14. POPULAR NAMES OF PLANTS.—WAYBRED. 
bread is absurd, and opposed to the true etymology of the name. 
The Anglo-Saxon word for bread is not bred or brede, but hlaf, 
hence our word loaf; the German is not bred, but brod, and 
the Danish, drod. But the terms bred in Anglo-Saxon, brett in 
German, and dred in Danish, all of which are equivalents of 
broad, exactly describe one of the qualities of the plant, viz. 
broad-leaved ; the other, viz. way, its locality, for it is especially 
a wayside plant. 
In the north-east of Scotland the plant is never named Way- 
brede, nor have I ever heard it so called in the southern counties 
of the island. Plantain, or Plantain-leaf, is its usual name,— 
one of the many proofs which can be adduced that the scientific 
or Latin names have superseded the ancient vernacular terms, or 
that the terms are common both to the Latin and Celtic, and’ 
have descended to us from the latter language. 
Planta, Latin, means the sole of the foot, hence the name 
Plantago or Plantain, a plant which grows where the surface is 
trodden by the foot of the wayfarer. The Cornish word plans 
means foot, and is evidently from the same etymon as Latin 
planta. Some say that the Celts, the ancient population of Bri- 
tain, borrowed from the Romans all or most of the words which 
are similar to the Latin in sound and in sense. This is conjec- 
tural; and the etymologist, as well as the botanist, has to deal 
with facts, not with conjectures. 
The plant is not like the sole of the foot, hence its name is not 
derived from this character, and Richardson’s conjecture is un- 
tenable. See Richardson’s Dictionary in loco. Several forms or 
variations of the Celtic word plant mean progeny, children, also 
to plant, and hence plant in general. Richardson follows Ains- 
worth, without citing him. The latter informs us that Plantago 
is from planta, as Lappago is from lappa; “quod plants pedum 
similis sit,’ like the sole of feet. Richardson has made the fault 
his own by adopting the opinion without citing his authority. 
Vossius more prudently cites authorities, and pleads custom. 
“ Westus,” says the latter authority, “ derives Plantain from pla- 
nus, which I conjecture comes from the Doric wAata for tar, 
and the Latins as usual insert v before 7.” These Greek words 
intimate some connection between extension and this word plant ; 
hence our term platitude, breadth, mostly applied in a figurative 
sense, rarely if ever in a literal, natural, or physical sense, in 
