8 POPULAR NAMES 



L. anisum, Gr. avia-ov or avyvov ; the Anny having arisen 

 from a mistake of Anise for a plural noun ; 



Piinpinella Anisum, L. 



ANTHONY, ST. his nut and turnep, see under SAINT A. 



APPLE, A.S. cBpl, ceppel, O.N. epli, Sw. ceple, Da. ceble, 

 G. apfel, O.H.G. apkol, Wei. a/a/, derived from a more 

 ancient form, apalis, preserved in the Lith. obolys, or obelis. 

 Lett, ahboli. In all the Celtic and Sclavonian languages 

 the word is, with allowance for dialect, the same. This 

 similarity, or, we may say, identity of name, among alien 

 nations would lead us to believe that it was brought with 

 the tree from some one country, and that, no doubt, an 

 Eastern one; and that the garden apple is not, as it is 

 often supposed to be, merely an improved crab, but rather 

 the crab a degenerate apple. This was, apparently, the 

 only fruit with which our ancestors were acquainted, before 

 they came into Europe ; for, with the exception of a few 

 wild berries and the hazel nut, it is the only one for which 

 we have a name that is not derived from the Latin or 

 French. It seems to have accompanied them on a northern 

 route from the western spur of the Himalayan mountains, 

 a district extending through Ancient Bactria, Northern 

 Persia, and Asia Minor, to the Caucasus, and one from 

 which we have obtained, through the Mediterranean 

 countries, and within the historical period, the peach, 

 apricot, plum, damson, cherry, filbert, vine, and walnut, 

 and probably some of the cereal grains ; a district in which 

 there is reason to think that our portion of the human 

 race first attained to civilization, and whence it spread, 

 with its domestic animals and plants, to the south-east and 

 north-west. The meaning of the word is unknown. It is 

 very possibly from Skr. amb, eat, and p'kal, fruit, but as 

 ap is, in Zend and Sanskrit, " water," we might be tempted 

 to believe that it originally meant " water-fruit," or "juice- 

 fruit," with which the Latin pomum, from po, to drink, 



