Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/195

 ii s. vii. MAR. s, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Besides Macfarlane's monograph and other references already given, further details may be found in Brunei's 'Manuel' (1864), vol. v. At the end of this volume is a chapter entitled ' Notice sur les Heures Gothiques.' This has several pages devoted to Verard. There are, as well, Renouvier (J.), ' Des Gravures en bois dans les Livres d'Anthoine Verard,' 1859; Senimaud (Ed.), ' Un Document inedit sur Antoine Verard,' Angouleme, 1859 ; and Bernard (Auguste),

au XV e Siecle ' (Techener), I860. M. Claudin's great book upon early printing in France I have not got, but I imagine that important details will be found in it. A. W. Pollard's
 * Antoine Vorard et ses Livres a Miniatures

notes upon Verard's illustrations to the Horse. A. L. HUMPHBEYS.
 * Fine Books,' pp. 151-4, has valuable

187, Piccadilly, W.

SHARK : ITS DERIVATION (US. ii. 384). PROF. WEEKLEY'S attempt to clear up the etymology of this word has, I think, led him too far afield. The identification with Ger. Schurke (a rascal) and Fr. escroc (a swindler), though plausible, is hardly ad- missible on phonetic grounds. Nor can the connexion with Picard cherquier, Fr. chercher, be substantiated. The likelihood of Lat. carchartis (a dogfish), Gr. Kap^apos (sharp-pointed), being the origin is still more remote, as no intermediate forms have been met with in any language.

The important point to note in the word's history is that given in Ogilvie's * Imperial Dictionary,' that the noun and verb at their first authenticated appearance were applied to persons rather than to the selachian fish. Thus the verb occurs in ' Hamlet,' I. i., in respect of Fortinbras, who is said to have " shark'd up [i.e. hunted up] a lot of lawless runnagates." Other early instances are :

"A threadbare shark, one that never was a soldier, yet lived upon tendings.* Preface to Ben Jonson's ' Every Man out of his Humour.'

The owle-eyd sharkers spied him how he felt To find a post ; his meaning soone they smelt.

Scot's ' Philomythie ' (1616). " David's messengers are sent back to him, like so many sharks." South's 'Sermons.'

Even down to 1690, in Gent's ' Dictionary of the Canting Crew,' the following entry, which supports Ogilvie's contention, occurs : " Shark, a sharper ; also a large voracious fish."

By holding the view that the word first denoted a sneaking thief, or spunger, our inquiry becomes confined within narrower

limits. Johnson defines the verb, which, of course, was preceded by the noun, as ** to play the petty thief, to pick up hastily, or slily," and calls it " a low word, but much used."

To arrive at the true etymology, I feel fully persuaded one need not go further than the ' E.D.D.,' which in this case is in- debted largely to Jamieson. There we find sharg, a., tiny, mean, withered ; shargar, a little, mischievous creature, also a starve- ling ; and shargan, stunted. These words were first current in Scotch dialects; but about the sixteenth century their influence is clearly reflected in the corresponding English forms shark and sharker, where the guttural g of sharg and shargar has merely to be strength- ened into a fc to produce the required ety- mology. The English verb " to shirk," as has been pointed out, is clearly a variant form, on the analogy of clerk and dark.

Although sharg may be regarded as being Scotch or Saxon, its actual source is Celtic. Searg in Gaelic signified " dry, withered," and -a substantive form denoted a puny man or beast, or one shrivelled with age (Macleod and Dewar, * Gaelic Diction- ary ), the verb being seargan, to wither, pine away; Irish searghim. This root in Anglo-Saxon gives sear, dry, which is found in ' Macbeth,' V. iii., as " the sere, the yellow leaf." Thus the word's etymology is ade- quately accounted for. Nor does the change of sense from lean, cadaverous, to greedy, mischievous, involve any difficulty from the sematological point of view, the evolution being here quite logical.

As to the shark itself, its natural instinct and rapidity of motion in following the swiftest steamers for the sake of the animal refuse thrown overboard have caused it to be called by sailors, not inaptly, " the scavenger of the ocean."

Another example of a creature of the sea being named from a peculiarity belonging to it is afforded by the shrimp. This little crustacean, as is well known, was so desig- nated either on account of its diminutive size or from its power of contracting its body, the word scrimp being still sometimes met with in English. M.E. schrimp or schrymp, a shrimp,* is an assibilated form of M.E. scrimp, small, scanty, which again is derived from A.-S. scrimman, to shrink ; Dan. skrumpen, Ger. schrimpfen. N. W. HILL.

San Francisco.

signifies a dragon. Vide Stratmann's ' M.E. Diet.,' ed. Bradley.
 * In the * Morte Arthur,' however, scrimpe