3i 4 DISQUISITIONS on the 



Here, as in many other inflances, we find an example of an idea 

 exprefTed with equal propriety either by a noun or its corre- 

 lative. The Greeks, in ufing d(jL<pi, kept in view that an object 

 was included ; the Latins, in ufing circa and circum, and the 

 Greeks themfelves, too, in ufing ?reg), had in their eye that there 

 was a boundary containing. 



Ava,, 



Ava is one of thofe prepofitions which, partly from the obfcu- 

 rity of its primitive root, and partly from its varied and fome- 

 what anomalous mode of application, prefents confiderable diffi- 

 culty in the inveftigation of its primary and radical fenfe. Lin- 

 nep fuppofed it to mean pre [fur e upward; an idea which it 

 certainly does very frequently denote, but into which all the 

 others cannot be fairly refolved. In Profeflbr Dalzel's 

 Fragmenta, the proper fignification of it is faid to be per % 

 through, in which opinion Stephens coincides. But to this idea, 

 though fo refpectably fupported, I cannot altogether accede. 

 'Through is undoubtedly one, and a very common meaning of uvu, 

 but, like the former, can only be ranked as one of its fecondary 

 applications. Dr Moor, I apprehend, has come nearefl the true 

 radical fignification of dvcc \ he explained it as expreffing " the 

 ** lines, of direclion traced backwards j n a fenfe not very remote 

 from what appears to be the original one. 



Am, in the immediate form of a noun, does not, I believe, oc- 

 cur in the Greek writers now extant ; but from its cognates and 

 derivatives, it is not difficult to difcover the traces of its former 

 meaning. Av&, as an adverb, is common, expreffing a circum- 

 Jlance far back, — removed backwards from us, whether in place or 

 time : av occurs in compofition in a number of words, with the 

 fenfe as it were of contradiclion or reverfal of the main idea, as 

 avuvdgos, unmanly, dvotriog, impious, dvogurog, invtjible : clvzv, a deri- 

 vative from the fame root, generally carries a fimilar force of re- 



verfing 



