Category: vocabulary

“secret, private, hidden, furtive,” 1560s, from Latin clandestinus “secret, hidden,” from clam “secretly,” from adverbial derivative of base of celare “to hide” (from PIE root *kel- (1) “to cover, conceal, save”), perhaps on model of intestinus “internal.” Related: Clandestinely. As a noun form, there is awkward clandestinity (clandestineness apparently being a dictionary word).

c. 1300, “bond of marriage” (between ruling houses or noble families), from Old French aliance (12c., Modern French alliance) “alliance, bond; marriage, union,” from aliier (Modern French allier) “combine, unite” (see ally (v.)).

General sense of “combination for a common object” is from mid-14c., as are those of “bond or treaty between rulers or nations, contracted by treaty” and “aggregate of persons allied.” Unlike its synonyms, “rarely used of a combination for evil” [Century Dictionary]. Meaning “state of being allied or connected” is from 1670s. The Latin word was alligantia.

late 14c., “treatment, discussion,” from Anglo-French treté, Old French traitié “assembly, agreement, dealings,” from Latin tractatus “discussion, handling, management,” from tractare “to handle, manage” (see treat (v.)). Sense of “contract or league between nations or sovereigns” is first recorded early 15c.

1640s, as a theological term (in reference to “covenants” between God and man), from French fédéral, an adjective formed from Latin foedus (genitive foederis) “covenant, league, treaty, alliance,” from PIE *bhoid-es-, suffixed form of root *bheidh- “to trust, confide, persuade.”

Secular meaning “pertaining to a covenant or treaty” (1650s) led to political sense of “formed by agreement among independent states” (1707), from use of the word in federal union “union based on a treaty” (popularized during formation of U.S.A. 1776-1787) and like phrases. Also from this period in U.S. history comes the sense “favoring the central government” (1788) and the especial use of the word (as opposed to confederate) to mean a state in which the federal authority is independent of the component parts within its legitimate sphere of action. Used from 1861 in reference to the Northern forces in the American Civil War.

“government by bureaus,” especially “tyrannical officialdom,” excessive multiplication of administrative bureaus and concentration of power in them, in reference to their tendency to interfere in private matters and be inefficient and inflexible, 1818, from French bureaucratie, coined by French economist Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759) on model of democratie, aristocratie, from bureau “office,” literally “desk” (see bureau) + Greek suffix -kratia denoting “power of” (see -cracy).

That vast net-work of administrative tyranny … that system of bureaucracy, which leaves no free agent in all France, except for the man at Paris who pulls the wires. [J.S. Mill, “Westminster Review” XXVIII, 1837]

bureaucrat, &c. The formation is so barbarous that all attempt at self-respect in pronunciation may perhaps as well be abandoned. [Fowler]

Old English gretan “to come in contact with” in any sense (“attack, accost” as well as “salute, welcome,” and “touch, take hold of, handle,” as in hearpan gretan “to play the harp”), “seek out, approach,” from West Germanic *grotjan (source also of Old Saxon grotian, Old Frisian greta, Dutch groeten, Old High German gruozen, German grüßen “to salute, greet”), of uncertain origin.

In English, German, and Dutch, the primary sense has become “to salute,” but the word once had much broader meaning. Perhaps originally “to resound” (via notion of “cause to speak”), causative of Proto-Germanic *grætanan, root of Old English grætan (Anglian gretan) “weep, bewail,” from PIE *gher- (2) “to call out.” Greet still can mean “cry, weep” in Scottish & northern England dialect, though this might be from a different root. Grætan probably also is the source of the second element in regret. Related: Greeted; greeting.

Old English secan “inquire, search for; pursue; long for, wish for, desire; look for, expect from,” influenced by Old Norse soekja, both from Proto-Germanic *sakanan (source also of Old Saxon sokian, Old Frisian seka, Middle Dutch soekan, Old High German suohhan, German suchen, Gothic sokjan), from PIE *sag-yo-, from root *sag- “to track down, seek out” (source also of Latin sagire “to perceive quickly or keenly,” sagus “presaging, predicting,” Old Irish saigim “seek”). The natural modern form of the Anglo-Saxon word as uninfluenced by Norse is in beseech. Related: Sought; seeking.

mid-14c., “a consideration; a judgment,” from Old French regard, from regarder “take notice of,” from re-, intensive prefix + garder “look, heed,” from Germanic (see guard (n.)). Meanings “a look, appearance; respect, esteem, favor, kindly feeling which springs from a consideration of estimable qualities” all recorded late 14c. Phrase in regard to is from mid-15c. (Chaucer uses at regard of).

late 14c., “cross out with lines, draw lines across (something written) so as to deface,” from Anglo-French and Old French canceler, from Latin cancellare “to make like a lattice,” which in Late Latin took on especially a sense “cross out something written” by marking it with crossed lines, from cancelli, plural of *cancellus (n.) “lattice, grating,” diminutive of cancer “crossed bars, a lattice,” a variant of carcer “prison” (see incarceration).

Figurative use, “to nullify (an obligation, etc.)” is from mid-15c. Related: Canceled (also cancelled); cancelling.

late 14c., from Middle French esquier “squire,” literally “shield-bearer” (for a knight), from Old French escuier “shield-bearer (attendant young man in training to be a knight), groom” (Modern French écuyer), from Medieval Latin scutarius “shield-bearer, guardsman” (in classical Latin, “shield-maker”), from scutum “shield” (see escutcheon). For initial e-, see e-. Compare squire (n.). Originally the feudal rank below knight, sense broadened 16c. to a general title of courtesy or respect for the educated and professional class, especially, later, in U.S., regarded as belonging especially to lawyers.

In our own dear title-bearing, democratic land, the title of esquire, officially and by courtesy, has come to include pretty much everybody. Of course everybody in office is an esquire, and all who have been in office enjoy and glory in the title. And what with a standing army of legislators, an elective and ever-changing magistracy, and almost a whole population of militia officers, present and past, all named as esquires in their commissions, the title is nearly universal. [N.Y. “Commercial Advertiser” newspaper, quoted in Bartlett, 1859]