404 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



from courroyer, the old French being con-royer ; thus showing it 

 to be a compound word conveying the idea of "to set in order.*' 

 I yield the point, pleading that, at the time I wrote the paper 

 containing this comparison, I had no copy of Skeat's "Etymo- 

 logical English Dictionary," and that I was relying upon two 

 other Etymological English Dictionaries as references. In the 

 first, Richardson's "New Dictionary of the English Language," 

 1855, the derivation of curry is given as through French corroyer 

 from the Latin corium, "a hide," with the example: i corium 

 equi et dorsum fvicave strigilli, " to rub the hide of a horse with 

 a currycomb." The other authority was Ward and Lock's 

 "Standard Etymological Dictionary," "1880, in which corroyer 

 is given as a derivative of corium. There can be little doubt 

 that the French cuir, " leather," is connected with Latin corium, 

 "a hide," Lithuanian skuva, "a hide," Sanscrit karma, "a 

 hide," Irish cveat, "a hide:" all pointing to a common root 

 -\ZKAR or -/KIR (KR) as their source, and thus being akin to the 

 Maori kiri, " a hide." If we also consider the word curie, given 

 by Brachet* as a hunting term for " pieces of skin, etc., thrown 

 to the hounds," I think it possible that in the vulgar or pro- 

 vincial idioms unknown to literary men, a word " curry," 

 meaning something to do with hides, or the skin, did exist in 

 English, even by the side of such base compounds as con-royer. 

 This may yet be found by English scholars to be the case, and 

 the etymology reconsidered. From my correction by Mr. 

 Atkinson a very useful lesson may be learnt, that is as to 

 considering any Etymological Dictionary as a thing " made law 

 by the Medes and Persians." If we compare our derivations 

 to-day with those given only thirty years ago, note the discrep- 

 ancies, and then picture our present works in the light of a 

 century hence, the notion that we know all about everything — 

 even about the impossibility of the Aryan-Maori theory — may 

 be shaken. 



Apparently the most serious argument used by Mr. Atkinson 

 is that wherein he urges the Semitic side of the question, and 

 uses my method in discussing it. Perhaps I am very dull and 

 dead to fine raillery in not supposing it to be all pure wit, but I 

 will take it for granted that Mr. Atkinson has not been mocking 

 the Society too utterly by sending in a paper for publication 

 without any seriousness in it at all. He first discusses the 

 word "Maori" which he says is the same as " Mauri" (!) 

 and asserts that the meaning is probably " living, not dead." 

 He then quotes from Codrington's " Melanesian Languages" 

 in support of this. I think that most Maori students 

 will agree with me in declining to consider that Mauri and 

 Maori are one word, or that the meaning of Maori is 



* "French Ety. Diet.," 1878, 



