Pining for My Opinion?

It has been a hiatus of a couple of weeks since my last post – my travel schedule has made posting most difficult. (I have only been at home six days this month, although the last six have been a vacation, so I am not complaining.) It is time to catch up on words related to previous posts

In a previous post I included the word abjure. But in reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry I ran across the very similar word adjure. It means to charge, bind, or command earnestly and solemnly, often under oath or the threat of a penalty. It can also mean to entreat (I would have used the word ask or plead) or request earnestly.  It came to English in Latin in the late 1300s from the word adiurare (no letter J in Latin), and meant to confirm by oath, or add an oath or swear in addition. It had the sense of another oath, although the prefix ad- meant to swear and the iurare is the word from which we get jury. But now adjure can mean oath or a very strong assertion or entreaty. And if you renounce what you formerly adjured, you abjure it.

Even further back is a post on rapine, which is not to be confused with repine or opine. Rapine is the taking away of someone’s property by force. Repine is a verb that means to fret or complain. Opine is the verb for having an opinion. And while we’re on the subject,  the words to the song from Evita could have easily been “Don’t pine for me, Argentina,” because the verb  pine means to yearn deeply for. So how do words with pine in them have such different meanings?

Let us go back to Old English, where the word pinian (not to be confused with pinion, a gear with a small number of teeth that often interfaces with another gear known as a rack) meant to torture or cause pain (not to be confused with the medieval form of torture known as the rack). It may have come from the Latin word  for punishment, poena, or the Greek word poine, from which we get words like punishment and penal (not to be confused with penile). The idea of pining causing a languishing or a wasting away came into use in the 1300s. To yearn deeply or suffer with longing is now the primary definition.

A couple of hundred years later, in the mid-1500s, someone added the prefix re- to the very pine and formed the word repine. It has come to mean to be fretfully discontented, although I have seen it used to describe a positive experience of pining, or longing in a good way. I would use pine in a negative sense and repine in a positive and less intense sense.

Opinion and opine also go back to the 1300s and 1500s. While the noun opinion also came into use in the 1300s it was not until the mid-1500s that the verb opine came into English. Both words came from French, opinion from the Old French word of the same spelling and meaning, and opine from the Middle French word opiner, that came directly from the Latin word opinari. Opinari means to have an opinion while opine means to express that opinion. We have not come far from the original meaning with this set of words.

Now you know my opinion; don't pine for me.... 

Any Port in a Storm

A couple of years ago this blog reported on disport and comport but not on import or export or report. 

Report has five meanings in my dictionary. Four of the definitions refer to an account, announcement, or statement of an event, and the fifth is a loud noise like from a rifle. It came to English in the late 1300s. The noun word report came from the Old French with the same spelling and meant a pronouncement or a judgment. The Modern French word is rapport.

The verb form of the word report came from the Old French word reporter which meant to tell or relate.  The Middle French got reporter from the Latin word reportare, which meant to carry back or bring back. It was formed by adding the prefix re- to portare. Re- indicates “back” as in Latin as it does in English, and portare meant “to carry” or carry through or way through or passage. It is a cognate of portus, that means harbor or port, from which we get our English (and before that Old English) word port. The Latin word porta is another cognate, and means gate or door; it is the source of our word portal, that means gate or gateway, even though we got portal – again in the late 1300s – from the Old French word portal that they got from the Medieval Latin word portale which was formed from the Latin word porta.

Not much later (in the early 1400s) the Latin word importare, meaning “to bring in or convey” came into use in English to mean “convey information , express, or make known”, a very similar meaning to report. It was 1500 before it was first used to refer to that which was brought from abroad (into a port).  The noun import (meaning that which is imported) was not used until the 1680s, though the noun import (meaning consequence or meaning or purport) had been used for 100 years.

Export, on the other hand, is much more straightforward.  Since the 1610s it has basically had one meaning: to send or carry out or away.  It comes directly from the Latin word exportare, ex- being a prefix denoting “away.”  It was not until 1660 we encounter the first use of the word to relate to international shipping, and twenty years more until its first use in noun form.

I mentioned rapport earlier.  Our current meaning of connection or harmonious or sympathetic relation does not suggest a connection with the Modern French word rapport that is related to report. But as we already know the etymology it may be a surprise to learn it is not that straightforward. In the 1660s the French had taken the word rapporter, that means bring back or refer to, and was formed from the prefix re-  and the word for bring, apporter (from the Latin word apportare), and backformed the word rapport, meaning the way you carry yourself or your bearing, but also meaning yield, produce, harmony and agreement.

A definition of the noun import used the word purport. Purport has the meaning of presenting or appearing to be, or professing or claiming. It can be used as a noun or a verb, and both words came to English in the early 1400s from Anglo-French words (the verb from purporter and the noun from purport).  The Old French got the words from the Latin prefix pro- that means “forth.” So I purport that the word purport has the etymological meaning of “to put forth” and idea or claim.

The import of purport is reported to be exported when there is a rapport between ports. (I am not sure that sentence makes sense but it uses all of today’s words.)