Page:The Sources of Standard English.djvu/150

Rh is to mean posterior. In page 176, we find a wholly new idiom, which must have come from France, standing for the old Superlative; ‘þe meste dredful secnesse of alle.’ This new form for the Superlative was hardly ever used in the Thirteenth Century, but became very common in the Fourteenth. The word sona (mox) has new offspring, sonre and sonest. Orrmin's la has become lo. In page 288, we see a mistake repeated long afterwards by Lord Macaulay in his Lays; what should be written iwis (certè) is written as if it were a verb, I wis.

We find mongleð, empti, volewen, lauhweð (ridet), lone (commodatum), owust (debes), sawe (dictum), instead of the old mengeð, œmtig, folgian, hlaheð, lœn, âhst, sagu. The untowen, found here for untrained, was after&shy;wards to become wanton, the un and the wan meaning the same. There are words altogether new: such as backbiter, chaffer, overtake, overturn, withdraw, withhold. We now see the last of the old Wodnes dei; in the Legend of St. Katherine, of the same date, this becomes Wednes&shy;dai. Our Ember days appear for the first time in the guise of umbridei; this and umquhile are the sole sur&shy;vivors in English of the many words formed from our lost preposition umbe, the Greek amphi. The word halpenes (page 96) shows a step in the formation of our halfpence. At page 344 drive gets an intransitive sense; I go dri&shy;vinde upe fole þouhtes.’ At page 426, we see our common expression, ‘þet fur (ignis) go ut.’ At page 46 comes gluffen (to blunder), from the Icelandic glop (incuria); hence perhaps ‘to club a regiment.’ Sorh (dolor) had taken the shape of seoruwe in Dorset, but it remained sorhe in Salop (see page 64). The old rœcende becomes