76 Rev. Mr Williams on the Force of the prefix Ve or V<t 



Vesanus, parum sanus # , insane. There is no dispute, nor 

 can any arise, concerning this word. 



Vescus and vesculus f, having little to eat, half-starved, not 

 well grown. Had not there been two Latin words, both written 

 at present vescus (of which vesculus is only the diminutive), ves- 

 cus and vesculus might have been dismissed as briefly as vesanus. 

 But as Gellius has produced vescus as illustrative of his prin- 

 ciple, that ve had an intensive as well as a privative force, we 

 must examine his argument. After advancing the doctrine be- 

 fore alluded to, he adds, " for Lucretius calls the sea vescum 

 (corrosive) in one sense ; Lucilius uses vescum (nice or spare 

 eating) in another sense J." In this quotation A. Gellius has 

 shown that ignorance of which every philological inquirer who 

 does not examine into the sources of the language under exa- 

 mination must often be convicted. Esca must originally have 

 had the digamma, as may be proved from its verb vescor, which 

 has nothing intensive in its nature. " Dii" (writes Pliny) 

 " neque escis nee potionibus vescuntur." It was consequently 

 from its original and digammated form that the Lucretian adjec- 



* The different forms under which sanus presents itself are very extraordinary. 

 Its oldest Greek form is the Homeric r*os, which must have been a secondary form, 

 as may be inferred from the Teutonic safe, verb save, which retains the digamma 

 rejected by the Greek. S««? is also o-i>'«$ in Homer ; and it is remarkable that this 

 latter form, when used for mental saneness, kept its digammated sound, Xe<po 5 . 

 The Latins introduced a liquid before the v, as salvus, then dropped the digamma 

 in the noun salus, from which, by substituting one liquid for another, they made a 

 new adjective, sanus, and a new noun, sanitas. It is from the last adjective that 

 the various forms of sain, sano, sound, gesund, sund, zond, in the French, Italian, 

 English, German, Danish, and Dutch languages, have been derived. With salus 

 and salvus are cognate hail, health, weal, wealth, with their innumerable offspring. 



f Esca, from edo, supine esum. 



% " Aliter enim Lucretius vescum salem dicit, ex edendi intentione : aliter 

 Lucilius vescum appellat cum edendi fastidio. 11 



