By Joseph W. Smith III
In honor of last week’s 22nd “Weird Words” column in Webb, we looked at an obscure but interesting phenomenon called a doublet.
These are sets of synonyms with similar sound and spelling — usually in pairs, like frail and fragile, fire and pyre, frantic and frenetic; or sometimes more than two: hotel, hostel and hospital, and (in the sense of a flat surface) dish, disc, desk and dais.
As described in my previous article, doublets arrive in English from a single ancient root-word (usually Latin) — one term coming straight into our language, and the other first sidestepping into another like French or Italian, then entering English directly from there.
We have literally hundreds of these synonym-sets, and the connection in meaning isn’t always clear. Because of that, I ran out of space last week, and am herewith finishing with many more.
Let’s begin with some whose connection is clear:
Pocket and pouch; tea and chai; balm and balsam; abbreviate and abridge; strait and strict; mister and master.
One helpful factoid regarding that last: Our common title Mrs. is simply an abbreviation of mistress — the feminine for master (“head of the household”).
Less obvious pairs include chef and chief; aperture and overture (both related to opening); think and thank (though it’s nice to know there’s a connection between those two!); and canvas and cannabis — both related to hemp, a plant that gives us not only fabric but also marijuana.
Some doublets occur by shortening, like sure and secure, or naïve and native; and others, curiously enough, are actually antonyms: chase and catch; treason and tradition; host and guest.
Then there are sets with multiple entries:
Ratio, ration and reason.
Prize, price and praise (our similar word precious, by the way, is related to price, though it is not actually a doublet).
Care, cherish, cheer and charity.
Parcel, particle and passel (the last, a slang term for “lots” or “a bunch,” is used fairly often by Huckleberry Finn).
Bear, brown, berry, fierce and feral (remember that B and P are both made with the lips!).
Beyond this, things really get out of hand, with larger groups like these:
Horse and hurry, which are somehow also doubled by car, chariot and carry.
Real, rich, right, regal, royal, regalia and reign — plus four more.
Know, note, notice and notorious, along with 11 others.
However, the record seems to be the naïve / native group, which according to Wikipedia runs to a total of 23 doublets!
And last but not least, I just had to close with a single simple pair: thesaurus and treasure — which warms this word-lover’s heart by suggesting that a hoard of vocab like we have in English is really a trove of gold and jewels that can be used to adorn your speech and writing.
Once again, my gratitude for help with this goes to Wikipedia (see their “Doublet” entry) and a grand old textbook called English Words from Latin and Greek Elements, by Ayers and Worthen.
