368 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



is made . Door, which is an another spelling of through, is that 

 through which people enter and depart. The termination -hule 

 in vestibule, meaning to throw, gives name to the room where 

 we throw off something of our vestments. Vestry is a sacred 

 clothes-room. Threshold is a modern form sio:nifvin2: tread- 

 wood, -old, contracted from wold, meaning wood. Tread in 

 1611 still meant to thresh, for Paul speaks of the ox that tread- 

 eth the corn. I Cor. ix. 9. 



The structure before the house-door bears several names, 

 each suggestive regarding the thing it denotes. It was called 

 porch, or portico, words derived from the portal which is near. 

 It was called stoop, which in Dutch means steps, from the stairs 

 which led up to it, and piazza which means place or square from 

 the open space before its steps. The railing which shuts it in is 

 indicated by the name verandah (Latin vara), stick, and other 

 points in its make-up appear in the name colonnade and arcade, 

 while loggia signifies a place for a lounge. Aivning is supposed 

 to be akin to haven and the name befits such a shelter from sun 

 as havens afford from seas. 



Stair, stirrup, and stile all come from one root, to climb, by 

 one we climb to a chamber, by another upon a horse, and a fence 

 bv the third. In stirrup the ending -rap is contracted from rope 

 and recalls the era \s\\ei\ a climbing-rope was the horseman^s 

 only help in mounting. From the same root with climb is 

 climax vrhich is Greek for ladder and English for a means of 

 mounting step by step to rhetorical heights. 



A strip two feet wide round a house was called of old eaves- 

 drip and then eaves-drop. It gave the name eavesdroppers to 

 listeners who stood thereon for overhearing. Squirrel is a 

 word so self-descriptive that whoever learns that it is Greek for 

 shadow tail must be sorry that its significance has been Greek 

 to him so long. Arbor, a bower or shady retreat, is in spelling 

 identical with the Latin name of tree, but it is now held to come 

 from herb. The h vanished as so often in English mouths, while 

 the e was sounded like the letter a, as in hearth, heart, sergeant, 

 clerk, etc. Its first sense was a grassy lawn, and its next a bed 

 of herbs. So much for house preliminaries, which signify 

 things outside the threshold. 



