Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/407

 ii s. VIL MAY u, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

399

A New English Dictionary. Sniggle - Sorroiv. Vol. IX. By W. A. Craigie. (Oxford, Claren- don Press.)

THIS great work goes steadily on. We have here another double section, comprising in all 3,084 words, illustrated by no fewer than 17,706 quotations. Expressive monosyllables beginning with sn many of them, perhaps, originally ono- matopoaic form a considerable proportion of the first part of the section. Most of them are English and of respectable antiquity, but it is worth notice that " snub " has been naturalized from the Scandinavian used as a verb by Richard Rolle (why is he called Hampole ?), and as a substantive by Cranmer ; while " snob " and " snooze " are English, indeed, but no older than the eighteenth century. The quotation which gives the origin of "sniping" in its use as soldiers' slang was furnished to our columns by Sir Herbert Maxwell in 1903. The compilers quote De Quincey in 1859 for the use of " snob " as "black-leg." The assiduity with which the daily papers are searched yields, as usual, a good store of those Americanisms which are creeping, through them, into the mother-tongue, and these are the more worth noting as their appearance in the great Dictionary will tend to hall-mark them.

" Snow " is one of the finest articles in this section, taking up, with its compounds, some seventeen columns, rich in history and imagery. We observed, under the " various fig. or allusive uses," the apt inclusion of Dryden's curious phrase " He was. . . .a learned plagiary of all the others ; you track him everywhere in their snow." The " special combs." are, as one would expect, derived largely from the American North - West, but we find Addison in Italy talking of " snow- merchants." There seems to be more authority than one might have supposed for strong forms of the past tense of the verb " snow," one instance of which is as late as 1870. " Snuff," again, is a highly instructive and entertaining article, both from the variety of senses for which the syllable has been employed, and the quaintness of some of the older uses. " The Babylonish captivity," we find Fuller saying, " did onely snuff e Judah for seventy years.

We have had occasion to remark before that the definition of the meanings of words in the Dictionary seems sometimes to fall below the standard of the illustration. Thus, coming to " snug," we do not think that " in a state of ease, comfort, or quiet enjoyment " describes at all happily the exact nuance of this expressive little word. Every one of the quotations given suggests, first and foremost, shelter : the state of safety which consists in being well tucked up ; in having no outlying portions of oneself or one's fortune left exposed, whether to cold, or attacks of enemies, or other misfortune. It is a great pity to lose the exact meaning of a word to have all words levelled clown to a general indefinite- ness ; and the authority of the * N.E.D.' is so certain to have effect in establishing agree- ment as to what are the proper, exact meanings, that it seems worth while to make some little protest when there appears a tendency in this

matter to go astray. Another word which, if the arrangement here can be sustained, seems to- us to require, at any rate, a brief explanatory note is " soft," of which the first meaning ig given as " producing agreeable or pleasant sensations ; characterized by ease and quiet enjoy- ment ; of a calm or placid nature." This is followed by uses descriptive of any sense-impres- sion rather than the tactile, and of the character of persons ; only under " IV. 19 " do we get the meaning " not offering absolute resistance to pressure." We can find no reason for this other than the fact that under "I. 1 " two quotations are given of earlier date than the earliest found for " IV. 19." One of these seems to us even of doubtful validity in this place ; while the first, jiElfric's " softum slaepe, might surely be a quasi-metaphorical use, not entitled to count, standing thus alone, as giving the fundamental meaning of the word.

The historical method in its happier applica- tion may be seen in the case of " soak," where the progress of the verb from intransitive to transitive uses is instructively drawn out.

Not least interesting among the entries are those of foreign words imperfectly naturalized, some of which, such as " sobriquet," " sorites," "solo," "solanum," may surely soon be considered to have established themselves ; though doubtless others, like Prescott's " sobre-vest " or Mrs. Bennett's " socia," are likely to have found their widest range by being conscientiously included within these columns.

It is hardly necessary to call attention to the various interest which attaches to the great number of words derived from socius, here excel- lently illustrated. It is for the most part, and in so far as regards the most vital elements, a nineteenth-century crop, but the instances from earlier centimes are somewhat more numerous than a casual consideration might lead one to expect. The Dictionary does not disdain vulgarisms, so we may remark that " to know a person socially," as distinct from " profession- ally " a not very uncommon colloquialism of that order is not included under " socially." In a note on " Socialism " the first use of the word (slightly different from its present sense) is referred to the French Globe in February, 1832. Our own columns, at 1 S. x. 357, are given as authority for the first use (a. 1649) of the still rather nebulous word " sociality."

The syllable " sock " furnishes no fewer than eight substantives and five verbs of curiously diverse meaning, in which particular it is run close by " soil," with six different substantives and five verbs. The first instance given of the use of the word " solitaire " as a substantive we note that the Dictionary admits it as fully naturalized is from Pope ; and it is remarkable to how many uses this comparatively recent word has already been put. " Solitariness " is interesting as a word common in the seventeenth century, and revived in the nineteenth. " Solid " is one of the finest articles : comprehensive alike in respect of history and of range of meaning, and very satis- factorily worked out; and " solicitor," especially the division concerned with the use of the word for a law-agent, is another example of the story of a word well brought out by the sequence of quotations. Another word worth study, for which ^ the material is well indicated here, is