Some metal-workers have already been mentioned in connection with
Smith (Chapter IV), and elsewhere. The French Fevre, from Lat. faber,
is found as Feaver. Fearon comes from Old Fr, feron, ferron, smith.
Face le ferrun, i.e. Boniface (Chapter III) the smith, lived in
Northampton in the twelfth century. This is an example of the French
use of -on as an agential suffix. Another example is Old Fr. charton,
or charreton, a waggoner, from the Norman form of which we have
Carton. In Scriven, from Old Fr. escrivain (ecrivain), we have an
isolated agential suffix. The English form is usually lengthened to
Scrivener. In Ferrier, for farrier, the traditional spelling has
prevailed over the pronunciation, but we have the latter in Farrar.
Ferrier sometimes means ferryman, and Farrar has absorbed the common
Mid. English nickname Fayrhayr. Aguilar means needle-maker, Fr.
aiguille, but Pinner is more often official (Chapter XIX). Culler,
Fr. coutelier, Old Fr. coutel, knife, and Spooner go together, but the
fork is a modern fad. Poynter is another good example of the
specialization of medieval crafts: the points were the metal tags by
which the doublet and hose were connected. Hence, the play on words
when Falstaff is recounting his adventure with the men in buckram--
Fal. "Their points being broken--"
Poins. "Down fell their hose."
(I Henry IV., ii, 4.)
Latimer, Latner sometimes means a worker in latten, a mixed metal of
which the etymological origin is unknown. The Pardoner--
"Hadde a croys of latoun ful of stones" (A, 699).
For the change from -n to -m we may compare Lorimer for Loriner, a
bridle-maker, belonging ultimately to Lat. lorum, "the reyne of a
brydle" (Cooper). But Latimer comes also from Latiner, a man skilled
in Latin, hence an interpreter, Sir John Mandeville tells us that, on
the way to Sinai--
"Men alleweys fynden Latyneres to go with hem in the contrees."
The immortal Bowdler is usually said to take his name from the art of
puddling, or buddling, iron ore. But, as this process is
comparatively modern, it is more likely that the name comes from the
same verb in its older meaning of making impervious to water by means
of clay. Monier and Minter are both connected with coining, the
former through French and the latter from Anglo-Saxon, both going back
to Lat. moneta, [Footnote: On the curiously accidental history of this
word see the Romance of Words, ch. x.] mint. Conner, i.e. coiner, is
now generally swallowed up by the Irish Connor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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