Wonderful as always. I had to pause in the middle to look up amend. Mend (from an illness) always felt like Germanic to me but Amend is clearly Latin. E(x)mendare means to take out the faults, which fits both reweaving a fabric and reweaving your health. Right now I'm trying to amend a sickness, so the connection is especially helpful!
I hadn't heard this one before so I looked into it. OED is down right now but here's what Wiktionary says:
1. (archaic, chiefly Scotland) A great amount.
Many a little makes a mickle.
2. (archaic, Scotland, originally erroneous) A small amount.
... many a mickle makes a muckle.
So it looks like both meanings exist but the 'big' meaning is earliest. Sounds like there's some sound symbolism going on with the alternation between the 'i' vowel and the 'u' vowel too.
I think that this meaning has come to be attached to it, but when I was a child (70 years ago!) it actually meant something like 'more of much (a large quantity) makes more sense(a bigger quantity'.
As mentioned by other comments I feel the connection between stout and strong/large. Stout is meant to describe a large, heavy person - it’s used a lot in Scotland. I was amazed to hear it meant naughty in Dutch. However, both differences can find a possible common denominator in the fact that they refer to boldness or daring and essentially taking up space. It’s always fascinating to observe how words change shape;colour; sound;texture and meaning in different soils. Indeed, they are little conduits of meaning DNA.
And stolz is 'proud' in German! I hadn't looked up stout before this but it was fun to learn that it's another word that came from Germanic (Frankish) into French and then was borrowed from French back to Germanic (English). I call those boomerang words. They might be worth an article of their own one of these days!
In modern Swedish there is a cognate word "mycket- pron almost like mick-it", which means much/a lot of: eg. mycket pengar = a lot of money, or "hon pratar mycket" = she talks a lot. In the northern Swedish dialect we often use a form "myche- pron almost like meh-che", meaning essentially the same thing: eg. myche perninga/ SW. mycket pengar = a lot of money. Just thought I'd throw this in here.
That's a great cognate of Old English micel! It's so interesting how Swedish went through similar changes to Old English with some of its 'g's and 'c's. I'm also thinking of all the Swedish 'g' letters that sound like English 'y,' just like what happened in Old English to turn a form like *dag- into day.
It occurs to me that we do still have a vestige of “big” meaning “powerful” but not necessarily “large” in the phrases “big man” and “big shot”. Both are sort of dismissive but that’s clearly their intent.
That's a nice parallel! Clearly there's a deep connection metaphorically between big and rich and powerful, given that it shows up in phrases beyond one individual word!
“The Scandinavian languages have stor, which does have an English equivalent stour, but you’ll only hear that in particular dialects.” Is this the etymology of the word “stout,” which also implies something or someone large and strong?
Apparently not. From a quick check online, "stout" comes (via French!) from a West Germanic root "*stult" meaning proud, from proto-Germanic "*stoltaz" (see German "stolz"). Whereas Scandinavian "stor" traces back to a Proto-Germanic root "*storaz". So at least back to that level they don't look related.
Right, stout dates back to a PIE root *stel- meaning 'to put', while stor goes back to a root *steh2- meaning 'to stand'. I wonder if the two are ultimately related.
" . . . the etymological equivalent of seeing Elvis on a piece of toast." Sheer poetry, Colin!
Thank you!
Wonderful as always. I had to pause in the middle to look up amend. Mend (from an illness) always felt like Germanic to me but Amend is clearly Latin. E(x)mendare means to take out the faults, which fits both reweaving a fabric and reweaving your health. Right now I'm trying to amend a sickness, so the connection is especially helpful!
Thank you! Right, "mendum" in Latin is a fault, error, or blemish. Wishing you a quick mend!
I love hearing about these mystery words in English. Thank you!
Thank you, Jennifer!
Doesn’t mickle in northern dialect mean “small”, though? As in “many a mickle mack a muckle” (lots of small things make a lot)
Yes 👍🏻 grew up with that drummed into my head every day!!!😅
I hadn't heard this one before so I looked into it. OED is down right now but here's what Wiktionary says:
1. (archaic, chiefly Scotland) A great amount.
Many a little makes a mickle.
2. (archaic, Scotland, originally erroneous) A small amount.
... many a mickle makes a muckle.
So it looks like both meanings exist but the 'big' meaning is earliest. Sounds like there's some sound symbolism going on with the alternation between the 'i' vowel and the 'u' vowel too.
I think that this meaning has come to be attached to it, but when I was a child (70 years ago!) it actually meant something like 'more of much (a large quantity) makes more sense(a bigger quantity'.
As mentioned by other comments I feel the connection between stout and strong/large. Stout is meant to describe a large, heavy person - it’s used a lot in Scotland. I was amazed to hear it meant naughty in Dutch. However, both differences can find a possible common denominator in the fact that they refer to boldness or daring and essentially taking up space. It’s always fascinating to observe how words change shape;colour; sound;texture and meaning in different soils. Indeed, they are little conduits of meaning DNA.
And stolz is 'proud' in German! I hadn't looked up stout before this but it was fun to learn that it's another word that came from Germanic (Frankish) into French and then was borrowed from French back to Germanic (English). I call those boomerang words. They might be worth an article of their own one of these days!
| Come on, dream big.
Bookend appreciated. 🙂
It was a little big … and pretty ugly.
In modern Swedish there is a cognate word "mycket- pron almost like mick-it", which means much/a lot of: eg. mycket pengar = a lot of money, or "hon pratar mycket" = she talks a lot. In the northern Swedish dialect we often use a form "myche- pron almost like meh-che", meaning essentially the same thing: eg. myche perninga/ SW. mycket pengar = a lot of money. Just thought I'd throw this in here.
That's a great cognate of Old English micel! It's so interesting how Swedish went through similar changes to Old English with some of its 'g's and 'c's. I'm also thinking of all the Swedish 'g' letters that sound like English 'y,' just like what happened in Old English to turn a form like *dag- into day.
It occurs to me that we do still have a vestige of “big” meaning “powerful” but not necessarily “large” in the phrases “big man” and “big shot”. Both are sort of dismissive but that’s clearly their intent.
That's an excellent point!
"Rich" as strength is still used in phrases such as "a rich gravy" or "that meal was too rich for me".
Excellent point!
It made me think of "living large," as in, having a lot of money!
That's a nice parallel! Clearly there's a deep connection metaphorically between big and rich and powerful, given that it shows up in phrases beyond one individual word!
“The Scandinavian languages have stor, which does have an English equivalent stour, but you’ll only hear that in particular dialects.” Is this the etymology of the word “stout,” which also implies something or someone large and strong?
Apparently not. From a quick check online, "stout" comes (via French!) from a West Germanic root "*stult" meaning proud, from proto-Germanic "*stoltaz" (see German "stolz"). Whereas Scandinavian "stor" traces back to a Proto-Germanic root "*storaz". So at least back to that level they don't look related.
Right, stout dates back to a PIE root *stel- meaning 'to put', while stor goes back to a root *steh2- meaning 'to stand'. I wonder if the two are ultimately related.
So fascinating! 🥰
Thank you, Anne!
I enjoyed this post, bigly.
Had no idea, thanks!!
A “big” mystery … and why not? A bit of mystery is more than welcome in this sometimes over-explained world .