sports, such as hunting and hawking. It is curious to think how these
words are chiefly used to-day by people who know nothing of these
pastimes, while the people who made the words were so familiar with
them that they naturally expressed themselves in this way. We speak of
a person being in another's "toils," when we mean in his "power." The
word _toils_ comes from the French _toiles_, meaning "cloths," and
also used for the nets put round part of a wood, in which birds are
being preserved for shooting, to prevent their escaping. The
expression to "turn" or be "at bay," by which we mean that there is no
chance of escape, but that the person in such a situation must either
give in or fight, comes from hunting. The hare or the fox is said to
be "at bay" when it comes to a wall or other object which prevents its
running farther, and so turns and faces its pursuers. _Bay_ is the
deep barking of the hounds.
The word _crestfallen_, by which we mean looking ashamed and
depressed, comes from the old sport of cock-fighting. The bird whose
crest (or tuft of hair on the head) drooped after the fight was
naturally the one which had been beaten. The word _pounce_ comes from
hawking, _pounces_ being the old word for a hawk's claws. The word
_haggard_, which now generally means worn and sometimes a little
wild-looking through grief or anxiety, was originally the name given
to a hawk caught, not, like most hawks used for hawking, when it was
quite young, but when it was already grown up. Such a hawk would
naturally have a wild look, and would never become so tame as the
birds caught young.
Several words meaning to entice a person come from fowling. We speak
of persons being "decoyed" when we mean that they are deceived into
going to some dangerous place. The person who entices them away is
called a "decoy;" but the first use of the word was to describe a duck
trained to induce other ducks to fly or walk into nets laid over ponds
by trappers. Another word of this kind is _allure_, which means to
persuade a person to do something by making it seem very attractive.
This word really means to bring a person (originally an animal) to
the "lure" or "bait" prepared to catch him.
The word _trap_, which may now mean to show a person to be guilty by a
trick, or to put him in the wrong in some way, is a metaphorical use.
The word literally means to catch an animal in a trap.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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