and Skelton, p. 151, calls common pleas commune place: and indeed this is correct from communis; and one does not wonder to see communalty, and communalte, and communaltie, in old authors.

Canon and Cannon. The engines of death called cannons are of different sizes and bores. The proper cannon, I presume, is a 48 pounder, and is so named from its being made according to that canon or standard. Whence canon and cannon appear to be the same words.

Cant and Chant. Both from the Latin cantus, cant being a whining tone used by the Puritans, and to chant having only the c softened, as is plain from descant; so from cantaria comes chantry; and we have both inchantment and incantation. V. chattel, above.

Cord and Chord. Chord, from Latin chorda, is the string; of a musical instrument, and a cord is any band or string; both evidently the same.

Chanon and Canon, Canonici: so called because they lived under or according to a certain rule or canon. Chanons were a stricter sort of canons, regulars, as they were stiled, and that is the whole difference. V. chattel, above.

Canal, Channel, Kennel. From Latin canalis the French have canal, which we have adopted; the two latter are the effects of pronunciation. As to c soft, we have chaste from castus, cheese from caseus, &c. V. chattel, above.

Draw and Drain. As in the north they say dra for draw, one can hardly doubt the sameness of these two words.

To dally, and to delay. Since to dally means to trifle, and consequently to delay, one has grounds to suspect both are the French delayer, and have no other difference but what arises from pronunciation.

A Dab and Adept. The first, which signifies a person expert in any thing, is evidently a corruption of the second. Dike and Ditch. The first is provincial for the second; whence a small brook in the north is called a dike, and there are twenty instances in those parts of ch or tch being turned into k or ck. V. Powch, [below,] and stink, and stark, and seek. Dig is probably the root.

Defile and Defowl. They both meau to deflower a virgin. Hence undeforled, Caxton, Legend. fol. 338. So that file, whence filth, is the same with foul.

Estate and Estade; both from etat of the French, who now have dropped the s.

To flit, to remove; flight, fugd. I take the former to be only the short or quick pronunciation of the latter, and that both come from to fly.

To fell wood or timber, i. e. to fall it, since they call it commonly a fall of timber. So that to fell and to fall are

the same.

To flea and to flay. To flea is to strip of the skin, whence fleece; and to flay is the same, as appears from the Bible.

Flour, simila; Flower, flos. There is no difference in these, though it may be proper to vary them in writing, as flour is the flower or best part of the corn. In Fabian, fol. xviii. 6. flower is written floure.

Fusty, Foisty, and Fist. Two first are found in Dr. Johnson, and fist is in Littleton; all come from French fustè.

Fraughted, Freighted, Fraught. The first, which occurs in Finett, p. 238, is plainly the same as the second; and the third is as evidently contracted from the first.

Gate and Gait. Gate comes from the Dutch get, or Saxon geat, get, gate, and signifies an entrance, road, town, street, manner of walking, &c. and thence, very naturally, the air, mien, or port, of a person; the incessus, as Virgil terms it. But now some affect to write gait in this latter sense, as Shakespeare and others; by which means gait has gotten into Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. I am of opinion, however, that there is no difference between gate and gait, or, in other words, that there is really no such word as gait. In Milton, I am sure, gate has the sense of air or mien in several places, as iv. 870, vii. 411. ix. 389. xi. 230. In short, gate, amongst its other uses, signifies a person's manner; and Hampole, MS. at Lincoln, p. 176, applies it for guise or manner, when he says thus gates, for on this manner. So Chaucer also uses it; see the Glossary. It is worth noting, that the Dutch and Saxon, whence we have our gate, know nothing of any such orthography as gait.

Guard and Ward. First is the French orthography, second the English; and both modes have been followed, the former having been appropriated to some purposes, as the latter has to others; but they are apparently the self-same words.

Guise, wise, ous. First is the French form, second the English; for wise is the same in sense in otherwise, leastwise, &c. as the French guise. As to ous, the termination in righteous, it is a mere corruption of wise; for in Hall, Richard III. folio 26, you have rightewise; and in the Dance of Machabree, fol. 222 and 225, rightwisness: and so Erudition of a Christian Man, p. 15. Caxton, Myrrour, cap. 9.and III. cap. 12. Rightwessly occurs also in Gunton, p. 52.

Great, magnus; groat, four-pence; grotes, oats when the outer hull is taken off: these are all the same. There is an

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ellipsis in groat, penny being understood; the whole would be great-penny. Grotes means plainly great meal, in respect of the smaller or ground meal; in the north they are pronounced greats or grates, which shews the etymon clearly.

To hunt and to haunt. To hunt about is so near a kin to haunting a place, that one has reason to esteem them the

same.

Harris and Harrison. As John Harris is no other than John Harry's, an elliptical manner of speaking for John Harry's son, the two names Harris and Harrison are consequently the same; as also are Williams and Williamson, Roberts and Robertson, &c,

John, Johannes; Jone, Johanna. As these are the same names, one masculine, the other feminine, the o ought to be long in both, and h to be inserted or omitted in both, and the e in the woman's name should be retained to denote the sex. St. John's is pronounced at London St. Jones's, and in Lancashire they currently say Jone for John.

Jane and Joane. Mr. Camden, in Remains, p. 98, says, that 32 Eliz. it was agreed by the Court of King's Bench, that Jane was the same as Joane.

Kill, quell, and quail. All the words are found in an active sense in Dr. Johnson and Littleton; but they are clearly the same, kill being the modernization of quell, by adopting the French pronunciation of qu, and consequently very justly deduced by Dr. Johnson from the Saxon cwellan. Indeed, at this time, to quell does not seem to imply, in our ideas, so much as kill, but formerly it did. Macbeth I. 10. Obs. on Macbeth, p. 24, Camden's Remains, p. 65. Manqueller is a ruffian, a bravo, an assassin, Speed Hist. p. 300. Erudition of Christian Man, p. 148.-Quail is not only used actively, but the sense of it accords well with our modern notion of to quell, and Dr. Johnson gives it accordingly the same etymology.

Knit, knot, net. See the proeme.

Knap, knop, knob, nab, nob. All these, which signify protuberances, as also a small mount, come from British cnap, and must be reputed the same.

Kind, and akin. As akin means of the same race or kind, one is led to imagine that kin and kind may be the same word, the i in one case being pronounced short, and in the other long, just as some say wynd, and others wind,

Latter, later; last, latest. The two first are comparatives of late, and the two last, superlatives of the same; therefore there is no other difference than what use and custom have made.

Lest and least. Here again is a variation without a difference; for if lest be now used for the Latin particle, ne, teast was formerly as often used; and so, if it may be rendered by quo minus, the English least seems to answer the more fully to this. I take least to be a corruption of lest, this being a more natural superlative of little, and best corresponding with the Saxon læst.

Lust and list. As to lust sometimes occurs in a good sense, I have no doubt but these are the same words.

Links, lings, and ings. Grounds in some places called lings and ings are in others named links, by a quick or thin pronounciation of g. Vid. Rank below. Lings perhaps may be the same again as Les inges, the word inge occurring in Dr. Johnson, as also in Dr. Thoroton and Mr. Thoresby.

Leash, and lashed. A leash is a band or string, particularly a leather thong, by which a falconer holds his hawk, and a courser leads his greyhound. Lashed, therefore, when one thing is bound and fastened to another by tying, may be leashed. A leash of greyhounds are, again, as many as are commonly led by one string, viz. three; and from thence a leash comes to signify that number either of birds or animals.

To low and bellow. Spoken of cows. Spoken of cows. Be in the latter is only an unmeaning Saxon prefix.

Manquell, mangle. The first not only means to murder, (see kill above,) but also, as appears from Hall, Ewd. IV. fol. 221. b. to mangle, whence I have a suspicion that mangle is in fact the same word.

Moan, mourn. These are so near akin both in sense and sound, that I greatly suspect them to be the same words, varying only in pronunciation.

A mass, and a mess. A mass from French masse, is a heap or pile of any thing; and a mess of victuals or pottage is as much as is collected together for one or more persons. When people swear by the mass, they commonly say by mess.

Many and meiny. The latter denotes a company, a retinue; and many is a substantive in Lowth's Gram. p. 26. Are they not the same?

Mow, mouth. To make mows, and to make mouths, are equivalent; so that mow and mouth are the same. I have often seen Portsmouth written Portsmue. Indeed, the French word moue signifies mouth; and they have the phrase faire la mouë.

Mount and Mound are apparently the same.

Near and nigher. Nigh was formerly written neigh or negh, whence we have neighbour. Hence came the comparative negher contracted to near. Near and nigher are

therefore clearly the same; and so when we say nearer it is really a comparison compared, and as much a solecism, though so common, as worser. That near is a comparative appears from the expressions never the near, and nere and nere, the first in Sir Thomas More, p. iv. 2d. in Dr. Percy's Songs, p. 88.

Not, nought. The last is ne ought by crasis, and was anciently written noght, of which we have made not.

Of and Off. We now write this particle sometimes off, but I suppose it is always the Latin a, de, or er, i. e. of and that it is every way as proper to say cut of, excisus, as cut off. Math. x. 14. Shake off the dust of your feet," Gr. ixlasare τον κονιορτον των ποδών ύμων; where the preposition i or of is evidently in composition. The Vulgate, whence Wicliffe's version was made, "has "excutite pulverem de pedibus vestris," which Wicliffe renders sprenge off, whereas, Cranmer's Bible gives it, shake of, and so the Rhemish Testa

ment.

Owe, own, ought. As owe is used for own, i. e. to claim, Acts xxi. 11. Johnson, Obs. on Shakespeare, Macbeth, &c. we can be sure they are the same words. Ought comes from owe too, but from a different sense of it, viz. debere.

A pound for cattle, whence hog's-pound; a pond, a stewpan. These appear to be all the same, pound and pond, coming from to pin, or inclose. When people say a stew-pan, meaning a smaller kind of pond, it is evidently a corruption of stew-pond,

A person, a particular man or woman; a parson, a parishpriest. These are clearly the same, though the latter is appropriated to the clergy, as is evident from the Latin word used on the occasion, viz. Persona, i. e. Persona Ecclesiæ. Thomas More, in his Life of Richard III. writes person for parson often: and the Scotch name is Macpherson.

Part and party. These are the same, notwithstanding the different orthography; for, whereas the lawyers now say, between A. B. on one part and between C. D. on the other part, indentures of the age of James I. and later, generally run, "between A. B. on one partie, and between C. D. on the other partie." King Henry VIII. in Fuller's Worth. p. 198, says, parties of beyond the sea, for parts beyond the In Hall, Edward V. fol. iv. 6. north parties means north parts, and so, fol. 6. b. On the other hand, in the Scotch phrase, art and part, part seems to mean party; and I presume there are few cases wherein these words may not be counterchanged.

sea.

Peck and pick. They say in Kent, speaking of a fowl,