Numerous Words for Multiplicity, Part II

To follow up on last week, and make things more confusing, the word multiple didn’t come into English until the 1640s, and came from the 14^th century French word multiple, which the French got from those Late Latins who used the word multiplus. Multiple means having several parts.  Multiplus means manifold, and came from combining the prefix multi- with –plus, which means, and I quote, “-fold”. In case you’re wondering, and at this point why would you, -fold is a multiplicative (just what we need, another “multi-“ word) suffix. While its use has been “crowded out by the Latinate double, triple, etc.” it is still used in words like hundredfold.  The use of crowd indicates a multitude of uses of double and triple rather than –fold.

Multiplex means having several parts. Sounds like multiple, doesn’t it? But it also means having several aspects, which expands its meaning slightly beyond multiple. It came to English through mathematics over a century before multiple, in the 1550s as an adjective and within ten years became also a noun. It came directly (I said it, etymonline didn’t) from the Latin word multiplex, which means “having many folds; many times as great in number; of many parts.” Many folds sounds like manifold.

Manifold has a different etymological path, which is why it uses “mani-“ rather than “multi-“. It means “of many kinds; numerous and varied.” Its etymology is from Old English, the Anglian version of which is monigfald and the West Saxon version of which is manigfeald. It meant “various, varied in appearance, complicated; numerous, abundant.” And for those who like a challenge, etymonline adds:

A common Germanic compound (cf. Old Frisian Manichfald, Middle Dutch Menichvout, German mannigfalt, Swedish mångfalt, Gothic managfalþs), perhaps a loan-translation of [the] Latin multiplex (see multiply). Retains the original pronunciation of many, Old English also had a verb form, manigfealdian, “to multiply, abound, increase, extend.”

For those of you who care (both of you), Old Frisian was a language "akin to English spoken on the North Sea coast of modern Netherlands and Germany before 1500," according to etymonline.com.

So, manifold has a sense of variety to its multiplicity, multiplicity can be synonymous with manifold or with multiplex, which is about complexity where multiple is about similarity, and multitude can be synonymous with multiple but is the only one to use when speaking of a crowd of people. Or a number of people, or numerous people. 

Or, to make it simpler (I hope), use numerous when just referring a great number of anything, multitude when referring to people or a very large number of objects, manifold when referring to a variety of objects, multiple when referring to a number of similar things, multiplex when referring to one thing with several parts to it, and multiplicity if you can’t remember which of the other five to use. Phew!

Next week: plethora, range, and spectrum. Because there are never enough words for numerous .

Multiplicity of Words for Numerous, Part I

There are a number of words for numerous. In my blog post “Hands and Legs” we looked at gamut, and multifarious was covered in “Nothing Nefarious about Multifarious”. But what’s the difference between multitude and multiplicity, between range and spectrum, between panoply and plethora? And where’d we get such an unusually spelled word as “number” and why is the word numerous rather than numberous? So many questions, so little space, so this will take several weeks to get through.

Let’s begin by getting the number vs. numerous mystery out of the way. Number was the first of the two words to come to English, and it came about 1300 from the Anglo-French word noumbre. The Anglo-French got noumbre from the Old French word nombre, which the Old French got from the Latin word numerus. Why they added a b is unexplained. A form of the Latin word numerus, numerosus, is the source of the English word numerous, which began to be used the 1400s. So you can blame the Old French (if you can find them) for the presence of a b in our word number. Number has at least five definitions, one of which is “the sum, total, count, or aggregate of a collection of units, or the like,” which is similar to our other words today and next week. But when used in this sense, it is usually in the phrase “a number of”. Numerous means “very many; being or existing in great quantity.”

Multitude and multiplicity, I must admit, are two words that seem to me to be so similar that research can only help me differentiate. Multitude came to English in the 14^th century, from a 12^th century Old French word (are you ready for this?) multitude. The Old French (you know who you are) took it “directly from” (that’s what etymonline says, and it rarely uses the word “directly”) the Latin word multitudinem. Multitudinem means “a great number, a crowd; the crowd, the common people.” Multi- means many, and -tude is the suffix Latins used to turn an adjective into a noun. So multitudinem was a noun meaning a great number, and had a sense of a lot of people. It still means a great number, and still has a sense of reference to a great number of people, a crowd.

Multiplicity came to English a century later than multitude, in the mid-15^th century. It came from the Middle French word multiplicité, which the Middle French got from the Late Latin word multiplicitas. Multiplicitas means (wait for it…) multiplicity. That clears it up, doesn’t it? By the way, the Late Latins (you know who you are, and next time be on time, please) got multiplicitas from the Latin prefix multiplic- from which we get our word multiple.

So what does multiplicity mean? It means either a large number or a large variety or both. It can mean “the state of being multiplex or manifold.” Here we go again.  But not until next week.

Annoying stubborn bullies?

Sometimes there are words you think you’ve used, only to find out that after tens of thousands of words, you’ve never written about one of the old ones. When our children were young (elementary school age) I encountered and began using the word contumacious, which refers to someone who is stubbornly perverse or rebellious or willfully or obstinately disobedient. It’s truly a good word to use with children. It not only describes their behavior, but it sometimes even makes them look up the meaning of a word.

I’ve used it for about 20 years, and although there are 135 other posts in this blog, none of them looked at contumacious. Contumacious is the adjective form of contumacy, and came to English about 1600 directly from the Latin word contumaci-, which is the stem of contumax that means “haughty, insolent, obstinate. The noun contumacy came to English in the late 14^th century, from the Latin word contumacia, which means haughty. I don’t know why contumacious came from the stem of contumax rather than from the word contumacia, but that’s what etymonline says. It also says it is the “noun quality of contumax (see contumely).” So let’s see contumely.

Contumely is a noun, even though it looks like an adverb, and also imported to English in the late 14^th century, but from an Old French word contumelie. The Old French got their word from the Latin word contumelia, which means insult and according to etymonline.com “is probably related to contumax.”

Contumelia also spawned the word contumelious, which took 100 years or so to be formed from the Old French word contumelieus. You can be contumelious by using the word contumacious. But avoid being a termagant.

A termagant is a boisterous shrew of a woman, a violent, turbulent or brawling woman. Not the kind you see on “professional” wrestling, but more likely the kind you see in your local purveyor of alcoholic beverages – after midnight. Termagant has a most interesting etymology, having come to English in about 1500 from the Old French name Tervagant, which was used in the Chanson de Roland. The Chanson de Roland (French for Song of Roland) is, according ty Encyclopædia Britannica online, “probably the earliest (c. 1100) chanson de geste and is considered the masterpiece of the genre.” In the interest of clarity, a chanson de geste is “any of the Old French epic poems forming the core of the Charlemagne legends.” Tervagant, though, may also have developed into the name Teruagant or Teruagaunt, which was the name of a Muslim deity that appeared in medieval morality plays.

Now, a termagant is not a nag. A nag, according to the World English Dictionary, is ”a person, especially a woman, who nags.” That helps. What is nagging? Pestering, or hectoring, or constantly annoying or scolding. It arrived in English only in 1828, and was originally “a dialectic word meaning ‘to gnaw’ (1825).” While it can’t be certain, it likely came from Scandinavia, where the Old Norse word for complain is gnaga and the dialectic Swedish and Norwegian for gnaw is nagga.

While we know what pestering is, hectoring is not a word I often hear. While in the late 14^th century it referred to a brave warrior, by the 1650s it referred to, according to Johnson, “a blustering, turbulent, pervicacious, noisy fellow,” it is in reference to the Trojan hero Hector from Homer’s Iliad. It still today refers to a “blustering, domineering person,” a bully.

Johnson’s word pervicacious was new to me. It arrived in English about 1630, from the Latin stem of pervicax, which means stubborn or willful. Interestingly, it is formed from the prefix per-, which indicates “by means of” combined with a form of the word vincere, which means to conquer.  When I looked up its definition I found it means “extremely willful; obstinate; stubborn.” Like contumacious. And the circle of words continues.

Portmanteau Idiomatic Expressions

Today we have three more words to catch up on from previous posts, all three from August, but two from this August and one from August, 2010.

The first is whippersnapper, which I used in my blog on August 19. Whippersnapper is a portmanteau word that I always associate with an old person’s appellation of a young person. I used it hoping its use would be incongruous, since I am so young, but my burgeoning grey hair may belie that contention.

Whippersnapper actual is useful when describing “an unimportant but offensively presumptuous person, especially a young one.” It dates from the 1670s, and the Oxford English Dictionary says it is “apparently a ‘jingling extension’ of whip snapper”,  or someone who cracks whips. Etymonline.com goes further back and says it may be “an alteration of snipper-snapper,” which they say was in use in the 1590s. They also refer to a term of abuse for a woman, whipperginnie, which was in use at the same time as snipper-snapper. 

The conflation of these two phrases into whippersnapper may have been the origin, but it doesn’t help us understand either snipper-snapper or whipperginnie, or for that matter whippersnapper. So here is a conundrum. Where did it come from and what did it mean? In doing further research there are some who contend the word is a sexual reference, either to penile erection or to the use of condoms. Since the use of condoms was not widespread until the 18^th century I believe that interpretation is a recent invention.

Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby) and Alcott (Little Women) used the word whippersnapper, and Thomas Nashe used the word whipperginnie in The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), but I found nothing else to help solve the conundrum. We must bow to current usage and leave it at that.

In describing whippersnapper as a portmanteau word we encounter another of today’s words: portmanteau, which is left over from my post of August 11, 2010. Originally a portmanteau was a traveling bag, especially of the sort that would open up into two halves like a trunk. It came to English from the Middle French word portemanteau. Court officials who carried a prince’s mantle in the 1540s were called the prince’s portemanteau, porte being the imperative of porter which means to carry and manteau being the word for cloak or mantle. Mickey Mantle carried a heavy stick and hit 536 home runs for the Yankees. By the 1580s the word portmanteau came to mean a case or bag that carried clothing while traveling.

The French origins of the word give you the option of pluralizing the word by adding either an s (portmanteaus) or an x (portmanteaux). Pendants will certainly opt for the latter.

One other interesting note about the word that is necessary to explain my usage of the word above. In 1882 Lewis Carroll  coined the phrase “portmanteau word” to describe a word “blending the sound of two different words.” These are the words he used to populate the conundrum of a poem Jabberwocky, the opening of which is most familiar: “’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe…”

Today’s third word, confute, is also from the August 19, 2012 post where it was used in a definition of evince. Confute means to prove something to be false or invalid. Disprove would be a synonym. So why does confute exist and where did it come from?

It came to English in the 1520s, like portmanteau from the Middle French. The French got their word confuter from the Latin word confutare, which was formed from the intensive prefix com- and the word future, which means “to beat or strike”. It originally meant to repress, check, disprove or restrain. As such it is likely different from disprove in its intensity, not in its meaning. If you have disproved something in a forceful and substantial manner, you have confuted it. In debates, it might be the verbal “smackdown,” a portmanteau idiomatic expression.

Someone should be fined for using smackdown and portmanteau idiomatic expression in the same sentence. Young whippersnapper!http://larry-whatsthegoodword.blogspot.com/2010/08/one-word-leads-to-another.html

Hoydens Give me Neurasthenia

As I promised last week, I’m trying to catch up on words I said I’d get to later.

From October 6, 2010 I have two words relating to lassitude and ennui that I didn’t get to include in my two-week exposition on vacation: neurasthenia and acedia.

Neurasthenia is a psychiatric term for what we would call nervous exhaustion. According to etymonline.com it was coined as a “medical Latin” word in 1854 by combining the Greek words for the nerves (neuro-) and feeling (asthenia).

Acedia, on the other hand, has nothing to do with psychiatry. It means sloth or laziness, particularly relative to religious matters. Or so says dictionary.com. It came to English in the early 1600s, from the Late Latin word acedia, which came to Latin from the Greek word akeda that was derived from the Greek word for care or anxiety, kedos. The prefix a- negates the word that follows, the Greek equivalent of our non-.

From my blog of December 1, 2010 comes the word ambit. Not a word I’ve seen or heard used, it is nonetheless a good word to describe the circumference or boundary or limit of something, whether physical or conceptual. Originally referring to the space surrounding a building or town in the late 1400s, by the 1590s it came to refer to a circuit. It came to English from the Latin word ambitus, which is the past participle of ambire that means to go round or about. It is the Latin word from which we also get the word ambient, meaning surrounding and usually referring to an environment. Ambient came to English at the time ambit came to mean a circuit.

Lastly, from my blog of January 23, 2011 is the hyphenated word hoity-toity. Although etymonline.com suggests it can also be used without the hyphen, my dictionary has neither hoity nor toity as a word, so I’m sticking with the hyphen. Hoity-toity is a disparaging word that means pretentious or haughty. (You can’t sing “never is heard a disparaging word” when singing about my blog.) The word hoity-toity came to English in the 1660s and originally meant “riotous behavior.” There was an earlier phrase, highty tighty (not to be confused with the screwy mnemonic “righty-tighty, lefty loosy”) that meant “frolicsome or flighty”. Etymonline.com suggests that hoity-toity might have been related to the dialectic word hoyting, which in the 1590s referred to “acting the hoyden, romping.” Hoity-toity didn’t get its sense of haughtiness until the late 1800s, and etymonline.com conjectures it was probably due to the homonymic qualities of haughty and hoity.

Hoyden, a word from etymonline.com I used in the last paragraph, is a good word to use when describing a boisterous, bold, and carefree girl, or a tomboy. It came to English in the 1590s, but it’s not clear from where. Most likely it came from the Dutch word heiden, which was used of rustic or uncivilized men. Hoyden originally meant a rude or boorish man, but since the 1670s it started being used in reference to females, and now has come to refer almost exclusively to girls. 

Bon mots about superannuated and my dotage

Last week I ran out of space before getting to the word superannuate, and the week before ended with a bon mot using bon mot. I promised I’d catch up with some words I’ve previously mentioned but saved until later, so here we go.

Not only last week but in my blog post on May 23, 2010 I used superannuate and didn’t explain. In 2010 I referred to my father’s 90^th birthday as his superannuation. I didn’t expound on superannuation, and apparently didn’t even consult a dictionary, because had I done so I would have found out it doesn’t mean “very old”, it means retired because of age or infirmity, or too old for use. It came to English in the 1630s from Middle Latin, which combined the prefix super, which means beyond or over in Latin, with the Latin word for year – annus. It originally referred to cattle that were more than a year old. While it may have a connotation that relates only to age, it should not be used for anyone not retired, not someone in their dotage.

Dotage is the word I covered in my post of August 11, 2010,but I didn’t get to the word dote. Dotage originally meant simply “the state of one who dotes”, but it has come to mean “a decline of mental faculties, especially as associated with old age.” It can be used to refer to the act of doting, but I do not know of anyone who uses that meaning. Interestingly, the word dote has gone the other direction in meaning. It originally defined a decline in mental faculties, but has come to mean the habitual showing of excessive fondness or loving attention. It is 100 years older than dotage, and was adopted from the Middle Low German word doten, which meant “be foolish.” It didn’t get develop the meaning of excessive fondness until the late 15^th century.  Dotage still retains a certain sense of foolishness to the subject that senility and superannuate don’t connote.

The week before last I used the French pairing bonmot, which has been adopted for use in English since 1735.  It is literally translated “good word” as in “What’s the good word?” In common parlance today you might hear “word” used to mean the same thing. “Word” as a bon mot is a paring of the pairing “word up”, which means, according to UrbanDictionary.com, “I comprehend what you are saying and verify that your statement is true, my good brother.” A la “true dat.” To finish the etymology, the French word mot comes from the Vulgar Latin word muttum, which descended from the Latin word muttire, which means to mutter, mumble, or murmur and from which we get the word mutter.

More words to come next week that I didn’t get to because I ran out of space, as we’re out of space again this week. 

Superman Gives 110%

To find a supernacular superannuated supernumerary who is supererogatory would be supernal. That person might be a superman. Or that might be a first-rate retired person who takes up acting, gets a non-speaking part and does more than expected. Such a person would be heavenly.

Supernacular is the only “super” word above that wasn’t on my list of unused blog words. It’s also a “mock Latin term intended to mean ‘upon the nail’.” Because of its coinage it is not found in many  dictionaries (or on etymonline.com, since it really doesn’t have an etymology). It appears to have been coined by Thackeray,and it was also used by Byron and by Brand. Its first use was as two words, super nagulum, by Nashe in 1592. The quote helps explain its meaning: “Drinking super nagulum, a devise of drinking new come out of Fraunce; which is, after a man hath turned up the bottom of the cup, to drop it on his nails, and make a pearle with that is left; which if it slide, and he cannot make it stand on, by reason ther’s too much, he must drinke againe for his penance.”

Supererogation is one of those good words that needs to be used more often, in place of the phrase “going above and beyond” or “giving 110%” (an impossibility, by the way). Supererogate, the verb form of the noun supererogation, is defined as simply doing more than is required. Which means erogate should mean doing what is expected, right? Wrong. Erogate, before it became obsolete, meant to lay our money or expend. So how do we get from paying to doing above and beyond? Supererogation is actually the word that came in English use in the 1520s. 

It is part of Catholic theology, so it is not surprising that it came from a Late Latin word supererogationem, the nominative of which is supererogatio. It was formed by adding super (in its meaning of beyond or over) to erogare, which means to pay out. Erogare is formed from ex-, meaning out, and rogare, meaning ask or request. It is used in the Latin version of the New Testament in the story of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10:35 says that after paying the Innkeeper two silver coins (New International Version, NIV, “two pence” in the King James Version) the Good Samaritan said “Look after him, and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.” (NIV) In the Latin, the underlined words are quodcumque supererogaveris. Supererogation eventually became a sense of duty and performance that came into conflict with Martin Luther’s famous translation of the words “the just shall live by faith alone” and set off the Reformation. Supererogation now means going above and beyond and deserves a place in everyone’s lexicon; especially in lieu of giving 110%.

If you’re interested in heavenly words, look at the word supernal. It is an adjective that refers primarily to heavenly, celestial, or divine beings, but also refers to anything lofty or having an excellence of more than earthly or human proportions. But to understand it better, one should compare it with its counterpart infernal.

Infernal, the adjective that means hellish, diabolical, or fiendish, also came from Latin through 12^th century Old French. Late Latin had the word infernalis that meant “of the lower regions”; Ambrose used infernus as his word for hell. Infernus means “the lower (world)”. Its relationship to a place called hell, or things that resemble it, is due to Dante’s use of the Italian word inferno, which was adopted as an English word for a raging fire as early as 1834.

Supernumerary, as can be deduced, means in excess of the usual number. A baker’s dozen (13) would be a supernumerary dozen. But supernumerary has taken on a distinctly personnel meaning. It may refer to extra staff hired on or placed temporarily, and is used of what are commonly referred to as “extras” in film and stage productions. No wonder that it has a personnel sense since it came to English in about 1600 from a Late Latin word, supernumarius, that meant “excessive in number” in reference to soldiers being added to what was already a full legion. (Legion being the Roman word for an Army Division of 3000 – 6000 soldiers.) And yes, numarius is the word from which we get our word “number”.

For the second time I’ve used the word superannuate without explaining it. Tune in next week, when I’ll catch up on some of the words I said I’d get to later.