Degraded Words. 



53 



to precede, as in the English Common Prayer: " Let thy grace always 

 prevent and follow us;" and Hamlet (ii, 2), " so shall my anticipa- 

 tion prevent your discovery." But alas, those who reach first a 

 desirable goal are so wont to take advantage of their position, not 

 to help others get there too, but to block the way if possible, that the 

 verb which ought only to describe the arrival of the first-comers in 

 advance of the rest, is now understood as implying also their doing 

 the best they can to monopolize the good fortune, and prevent others 

 from sharing it. 



Another illustration of the same principle, still stronger perhaps, 

 is furnished by the word rival. Rivals were at first only the occu- 

 piers of the banks of the same stream, and a little later, partners or 

 co-laborers in the same enterprise. It is in this sense that Bernardo 

 speaks of Horatio and Marcellus as the rivals of his watch. But it 

 came to be perceived that joint owners and partners are very apt to 

 quarrel, each doing his best to possess himself of all the advantages 

 of the combination, until at last the word, in our present usage, has 

 come to involve the entirely modern addition of a conflict of interest, 

 and more or less hard-feeling between the parties. 



Artful, so late as the time of Johnson, meant only skillful, not 

 tricky. Usury was once merely interest money, however moderate 

 the amount and however legal and equitable the charge. A cheat, 

 or escheatour, was a royal officer in England who attended to the 

 sequestration of estates that were forfeited to the crown, and the 

 corrupt practices of these men led it to be commonly believed that 

 to "cheat" a man was to deprive him of his property unfairly — 

 which meaning is now the only one recognized. To embezzle was to 

 spend rashly and foolishly, but it w^as applied for a long time to the 

 man's own property — " Mr. Hackluit died, leaving a fair estate to 

 an unthrift son, who embezzled it" ' — that is, wasted it — until it 

 was discovered that spendthrifts are apt to become thieves as well. 

 A defalcation was formerly only a diminution or abatement, as in 

 Burke: "The natural method in reformation would be to take the 

 estimates and show w^hat may be safely defalcated from them." Its 

 present use, as implying arrant knavery in the diminution, is possi- 

 bly due in part to some supposed connection with " default " and 

 " defaulter," to which words, of course, it is by etymology only very 

 distantly if at all related. 



1 Thomas Fuller, " Worthies of England:/ 1663. 



