28 PLANT NAMES 



A caution is, however, necessary. We must not 

 accept all the derivations given by etymologists as 

 certain. Etymology is not an exact science. It 

 has been explored with great care and research by 

 accurate and learned scholars. But the origin of 

 many words is so obscure that they have very fre- 

 quently yielded to the temptation to supplement 

 their sure conclusions with conjecture. Many 

 derivations given in dictionaries seem so far-fetched 

 as not to be easily credible, and we are further led 

 to doubt when we find different authorities giving 

 totally different accounts of the same word. On 

 the other hand, it is certain that many words are 

 descended from ancient words to which they bear 

 no resemblance whatever. Who would imagine 

 that wig is derived from the Latin pilus, or stranger 

 from ex? But neither does similarity nor even 

 identity of form or sense prove kinship. Who 

 would guess that there is no etymological connection 

 between sorrow and sorry, or between male and 

 female, or between bell and belfry, or between isle 

 and island, or between trifle and trivial, or, strangest 

 of all, between propose and proposition ? Identity 

 of spelling does not prove identity of origin. A 

 policy of insurance has, etymologically, nothing to 

 do with a national policy, nor the noun prize, a 

 reward, with the verb to prize, meaning to value. 

 Thus, to recur to Botany, Primrose* is not connected 



* Primrose, though the French have prime rose, and in 

 Latin prima rosa, is really from Middle English primerole, a 

 diminutive form of Low Latin primula, from primus (first). 



