12 S. 1. FEB. 5, 1916.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
119
on 8S00ks.
A New English Dictionary on Historical Prin-
ciples. (Vol. IX.) Subterraneously Sullen. By
C. T. Onions. (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2s. 6d.)
remarks which we made in reviewing the
THE
section ' Su Subterraneous ' hold good with some
additional force of the section, next in alphabetical
order, now before us. Etymo logically simple for
the most part, the group of words compounded
with sub represents matters of great philosophical,
historical, and scientific interest, and has yielded
a rich harvest of quotations to the compilers.
Philosophy predominated in the former section :
in this history chiefly in virtue of curious
ecclesiastical and legal terms may perhaps be
said to carry off the palm.
The first to arrest attention here is the batch of words we have made out of the Latin subtilis. There are two separate articles under "subtile " and " subtle " ; it has proved beyond our subtlety to discover a principle sufficient to account for the separation ; and though doubtless the com- piler detected one, a study of the illustrative quotations makes us suspect that he could not always hold it in sight. There seems some
question are technical. Again, under " Subur-
bicarian " seeing that whoever looks up the
word will probably need the information it
would have been just as well to print, either in the
definition or in one of the half-dozen quotations,
the names of the six dioceses so denominated.
That would have been better worth the space than
the entry under ." succeeded " which gives four
lines to nothing but perpetuating and explaining
" The newly succeeded Lord Tollemache " from
The Daily Neics ! " Succession powder " without
contriving any mention of la Voisin seems
another instance of failing to lay a clear track
for a searcher.
In two or three articles we find the subdivisions unnecessarily multiplied ; once or twice we have noticed points in a definition which are left without illustration. The frequency of quotations from the daily press remains something of a feature to be grumbled at. Having unburdened our minds of these few complaints, we are free to dilate on the infinitely more numerous excellences. Any one taking the trouble to recollect that there are comprised within this section, for instance, the words " succour," " sue," " suffer," " suffice," " suggest," with their derivatives, may realize how comprehensive are some of the cadres to be filled. All these are admirable articles, in which
hesitation about pronouncing on the fundamental we noticed as particularly good the collection of
meaning of subtilis. Here we have "(: I^.subtllem, illustrations to "succour" in the obsolete sense
app. finely
nom. -His, for *subtelis *subtexlis
woven, f. sub under + *texld, tela woven stuff,
web." But subtilis in Latin means not only
" fine," " delicate," " exact," but also, of speech
or a speaker, " plain," " unadorned " : and this
use is frequent in Cicero, whereas what appears |
to us the more usual sense is, in prose, on the
whole post- Augustan. Is it not possible that the
first meaning of subtilis is not " woven fine," but
" belonging to the warp," tela ? A " texture "
whether literal or metaphorical in which the
warp determined the general appearance would
be plain ; on the other hand, where the woof
made a design that caught the eye, it would
require some degree of acuteness to detect the
tela supporting it. For metaphorical purposes the
warp or tela would no doubt become assimilated
to the general notion of a " ground " : something
which does not arrest attention, but which
persons of livelier perceptions or inquisitiveness
would notice running through and under the osten-
sible. The notion of " fineness " would first
of shelter ; those to " sufficient reason " ; and the
handling of the article " suggestion." " Suck,"
" suburb," " succeed," may also be mentioned r
and " such " affords an example of really
masterly compilation and arrangement.
In about a dozen cases this section pro- vides new etymological data or references to sources not hitherto cited. The most important of these words is " sugar " an adaptation, through Med. L. (and this probably, the ' Diction- ary ' tells us, through O.H.G.), of the Arabic sukkar, the earliest instances of which come from accounts belonging to the end of the thirteenth century, where the word appears as sucar, sucur, and zuker. This word takes up some seven columns. Not less interesting, though of smaller
J-l ^-i_l _ CC li^ . " CC rt ,,J,, '>
scope, are the articles on
" Suigothic," and " succory,
suling," " suds,'
belonging to the
same group.
We observed that The Athenceum allowed the monstrosity " Suffragette " needless to say within inverted commas to decorate its columns
adhere to subtilis, not in connexion with any j as early as 1907 ; and in the same year it used
literal fineness of texture, but rather in connexion
with the difficulty of detecting the ground within
and beneath the pattern the minuteness or
delicacy of its appearances. In English the word
is what one may call an old favourite and has a
goodly number of forms. Even its culinary use
which seems to have lasted for about two hundred
years goes back to the fourteenth century :
" It techith for to make curious potages and
meetes, and sotiltees"; the earliest instance given
is dated ? c. 1390.
While admiring the masses of illustrative material brought together here we are inclined to think that in some points more consideration might be shown for the convenience of those who will consult the ' Dictionary.' Thus, twice over in this section the words " In mod. Diets.," " In recent Diets.," are held to dispense the compiler from the necessity for illustration ; which seems unsatisfactory, though it is true the words in
the word " sufflaminated," which had been
neglected since 1836, and, since it appears in
connexion with " gas microscope," was, we would
Wager, wrongly etymologized by half its readers.
Under " suffumigation " is the interesting quota-
tion (1684): "A Phthisical Person [cured]
by a Suffumigation of Amber " ; and under " sullen " (1688) a note from Holme's ' Armoury ' which tells that " the sullen lady " was a name for " the black Fritillary." The ' Dictionary ' records De Quincey's odd mistake of using " sudatory" for " sudary " both, and especially the latter, highly interesting words ; and it also takes note of Coleridge's unsuccessful invention,. " suffiction " a fiction taken as hypothesis.
Slang has no great portion in this section ; but it includes the Cambridge rowing word " sugar " in the sense of to shirk while pretending to row hard ; and under " suffer " we get, from Thackeray in 1841, the " cant phrase " " Who
