2'><»S. VII. Mak. 19.'69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



245 



Spinney (2*"* S. vii. 149.) — This word is derived 

 from the French espinaye, a thorny plot, bramble- 

 bush, place full of briers. — Cotgr. Ital. spineio, 

 from the Latin spinetum. It has no connexion 

 with the A. -Saxon pinn, which means " a pen," 

 not " a pine," as A. A. supposes. Pin is a pine in 

 A.^Saxon, but this has as little connection with 

 spinney as " piyin." The correctness of the ety- 

 mology is proved by the fact that the older forn 

 of the word was " spinet" for which Nares gives 

 the following quotation from Ben Jonson's Satyr : 



" A satyr lodged in a little spinet, by which her ma- 

 jesty and the prince were to come, advanced his head 

 above the wood, wondering, &c." 



H. C. 



A word generally used throughout the midland 

 counties. ^It means a small copse wood con- 

 sisting in part of blackthorn and whitethorn, and 

 serving as a harbour for game. The word is 

 evidently derived, like various terms of venery, 

 from the Norman-French epinier, a thicket.* 



The word coppice or copse I consider to be 

 also derived from the French word couper, to 

 cut ; these thickets being kept for cutting period- 

 ically for firewood in the shape of faggots or 

 bavins, or for making charcoal. 



I do not know that there is, or has been, so far 

 as I can find, such a French word as coupisse, as 

 there might very well be in analogy with coulisse, 

 a sliding side scene, from colder, to run in a 

 groove. J. Ss, 



A. A., who writes from Poet's Corner, would, on 

 inquiry, have found that the word spinney is by no 

 means limited to Bedfordshire and Berkshire. He 

 says It signifies in those parts " any small wood ; " 

 and this, surely, is an answer to his own question, 

 whether the word can be derived from the Anglo- 

 Saxon pinn, a pine-tree. A small wood, of what- 

 ever kind, is called a spinney throughout the 

 midland and north-midland counties. There can, 

 I think, be no doubt that the word comes from 

 spinetum, a thicket ; and probably the monks, who 

 seem to have introduced many Latinised words 

 into our language, applied the term to the copses 

 adjoining their monasteries. We find the Latin 

 Word, in its transitional form of spinet, in Ben 

 Jonson (Masque of the Saty?; vol, vl. p. 469., of 

 Gifibrd's edition, 1816,) where the stage direction 

 is as follows : — 



" A satyr, lodged in a little spinet .... advanced his 

 head above the top of the wood, wondering," &c. 



Jaydee. 



Pretender's Blue Ribbon (2°'^ S. vii. 10.3.) — Is 

 there not some mistake in this account? The 

 ribbon of the Order of the Bath was always 7-ed ; 

 that of the Order of the Garter is blue, Y. 



* " Spiny, adj. (thorny), Epineux, plein d'epines." — 

 Boyer, 



A Muffled Peal on Innocents' Day (1" S. xi. 8.) 

 — At Minety St. Leonards, Wilts, ihe church 

 bells ring a half-muffled peal on the evening of 

 Innocents' Day. When I became acquainted 

 with this fact, I determined to communicate it to 

 " N. & Q. ; " but lest I should be repeating a 

 previous statement, I turned to the past volumes, 

 and in that one cited above, I found that a cor- 

 respondent, C. Y. C, had already noticed the 

 custom as prevailing at Maisemore church, and 

 inquired whether It were peculiar to that place. 

 No other instance, that I can find, has been ad- 

 duced ; and the present may be considered as an 

 answer, with the peculiarity that the bells are 

 half, not entirely, muffled. Akchd. Wbir. 



" Get thee apart and weep'' (2"^ S. vii. 170.) — 

 This quotation is from Julius Ccesar, Act III. So. 

 1., and runs correctly thus : — 



" Antony. Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep, 

 Passion, I see, is catching ; for mine eyes, 

 Seeing these beads of sorrow stand in thine, 

 Begin to water," 



N. M. F. 



Cambridge. 



«' Chap"' and " Wench'" (2°* S, vll. 171.) — 

 Chap has been considered equivalent to chap- 

 man, a customer or purchaser. Hence It is sup- 

 posed that chap has, In the language of rural life, 

 come at length to signify a companion, a brother 

 labourer ; in which case It would correspond to 

 those other terms, as used by rustics, a mute, a 

 fellow. 



This derivation is liable to a twofold objec- 

 tion. First, we have no satisfactory evidence that 

 chap had originally the signification of chapman, 

 a customer. Secondly, if it had, one cannot, even 

 then, very clearly perceive how it should have 

 passed from the signification of a customer to that 

 of a mate, yokel, Tummas, chaw-bacon, or country 

 bumpkin. 



Inferring, then, from your correspondent's in- 

 quiry, that the above explanation does not satisfy 

 him more than It does me, I would suggest that 

 chap may formerly have had some connexion 

 with the Med.-L. chappa, a cart-house, and may 

 possibly have signified a carte?'. " Chappa, Recep- 

 taculum curruum, aratrorum et allorum, quae 

 pertinent ad agriculturam." (Carpenter.) 



Or was a chap a woodman, a ivood-cutter? In 

 old Fr,, chapler, chappler, signified to chip, " to 

 hacke, hew," Cotgrave ; and chapuisare. In Med.- 

 Latin, was to cut wood, A chap would their be 

 equivalent to that other rustic designation a 

 chop-stick. 



For wench, so far as originally signifying simply 

 a young woman, and as a term in no way de- 

 rogatory to character, various derivations have 

 been suggested ; Sax. v)encle, Ger. wenig, &c. 

 Todd, however, prefers the Sax. cwen and Go. 



