ETYMOLOGY 



2087 



EUBOEA 



words but their derivation as well, and should 

 get into the habit of noticing the elements of 

 which they are built. By following this plan, 

 word-study soon becomes as delightful and 

 absorbing as a game. 



Three Interesting Word Histories. A boy 

 dressing for his gymnasium class may wonder 

 what the word gymnasium really means. If 

 he consults a complete dictionary, he will learn 

 that it comes from a Greek root meaning 

 naked; and if he has studied a little about 

 Greek life and customs he will recall that the 

 boys and young men of Greece wore no cloth- 

 ing when they took part in athletic games and 

 exercises. A girl attending church or Sunday- 

 school finds her attention caught by the quaint- 

 looking word gospel, and begins to wonder as 

 to its origin. If when she reaches home she 

 remembers to get out the big dictionary, she 

 will be able to trace the word back to the old 

 Saxon compound god-spell, meaning God-story, 

 and forever afterward it will be invested with 

 deeper significance and interest for her. An- 

 other word with a life story is tribulation, 

 which comes from the Latin tribulum, the 

 name given to the iron-studded flail the Ro- 

 mans used for threshing grain. With this ety- 

 mology in mind, our English word suggests the 

 picture of a person suffering the pains of one 

 who is being beaten with a flail. 



There are thousands upon thousands of words 

 in English which have just such interesting 

 histories fascinating little stories which are 

 indicated briefly in every unabridged dic- 

 tionary. 



Etymology and History. "The study of 

 words," says Professor Kittredge of Harvard, 

 "is the study of the history of civilization." 

 The study of English words goes hand in hand 

 with the study of English history, showing how 

 the language has changed with the successive 

 invasions of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and 

 Normans. To illustrate: the Latin word for a 

 fortified camp is castra. During the five cen- 

 turies the Romans ruled over England this 

 word was added to Celtic roots to designate 

 the different camps, which gradually grew into 

 towns, giving us such names as Lancaster (land- 

 castra) and Manchester (man-castra). The 

 Danish affix for town was by, and names like 

 Whitby and Derby testify to the effect Danish 

 had upon the Saxon language which, by crowd- 

 ing out the ancient Celtic, had become the 

 speech of all England. 



The Long Road Words Travel. English 

 word-study will take us even beyond the be- 



ginnings of English history, as such back to 

 ancient civilizations whose languages show kin- 

 ship with the English tongue. For students of 

 etymology have been able 'to show that the 

 Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic 

 and Teutonic groups of languages have points 

 of resemblance that prove they developed from 

 a common source. Our word mother, for ex- 

 ample, has such close relatives as the Anglo- 

 Saxon moder, German Mutter, Icelandic 

 modhir, Swedish and Danish moder, Gaelic 

 mathair, Latin mater, Italian and Spanish 

 madre, French mere, Lithuanian mote, Polish 

 matka, Persian mader, Sanskrit mata, and 

 many others among the different languages of 

 the earth. 



Some Peculiar Changes in Meaning. Since 

 etymology in its widest sense follows a word 

 through all the different shades of form and 

 meaning it has assumed as it has traveled down 

 the ages, it reveals many words whose original 

 significance was utterly different from their 

 present meaning. A most interesting example 

 is the word depart, which once meant divide 

 or separate, so that the old English marriage 

 service read "till death us depart." A jig was 

 a fiddle to whose music the country-folk 

 danced. Imp originally meant simply child, 

 and prayers offered for the health of the 

 Prince of Wales used to refer to him as "that 

 most angelic imp." Wretch was a term of 

 affection, a miser was a person in misery, and 

 an idiot simply a private individual not taking 

 part in public life. 



Thus we see that, instead of being a dry, 

 dull subject, etymology is as full of charm and 

 interest as a book of tales. Once a student gets 

 accustomed to looking up the true derivation 

 of the words he meets, he has "the dictionary 

 habit" in its best form and jinds new interest 

 and profit in every page he reads. See DIC- 

 TIONARY. L.M.B. 



Consult Bradley's The Making of English; 

 Skeat's The Science of Etymology. 



EUBOEA, ube'a, the largest of the Grecian 

 islands in the Aegean Sea, 100 miles in length 

 and in one place about thirty-three in width. 

 It is mountainous in character, but has fertile 

 valleys which produce olive oil, wheat, fruit 

 and honey. The chief towns are Chalcis and 

 Carystus. The inhabitants of Euboea have 

 engaged in cattle-breeding since prehistoric 

 times, the very name meaning rich in cattle. 

 The history of the island includes its early 

 occupation by the Abantes and lonians, its 

 subjugation by Athens after the Persian Wars 



