Language of Confusion: Can I Get A Witness? Part III

This week, it’s getting a lot more what-the-hell. And yet not as what-the-hell as it’s going to get. Remember, all these words trace back to the Proto Indo European weid- (to see) in some way.

Visage showed up in the fourteenth century from the Anglo French and Old French visage, face or portrait. It comes from vis, face, which is from the classical Latin visus, a sight. That’s from the verb videre, to see, which you would know if you read my previous posts.

Provide first showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin providere, to provide. The pro- prefix means forward, while videre means to see. To provide is to see forward, to plan ahead. The word purvey actually comes from the same place, just a different route. It showed up in the late thirteenth century from the Anglo French porveire/purveire and Old French porveoir, to provide. Which is also from providere. Purveying is also seeing forward!

Guise showed up in the late thirteenth century meaning a style or fashion of clothes, which from there morphed into mask or disguise in the sixteenth century. It comes from the Old French guise, manner, fashion, and was thought to be traced from the Proto Germanic wison, appearance or manner. So hey. Not all the words French stole were Latin. And that’s from weid-. Disguise is also from the same place. It showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French desguiser, with the des- being from dis-, meaning away or off. A disguise is away from a guise.

Next, guide. Yes, really. It showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French guider. Much like guise, it’s Germanic in origin, from the Proto Germanic witanan, to look after or guard. The G (and I assume the G in guise) was influenced by Old Provençal (the dialects of the Provençal regions of France) guidar or the Italian guidare. I guess they liked their G’s.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fordham University

Language of Confusion: Guises

I still haven’t gotten around to updating my Etymology page. I keep saying I’m going to do it tomorrow and it keeps not happening.

Anyway. Today’s word is guise.

Guise showed up in the late thirteenth century meaning a fashion style—I’m totally serious, that’s what it meant. It comes from the Old French guise which meant fashion or manner, which I guess morphed into just fashion in English, and then turned into a particular appearance in the mid-seventeenth century. Old French took guise from one of the Germanic languages—which one isn’t definite—but back then, guise was wisa. Yes, with a W, and yes, that’s where the word wise comes from.

Disguise showed up a little after guise in the early fourteenth century, meaning pretty much what we use it as. The dis- prefix means away, making it an appearance “away” from your normal one—a disguise.

And that’s not all! There’s one more word that can be traced to guise, and I think you’ll laugh when you read what it is: geezer. Seriously. It showed up recently enough that we know the specific year, 1885. It’s a Cockney English word, also written as guiser, which literally meant a “mummer”. I had no idea what mummer meant before this, but apparently it’s a person who wears a mask and costume (a guise) to take part in pantomime (the reason it’s called mummer is because “mum” means silent, like pantomime). So geezer is a variation of a dialect’s word for a slang word meaning mime. And it somehow now means an old person. No, I have no idea why.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Dialect Blog

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center