18 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
in charters, means ‘‘the mark or boundary of the inhabitants of 
Léofsuham”’; haema being the genitive plural of haeme, a nomina- 
tive plural signifying ‘‘ men belonging to a ham or farm-stead.” 
Liof is the Kentish spelling of A.S. Zéof. Leof is the modern 
English Zzef, which was once an adjective and meant ‘‘dear.”’ In 
Liofs-héma, the s cannot be a genitive suffix, as that was —es, but it 
is the first letter of a second syllable ; it stands for Ziof-s. 
In Zéof-su the second syllable is also incomplete ; it stands for 
Léofsu’. 
The middle portion of a name is often partially suppressed, as 
is Lem’ster for Leominster, and the like. Zeof-sz’ obviously stands 
for Léof-suna, the genitive case of Léof-sunu, which was a fairly 
common name, occurs in Kentish and Southern Charters and 
simply means ‘‘ dear son.” 
Thus the obvious sense is ‘‘ Léof-sunu’s home,”’ or a farmstead 
in which lived a man named Léof-sunu (lit. dear son). 
As for the pronunciation, the modern English Leveson, which 
is the modern English form of Leof-sunu, is pronounced Lewson. 
So in modern English Lewisham means Leveson’s-home; or, 
remembering that the genitive case of sumu (son) did zo¢ end in -s, 
but in -a (which now-a-days would disappear) it would more exactly 
be represented by ‘‘Lewson-home,” and this by contraction 
regularly becomes Lews-ham or even Lusam, as it was phonetically 
spelt in the seventeenth century. 
Then popular etymology substituted the known name Lewzs, for 
the form Lus, which had lost all meaning, and the —zs of Lewis being 
now generally plainly heard, the form Lewzs-ham has become fixed.* 
One wonders who and what manner of man this Leof-sunu 
was, who through all the intervening years has given his name to 
the wide tract now known as Lewisham. All we can say is that he 
was a Saxon, or perhaps a Jute, and that no doubt, attracted by 
the river and the pastures along its banks, he settled here some- 
where in the period between A.D. 500 and A.D. 862, probably 
* In Hasted’s History of Kent the name Lewisham is stated ‘‘ to be derived 
from Zes or Leswes [lzswe, lsu] in Saxon, signifying pastures, and ham, a 
town or village,” and this statement has been very generally copied by local 
writers. : 
The A.S. /@su, a pasture, became /eese in Elizabethan English. It is now 
spelt ees, leas, lease and leys. The last spelling suggests that it is a plural, 
which is not the case. The word Zea, A.S. leah, a fallow field, is a totally 
different word, with a mere accidental resemblance of sound. It is also spelt 
ley, lay, leigh, and is common in place-names. 
The A.S. Jéswe is the dative case of the form /ésu above. Nevertheless, 
it produced the form /easowe or leasow, pronounced /ezzer in Shropshire. 
The A.S. /@su would have given us Leesham. The A.S. l@swe would have 
given us Zeasow-ham ; the contracted form of which would have been Lesham, 
pronounced Lezham or Lezzum. It shows that all that Hasted (or those upon 
whom he relied) did was to guess freely without testing the results. 
It is necessary to add that some exception was taken to the above 
etymology in Notes and Queries, 8 S. xi, 311; but the writer of the note has 
since kindly informed me that he wholly withdraws his objection, and that my 
solution is certainly correct.—W. W. SKEAT. 
