Presenting Presents in the Present (Gifts)

Two years ago this blog posted “The Pedantic Night BeforeChristmas” and last year we looked at words for love and joy. In the spirit of Christmas we’ll begin this year by opening some presents.

Why does a word (present) that is a tense and an adjective that means “at this time” also have the noun meaning of a gift or the giving of a gift? And what kind of a word is gift?

Present as a noun meaning gift was the first to arrive in English, in about 1200. It came from the Old French word present that came from the Medieval Latin word presentia. Etymonline.com adds “from phrases such as French en present ‘(to offer) in the presence of,’ mettre en present ‘place before, give,’ from Late Latin inpraesent ‘face to face,’ from Latin in re praesenti ‘in the situation in question,’ from praesens ’being there’…on the notion of ‘bringing something into someone’s presence.’” For me, that quote fits into the category of too much information.

The next versions of present to arrive in English were both the noun and adjective meanings of “the current time” as opposed to future or past. The noun arrived about 1300 from the Old French word present and from the Latin praesens that means “being there.” The adjective arrived concurrently to the noun but directly from the Latin praesentem meaning “at hand, in sight.” Interestingly (perhaps) the meaning in English of “being there” attached to “present” did not occur until the mid-1300s, about the same time that the word was used to describe the grammatical tense.

Just to complete the forms of speech, the verb use of present (pronounced with a long "e" in the first syllable and emphasis on the second syllable) also entered English about 1300. Meaning “to introduce formally” or “give formally” it comes from the Old French presenter and directly from the Latin praesentare, “to place before, show, or exhibit.”

I was surprised to find that the word gift arrived in English after the various words present. Perhaps due to the various forms of present the need for an exclusive word for that which is given was needed. Gift, according to etymonline.com, was used in surnames from as early as about 1100, but took until the middle of the 1300s for it to convey its present meaning. (See how I used present in a way that can refer to either "now" or "the thing being given"?) Gift came to English from a Scandinavian source; Old Norse has the word gift or gipt meaning gift or good luck. But Old Saxon also has the word gift and Middle Dutch has it spelled ghifte. The Old English noun for giving or gift was spelled giefu.

In this season of giving, my present to you is the gift of words. I’ve collected them for years, and hope you enjoy the interrelationship and discovery of how words came to be. (For instance, in German, the word Gift means poison. Wait until next year for that post.) It has been a gift (not the German word) to me to be able to give time to this blog and I trust it has been enjoyable for you as well as (on occasion) enlightening.

That's it for the present(s). Next week we're on to the future.