By the Rev. A. C. Smith, M.A. 



337 



of a gate iu a wall or otherwise ; but rather as a gateway or opening, 

 a road, an entrance, an approach, or way. 1 Indeed the word gate 

 had originally both these significations. In the " Promptuarium 

 1 Parvu forum" we have it both as a way, "via" " iter" ; and as a 

 j door, "porta" "fores" "janua ", the former probably derived from 

 the Icelandic grata, a way, a road, from gaa, to go : 2 the latter from 

 the Anglo-Saxon great, " porta." Hence the cause of no little con- 

 fusion from confounding two independent etymologies. 3 As early 

 j as the tenth century geat had the common meaning of a roadway, 

 ifor in a charter of Eadred, A.D. 955, Wayland's Smithy is repre- 

 • sented as situated on the west side of a wide road or opening {geat) 

 near the Ridgeway. 4 Even now too, gate in the sense of a " road/'' 

 is common enough in the South of England : Ramsgate, was so 

 called from the way here which leads to the sea. 5 Margate again, 

 from there being here an opening or gate through which there was 

 an outlet into the sea. 6 Merk-yate Street, in Hertfordshire, now 

 Market Street, is another case in point, its ancient name in 1145 

 land 1290 having been Merkyate or Markyate, " in bosco." 7 In the 

 Chronicles of Abingdon we meet with the names of Geatescum, 

 | Gatecliffe, and Gatawic. Besides these there is in Kent Snargate 

 jand Sandgate ; in Somerset Lanyatt and Donyatt and Skilgate; in 

 (Sussex Eastergate, &c, in all of which "gate" is a synonym for 

 " way." In the North of England " gate," which is still pronounced 



1 Magazine, vol. v., p. 203. Speaking of Nain, Lieutenant Kitchener says, 

 | " There are — as far as we could see — no traces of a wall, and I think we should 

 ! understand by ' gate of the city,' the place where the road enters among the 

 jhouses, just as the word is often used in Greek, and in modern Arabic in such 

 3xpressions as ' gate of the pass,' ' gate of the valley,' and even ' gate of the city,' 

 ■ where no wall or gate exists." (Palestine Exploration Fund Eeports for 1878, 

 U 115.) 



3 See Journal of Archaeological Institute, vol. xx., p. 395. 

 3 Kev. Mackenzie Walcott. 

 4 Magazine, vol. vii., p. 328. 

 , 5 Hasted's Kent, iv., p. 372. 



6 Ibid, p. 347. 



7 Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, iv., 157, 133, 348, 39. Dugdale's Monasticon, 

 iii., 373. 



'VOL. XVIII. NO. LIV. 2 B 



