Page:On the history and use of the suffixes -ery (-ry), -age, and -ment in English.djvu/31

Rh or abstract notions from every personal noun in -er. New-formations of this kind (i. e. from personal nouns) are very numerous. They are in reality examples of derivatives with the suffix -y, but from what has been said above one understands that they cannot be distinguished from other words in -ery: the latter suffix originates in the former, and it is the ending -ery that determines the meaning of the word, whether it ends in -er-y or -ery.

New-formations are hardly found before 1300. There are some words, however, which seem to speak against such a supposition.

In a text from 1275 we find gentlery 'gentlehood, gentleship', which according to NED. is a formation of native origin from the adjective gentle; and some other words are found at the end of the century, husbandry, dairy and reavery, which NED. gives as native formations. The three last-mentioned ones are especially worthy of notice, as being early instances of derivatives from native roots. Thus according to NED. we seem to have new-formations already in the thirteenth century. Several circumstances make it doubtful, however, whether the words in question are to be regarded as English formations.

The most striking thing about gentlery is that it is a derivative from an adjective. On a much later formation of this kind, justry (=justice, 1425) NED. has the remark «the formation from an adjective is unusual.» This could have been said more appropriately in the case of gentlery, as this word is of considerably earlier date: in fact, it would be the earliest new-formation with -ery, were we to believe that it is of English origin.