CHAPTER IV.
Change of Meaning in the History of Words.

We are now prepared for the testimony of specialists in the department of philology, and to witness an exemplification of the principles advanced in the preceding chapters.

In the whole realm of philology, there is, perhaps, no fact more evident than the change of meaning incident to words in a living language. Just as the customs, habits, occupations, and usages of a people are subject to change under the influence of changing conditions and circumstances, so the language of a people, for similar reasons, is subject to change. In proof of this, and as a final preparation for the consideration of specific examples, we now introduce the testimony of distinguished philologists who have made the study of language a specialty, and whose word, therefore, is the highest authority to which we can appeal in this department. It is immaterial whether the authorities quoted on this point be of recent or earlier date, the only essential consideration being that their testimony is reliable concerning the character and genius of language in general.

1. We will first hear Professor Max Müller, the brilliant lecturer on "The Science of Language" at [27] the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1861, who said:

Every part of nature, whether mineral, plant, or animal, is the same in kind from the beginning to the end of its existence, whereas few languages could be recognized as the same after the lapse of but a thousand years. The language of Alfred is so different from the English of the present day that we have to study it in the same manner as we study Greek and Latin. We can read Milton and Bacon, Shakespeare and Hooker; we can make out Wycliff and Chaucer; but when we come to the English of the thirteenth century, we can but guess its meaning.--Science of Language, p. 34.

The same eminent authority makes the following statement:

The language of the Authorized Version of the Bible, though perfectly intelligible, is no longer the spoken language of England. In Booker's Scripture and Prayer-book Glossary the number of words or senses of words which have become obsolete since 1611, amount to 388, or nearly one-fifteenth part of the whole number of words used in the Bible.--Ibid. p. 35.

This is not only strong testimony, but it gives no uncertain sound on the special point now before us, namely, that change of meaning in words is so common to all living languages that, on an average, about one word out of every fifteen in the common version of the Bible underwent a complete change in meaning in the course of two hundred and fifty years.

2. Professor A. H. Sayce, who occupies the Chair of Comparative Philology in the University of Oxford, and who is the author of several interesting works on the higher criticism of the Bible, says:

Language and languages are in a constant state of change: nowhere, indeed, can the maxim of Heraclitus, παντα 'ρει, be better illustrated. This perpetual flux and change is necessitated by the very fact that language is a product and creation of the human mind. Thought is ever shifting, moving, developing, and so, too, is the language in which it seeks to embody itself.--Introduction to the Science of Language, Vol. I., p. 166.

3. In the interesting and valuable "Lectures on the English Language" by George P. Marsh, we find this significant testimony:

The changes of signification which words undergo in all languages, from mere exhaustion by use, is a far more extensive and important subject. "Names and words," says Robertson, "soon lose their meaning. In the process of years and centuries, the meaning dies off them like the sunlight from the hills. The hills are there, the color is gone."--P. 255.

4. Benjamin W. Dwight, another master of language and literature, testifies in the following interesting manner:

Words pine away and die as truly as men themselves and books. Many whole languages have disappeared in other days, as in every language many [29] words are perpetually losing their vitality like Autumn leaves that have fulfilled their use, and, when their "occupation is gone," drop useless to the ground themselves.--Modern Philology, Second Series, p. 287.

5. To the same effect, Archbishop Trench, the renowned author of the "Study of Words," adds the following testimony:

The rise and fall of words, the honor which in tract of time they exchanged for dishonor, and the dishonor for honor--all which in my last lecture I contemplated mainly from an ethical point of view--is in a merely historic aspect less remarkable. Very curious is it to watch the varying fortune of words--the extent to which it has fared with them as with persons and families; some having improved their position in the world, and attained to far higher dignity than seemed destined for them at the beginning, while others in a manner quite as notable have lost caste, have descended from their high estate to common and even ignoble uses. Titles of dignity and honor have naturally a peculiar liability to be some lifted up, and some cast down. Of words which have risen in the world, the French "maréchal" affords us an excellent example. "Maréchal," as Howell has said, "at first was the name of a smith-farrier, or one that dressed horses"--which indeed it is still--"but it climbed by degrees to that height that the chiefest commanders of the gendarmery are come to be called marshals." But if this has risen, our "alderman" has fallen. Whatever the civic dignity of an alderman may now be, still it must be owned that the word has lost much since the time [30] that the "alderman" was only second in rank and position to the king.--Study of Words, pp. 208, 209.

6. The scholarly John Peile, who was one time teacher of Sanskrit in the University of Cambridge, the author of a valuable Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology, and of a more recent work on Philology, has given to the public, as a part of the fruit of his varied learning and researches, much valuable information on our theme. He devotes one chapter to "The Constant Change in Language;" and, after quoting a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth, and showing how radically some of its words have changed in meaning, he says:

Thus we have examined one passage, and have found in its four lines seven words which are either not used now at all, or are used in a different sense.... We must admit then that the English of today differs much from Shakespeare's English in the meaning of its words.--Philology, pp. 10, 11.

7. The eminent logician, John Stuart Mill, says:

These and similar instances in which the original signification of a term is totally lost--another and an entirely distinct meaning being first engrafted upon the former, and finally substituted for it--afford examples of the double movement which is always taking place in language: the counter-movements, one of Generalization, by which words are perpetually losing portions of their connotation and becoming of less meaning and more general acceptation; the other Specialization, by which other, or even [31] these same words, are continually taking on fresh connotation; acquiring additional meaning by being restricted in their employment to a part only of the occasions on which they might properly be used before.--System of Logic, p. 416.

8. Finally, from the eloquent Walter Scott we have the following significant deliverance:

Language is unstable, liable to change and corruption. Words are constantly losing their primitive meaning, and by the refining and discriminating processes by which they multiply themselves, are constantly losing their original significance and distinctness. The English word "form" has repeated itself in forty different derivatives.--Messiahship, or Great Demonstration, p. 10.

From such testimonies, taken directly from the writings of some of the world's most distinguished linguists and philologists, the conclusion follows, with overwhelming force, that the meaning of a word in a given language at one time may not be its meaning at another time. It is a fact, however, that concrete examples are worth more to the average mind, in an investigation like this, than abstract testimonies taken even from the world's greatest scholars. Hence, it is my purpose to present now, from our own language, a number of examples illustrating the theory of constant change in the meaning of words in all living languages which has been submitted and argued at some length in the foregoing pages. For this purpose, I have selected a list of English words [32] whose meaning to-day was never even thought of in the earlier periods of the language, and whose meaning then is now obsolete. Let the reader carefully study the examples here submitted.

1. The word carp. In the English of to-day, this word means "to find fault; to cavil; to censure;" and no writer or speaker of good English would use it now in any other sense; but in Chaucer's time--that is, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, it meant simply "to converse," or to engage in conversation. This sense is now entirely lost, and if any one should attempt to use the word thus to-day, be would not be understood. The word has undergone a complete change in meaning, and retains nothing in common with what it once was, except the bare idea of speech.

2. The word resent. This word vividly illustrates the point before us. According to its Latin etymology, it literally means to exercise one's feelings in return for some kindly deed done by another; in other words, to express kindly feelings for favors received. Hence, when it first made its appearance in the history of the English language, it bore, in large measure, the meaning now attached to the word "reciprocate," and it was good English in the seventeenth century, as Archbishop Trench observes, to speak of "an affectionate 'resentment' of our obligations to God. But," continues the same author, "the memory of benefits fades from us so much more quickly than that of injuries; we remember and revolve [33] in our minds so much more predominantly the wrongs, real or imaginary, men have done us, than the favors we owe them, that 'resentment' has come in our modern English to be confined exclusively to that deep reflective displeasure which men entertain against those that have done, or whom they fancy to have done, them a wrong." And so the only meaning which the word has to-day is "to be indignant at, to express or exhibit displeasure or indignation at." If an Englishman had used it in this latter sense two hundred and fifty years ago, he would have been unintelligible; and it is equally true that if it were used to-day in the sense it bore then, it would be unintelligible.

3. The word timeserver. According to its unvarying meaning in present-day English, the very mention of this word suggests a person whose conduct is contemptible. Webster defines it: "One who adapts his opinions and manners to the times; one who obsequiously complies with the ruling power." And yet two hundred and fifty years ago it indicated one whose conduct was honorable, meaning nothing more than one "serving the time."

4. The word candidate. This familiar word is derived from a Latin word meaning white, and in the mouth of either Livy or Cicero a person running for public office was called a "candidate" (candidatus), not because the word denotes any such fact, but from the circumstance that such persons, according to Roman custom, were clothed in white. But to-day [34] this idea is so completely gone from the word that it is never suggested by the popular use of the term candidate, which, regardless of the garment worn, is simply "one who offers himself, or is put forward by others, as a suitable person or an aspirant or contestant for an office, privilege, or honor; as, a candidate for the office of governor; a candidate for holy orders; a candidate for scholastic honors."--Webster. In popular usage to-day the average person, when speaking of a candidate for office, never thinks of the white toga worn by the ancient Romans. The word no longer has this meaning, and but few persons, comparatively, know that it ever had such a meaning.

5. The word animosity. In the fifteenth century this word simply meant "mere spiritedness or courage," and this meaning is true to the Latin origin of the term. It is from a word which denotes the soul, spirit, or mind, and in the verb form, to breathe; hence, it was natural that its first meaning should be "spiritedness or courage," a meaning still preserved in the kindred words "animate" and "animated;" but this meaning is now entirely gone from the word animosity, whose only meaning is: "Violent hatred leading to active opposition; active enmity; energetic dislike."

6. The word prevent. Just as we have seen in some other examples, so in "prevent" the idea in its Latin original prevailed for a time. It is made up of a preposition meaning "before," and a verb meaning [35] "to go;" hence, three hundred years ago it meant: "To go before; to precede; hence to go before as a guide; to direct;" and in the Book of Common Prayer in the seventeenth century we find this petition to the Lord: "We pray Thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us." Of course this usage of the word would be wholly out of place and misleading to-day; yet, in the Common Version of the English Bible, sometimes called the Authorized or King James Version, which was made in A.D. 1611, it is used in precisely this sense, which, with similar examples and facts, constituted one of the reasons for a Revision of the English of that version. It is used in that version in the sense in question in the following passages: "But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee," Psa. 88: 13. "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried," Psa. 119: 147. "Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word," Psa. 119: 148. "And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying," etc., Matt. 17: 25. "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep." II. Thess. 4: 15.

From the use of the word in these passages, the reader can easily see that some such term as "anticipate," "precede," or "go before" must be substituted for "prevent" in order to make good sense, because the latter, in present-day English, always means "to intercept; to hinder; to frustrate; to stop; [36] to thwart." Its ancient literal meaning, which it retained for several centuries, has wholly disappeared, so that in the sense of "to go before" it is now never used, but invariably conveys the idea of hindering.

7. The word lewd. Unless my readers have given special attention to the history of this word, they will no doubt be surprised to hear that it first meant the common people in distinction from the clergy. Remotely connected with the Greek word laos (λαος) meaning people, it made its way through Old English and Anglo-Saxon as the equivalent of laical, that is, "belonging to the laity" in distinction from the clergy. But, as the clergy were ordinarily distinguished from the common people by superior learning, so the first meaning of "lewd" was: "Not clerical; laic; laical; hence, unlearned; simple." In this sense, it was used by Chaucer in the couplet:

But, what a broad chasm between its meaning then, and its meaning now! It now means: "Given to the promiscuous indulgence of lust; dissolute, lustful; libidinous;" or, "suiting, or proceeding from, lustfulness; involving unlawful sexual desire; as, lewd thoughts, conduct, or language;" and in this sense it is universally used to-day. But it did not cross this chasm at one bound. Three hundred years ago, before it had acquired any of the meaning which it [37] now has, it lingered for a time with the meaning: "Belonging to the lower classes, or the rabble; idle and lawless; bad; vicious;" and it found its way into the Authorized Version of the Bible with this meaning in Acts 17: 5--"But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," etc. Thus, the word was passing through a process of continuous ahange before it reached the meaning which clings to it to-day.

8. The word idiot. This word furnishes a fine illustration of our principle. It is really a Greek word (ιδιοτης, from ιδιος, one's own, private), and originally meant, "one in a private station, opposed to one holding public office, or taking part in public affairs." It was used in this sense by Herodotus, Plato, Thucydides, and others. Then, it was an easy transition to the secondary meaning, namely, "one who has no professional knowledge, whether of politics or any other subject," in which sense it was used by Thucydides and others. Though the term was variously applied, these were its leading senses in the Greek language. After making its appearance in the English language, in which it is still a Greek word, merely Anglicized, it had a similar history, and retained, for a time, the same meanings which it had in Greek usage. These meanings, though current in the English of three bundred years ago, are now obsolete. According to Webster, the word has had the following meanings: 1. "A man in private station, as distinguished from [38] one holding public office." It was thus used by Jeremy Taylor in the seventeenth century in the following sentence: "Humility is a duty in great ones, as well as in idiots;" and by the same author in the sentence: "St. Austin affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all laics, and all idiots or private persons." 2. In its second stage in English, Webster says it meant: "An unlearned, ignorant, or simple person, as distinguished from the educated." It was used in this sense by writers of English three hundred years ago. The following passage from Charles Blount, a deistical writer of the seventeenth century, is cited by Webster as an instance of this usage: "Christ was received of idiots, of the vulgar people, and of the simpler sort, while he was rejected, despised and persecuted even unto death by the high priests, lawyers, scribes, doctors, and rabbis."

Thus far the English usage of this Anglicized Greek word, the reader can see, is parallel with its Greek usage; but at this point, it took on another meaning in English usage, which is: "A human being destitute of the ordinary intellectual powers, whether congenital, developmental, or accidental; commonly, a person without understanding from birth." It was, of course, an easy step to this last meaning, since the word had long been used to denote either a private person, hence one more obscure than those in public life, or an unlearned or simple person. The word has now entirely lost these latter [39] meanings, and it is used almost universally to denote "a person without understanding from birth." The only exceptions are when it is sometimes used as a term of reproach. It is still in process of change, and this latter may in time become its established meaning.

9. The word silly. In this term, we find illustrated the fact that, under the influence of those principles which in the course of time bring about changes in a language, words sometimes completely reverse their meaning. This very familiar word "silly" is nothing more nor less than a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon or Old English sælig, which meant happy or fortunate; and this again is from sæl, which meant good. The term is said to be akin to the Latin sollus, meaning "whole," and the Greek 'ολος (holos), having the same meaning. Hence, "silly" in English originally meant "happy, fortunate, blessed," and was so used in the fifteenth century. From this it came to mean "harmless, innocent;" then, "weak, helpless, frail;" and at the time of Shakespeare and Milton it meant "rustic, plain, simple." From this there was an easy transition to the present meaning of the word which, according to Webster, is: "Weak in intellect; destitute of ordinary strength of mind; foolish; simple;" or, "proceeding from want of understanding or common judgment; characterized by weakness or folly; unwise; absurd; stupid; as, silly conduct; a silly question." Hence, to speak of a man in the fifteenth century as "silly" was to say [40] that he was happy; but to use the term now, as my readers well know, is to convey a vastly different meaning.

10. The word alderman. This word, composed of the terms "elder" and "man," has retained almost entirely its Anglo-Saxon form. It not only meant originally "a senior or superior; a person of rank or dignity;" but it implied one of "superior wisdom or authority," such as princes, dukes, earls, and archbishops, and meant in England one who was second only to the king. Through the evolution of centuries, the term has lost much in prestige and dignity until an "alderman," in present-day English, is no more than "one of a board or body of municipal officers next in order to the mayor and having a legislative function."

Now, that the Greek Language was influenced, in a marked degree, by this evolutionary principle is so well attested by all classes of scholars, without exception, who have spoken on the subject, that a few representative quotations will be all that is necessary on this point. Furthermore, as the present treatise is vitally concerned with the Greek of the New Testament period, and particularly with the fact that the language had undergone many changes at that time as compared with its status in the classic period, we shall quote from those who have made the Greek of the New Testament, and other Greek of that period, a specialty.

1. Dr. George Benedict Winer, in his renowned Grammar of the Greek Testament, says:

In the age of Alexander the Great and his successors the Greek language underwent an internal change of a double nature. On the one hand, a literary prose language was formed, which was founded on the Attic dialect, yet differed from it by adopting a common Greek element, and even admitting numerous provincialisms (η κοινη or ελληνικη διαλεκτος). On the other hand, a popular spoken language arose, in which the previously distinct dialects spoken by the various Greek tribes were blended, with a predominance of the Macedonic variety. This latter compound, varying in some respects in the various provinces of Asia and Africa subjected to the Macedonian rule, constitutes the special foundation of the diction of the New Testament, as it does also of the Septuagint and Apocrypha.--New Testament Grammar, p. 20.

2. Alexander Buttman, in his Grammar of the New Testament Greek, speaking in general terms of the changes that were constantly going on in the Greek language throughout its history, says:

Frequently it has been desirable to bring into prominence the agreement between the New Testament language and ordinary Greek usage, particularly in those cases where such agreement appears rather as exceptional, and a departure from the usage of the New Testament elsewhere. Moreover, the usage of the classic authors themselves varies so much, according to time, place, subject, etc., that it could not fail often to seem appropriate to indicate [42] the New Testament usage and this or that department of classic Greek.--Grammar of the New Testament Greek, p. 76.

3. James Hope Moulton, in the brilliant Prolegomena of his Grammar of New Testament Greek, makes the following interesting statement:

We are now ready to inquire how this Common Greek of the New Testament rose out of the classical language. Some features of its development are undoubted, and may be noted first. The impulse which produced it lay, beyond question, in the work of Alexander the Great. The unification of Hellas was a necessary first step in the accomplishment of his dream of Hellenizing the world which he had marked out for conquest. To achieve unity of speech throughout the little country which his father's diplomatic and military triumphs had virtually conquered for him, was a task too serious for Alexander himself to face. But unconsciously he effected this, as a by-product of his colossal achievement; and the next generation found that not only had a common language emerged from the chaos of Hellenic dialects, but a new and nearly homogeneous world-speech had been created, in which Persian and Egyptian might do business together, and Roman proconsuls issue their commands to the subjects of a mightier empire than Alexander's own. His army was in itself a powerful agent in the leveling process which ultimately destroyed nearly all the Greek dialects. The Anabasis of the Ten Thousand Greeks, seventy years before, had doubtless produced results of the same kind on a small scale.--Prolegomena, pp. 30, 31.

The same author, in another work entitled, "An Introduction to the Study of New Testament Greek," says:

It need hardly be added that gradual changes in the vocabulary were going on steadily through the whole period which leads up to our era. That force of spoken language which is always weakening old words and bringing in new expressions to be toned down in their turn, was acting as powerfully in Greek as it does now in English; and in the course of centuries the undignified or exaggerated character of a word or phrase would be entirely forgotten.--Introduction, p. 9.

4. Dr. Adolph Deissman, the brilliant Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Heidelberg, in his recent work, "New Light on the New Testament," says:

The historical investigation of the language of the New Testament is still in its infancy, but we are already in a position to say that it has shown the New Testament to be, speaking generally, a specimen of the colloquial form of late Greek, and of the popular colloquial language in particular.--New Light on the New Testament, p. 34.

5. Charles Louis Loos, Professor (Emeritus) of the Greek Language and Literature in Transylvania University, who has been a successful student and teacher of both New Testament and classic Greek for more than half a century, in an able article on New [44] Testament Greek in the Christian Quarterly Review, says:

But by far the most important changes and which interest us most, are those which refer to new or modified meanings given to already existing and current Greek words, whether in the old classic or in the new postclassic Greek. It is these changes which especially concern us in the study of the New Testament.--Quarterly for 1884, p. 21.

Now in the light of the well-established principles of philology which have been disclosed in this chapter, my readers must be prepared to see not only the reasonableness of our contention that psallo (ψαλλω) has had widely different meanings in the different periods of its history, but also how and why it is that the lexicons tell us, as we have seen, that it means to pluck the hair, to twang the bowstring, to twitch a carpenter's line, to touch the chords of a musical instrument or to make instrumental music, and to touch the chords of the human heart or to sing. They can also see that just as the English words "resent," "candidate," "animosity," "prevent," "lewd," "silly," "idiot," and many others, once had meanings that are now entirely obsolete and not even known to the average speaker or writer of English to-day, so the Greek word psallo (ψαλλω) once meant to pluck the hair, twang the bowstring, twitch a carpenter's line, and to touch the chords of a musical instrument, but had entirely lost all of these meanings before the beginning of the New Testament [45] period, and that, therefore, the word is never used in the New Testament nor in cotemporaneous literature in any of these senses. At this time, it not only meant to sing, but that is the only sense in which it was used, all the other meanings having entirely disappeared.