Ensconcing a Sconce

It was during our department lunch that a discussion ensued. Was ensconced a word or not? It didn't take long for someone to ask me for my opinion.

I told them "Yes, ensconce is a word" and attempted to define it. The best I could come up with was something along the lines of being fully engulfed or inundated or installed. Then I looked it up, because it occurred to me that it likely has nothing to do with the word sconce, as in a wall sconce (I've never read of a floor sconce or table sconce.) Later I heard them discussing the word scone, which bears an eerie resemblance to sconce, as does eerie to Erie.

First, ensconce is defined (at dictionary.com) as "to settle securely or snugly" or "to cover or shelter or hide securely." So my definition wasn't far off, but apparently there's an element of security that of which I was not aware. Its etymology I checked on my phone (anyone else notice that it's a phone unless it has an office or - at home - a cord to the wall, in which case it's an office phone or land line?) and found that its etymology is uncertain, perhaps coming from the French but probably from the Dutch word schans that means "earthwork." An earthwork is certainly firmly settled and is meant to add security. Etymonline.com defines ensconce as "to cover with a fort" and dates its arrival in English to the 1580s.

Sconce, on the other hand, has been used in English since the 1300s. A sconce is a bracket for candles or other lights that is placed on a wall, frame, or mirror (or the hole that holds it). Originally it was a candle with a screen, and was shortened from the Old French word esconce that was used for both a lantern and a hiding place. (Hence the speculation about ensconce coming from French.) But the Old French got esconce from the Medieval Latin word sconsa, which developed from the Latin word absconsa, the feminine past participle form of abscondere, from which we get abscond. It wasn't until the mid-1400s that it referred to the lighting fastened to the wall.

Removing yet another letter gets us to scone. Dictionary.com defines it as a small, light, biscuitlike quick bread made of oatmeal, wheat flour, barley meal, or the like. The scones I've had have been neither small nor light, but that's probably just the American "bigger is better" mentality. Etymonline.com says they are a "thin, flat, soft cake." Again, the ones I've had have not been thin, flat or soft. Etymonline also says the word (and likely the scones) came from Scotland in the 1510s and was probably shortened from the Dutch schoon brood, which with a heavy Scottish accent probably sounded to the English like scone bread. (In Dutch schoon means bright and beautiful while broot is the word for bread.

So three words so similar in appearance have little or no relation to each other. Now you know.