logo search
Kovalenko_lexicology

Semantic change Definition of semantic change / Extension (Generalization) / Narrowing (Specializaation) /Amelioration / Pejoration / Further kinds of semantic change / Folk etymology

With the course of time, lexical meanings of words may change. We speak about the change in lexical meaning only when it is accepted within the language system. Otherwise we speak about particular uses of words.

Semantic change, also known as semantic shift or semantic progression describes the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. In diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology and semantics.

Linguists have distinguished several kinds of semantic change. Four particularly important types of semantic change are:

In Old English, food (foda) referred to animal fodder, and later it was generalized to refer to all forms of solid food.

The noun lad in the 14th century had the meanings of ‘foot soldier’ and also ‘young male servant’. In the middle of the 15th century the meaning of the word widened to ‘boy, youth, young man’.

The noun job was first recorded in 1557, in a phrase jobbe of worke (piece of work), as contrasted with continuous labor. In the middle of the 17th century the word began to be used in the wider sense of ‘the work done for pay’.

The noun experience in the late 14th century meant ‘knowledge gained by repeated trials’. The verb experience first meant ‘to test, to try’; the sense of ‘feel, undergo’ was first recorded in the 1580s.

There are many examples of specific brand names being used for the general product: for example, the word Jacuzzi was first a proprietary name, registered in 1966 in the U.S. (Jacuzzi Bros., Inc., Little Rock, Arkansas). Further examples are Kleenex used for all paper napkins, Pampers – for all diapers, Xerox – for all copying machines, Keds – for any kind of trainer shoes.

Another example comes from Old English: meat (mete) referred to all forms of solid food while flesh (flæsc) referred to animal tissue; meat was eventually restricted to flesh of animals, then flesh restricted to the tissue of humans (Jeffers, 1979, p. 130).

The noun cockney in the beginning of the 16th century denoted any town dweller, gradually narrowing thereafter to residents of a particular neighborhood in the East End of London.

Dainty in the early 13th century was used in the meaning of ‘price, value’, and also ‘delicacy, pleasure’. The adjectival use was first recorded around 1300. The meaning of the adjective evolved from ‘choice, excellent’ to ‘delicately pretty’.

Exotic in the 1590s, meant ‘belonging to another country.’ The sense of ‘unusual, strange’ was first recorded in English in the 1620s, from the notion of alien, outlandish. In the modern English the meaning has narrowed to ‘something unusual and belonging to a foreign culture’.

The noun lieutenant in the late 14th century denoted ‘the one who takes the place of another’, from an Old French noun that could be translated as substitute, or literally placeholder, from lieu (place) + tenant (holder). It was particularly used to denote a ‘substitute’ for higher authority. Specific military sense of ‘officer next in rank to a captain’ first appeared in the 1570s.

The noun grammar in the late 12th century was used in the general meaning of ‘learning’, especially Latin and philology. As the study was until the 16th century mostly limited to Latin, the Middle English gramarye also came to mean ‘learning in general, knowledge peculiar to the learned classes’ (early 14th century), which included astrology and magic; hence the secondary meaning of ‘occult knowledge’ (late 15th century), which evolved in Scottish into glamour. The restriction to ‘the rules of language’ is a post-classical development.

A grammar school (late 14th century) was originally ‘a school in which the learned languages are grammatically taught’. In the U.S. (1860) the term was put to use in the graded system for ‘a school between primary and secondary, where English grammar is taught’.

At the time of the American Revolution, the term ‘democrat’ had all the negative connotations of the modern usage of the word ‘demagogue’. A century later, the term had shifted in meaning enough that it was viewed favourably as the name of an American national political party.

The noun lady in the Old English had the literal meaning of ‘one who kneads bread’, from hlaf (bread, compare: loaf) + -dige (maid), related to dæge (maker of dough) and began to mean ‘the mistress of a household, wife of a lord’. Around 1200 the word already meant ‘woman of superior position in society’, since 1861 it acquired the meaning of ‘a woman whose manners and sensibilities befit her for high rank in society’.

The adjective kind comes from the Old English gecynde, which meant ‘natural, native, innate’, ‘with the feeling of relatives for each other’ around 1300 the sense developed from ‘with natural feelings’ to "well-disposed", "benign, compassionate".

The noun glamour came into the English language about 1720 in the meaning of ‘magic, enchantment’ (especially in phrase to cast the glamour). It was popularized by the writings of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). Sense of ‘magical beauty, alluring charm’ was first recorded in 1840. The derivative adjective glamorous appeared in 1882.

Guido (Guy) Fawkes was the alleged leader of a plot to blow up the English Houses of Parliament on 5 November 1605. The burning on 5 November of a grotesque effigy of Fawkes, known as a ‘guy’, led to the use of the word ‘guy’ as a term for any ‘person of grotesque appearance’ and then to a general reference for a man, as in ‘some guy called for you’. In the 20th century, under the influence of American popular culture, guy has been gradually replacing fellow, bloke, chap and other such words throughout the English-speaking world, and, in the plural, can refer to a mixture of genders (e.g., "Come on, you guys!" could be directed to a group of men and women).

The word demagogue originally meant ‘a popular leader’. It is from the Greek demagogos (leader of the people), from demos (people) + agogos (leader). Now the word has strong connotations of a politician who panders to emotions and prejudice.

The adjective egregious originally described something that was remarkably good. The word is from the Latin egregius (outstanding) which is from e-, ex- (out of) + greg or grex (flock). Now it has a meaning of ‘utter’ and collocates with nouns that denote something remarkably bad or flagrant (egregious error, egregious fool, egregious lie).

The adjective daft was used in the Old English (gedæfte) to describe something gentle, becoming. Then the sense progressed from mildness to dullness (in the 14th century) to foolish (the 15th century) to crazy (the 1530s), probably influenced by analogy with daffe (halfwit).

The following phenomena are further kinds of semantic change:

The flower name daisy appeared in the Old English (dægesege), and was derived from the word combination dæges eage (day's eye), implying the flower’s petals opening at dawn and closing at dusk.

Cognitive metaphor is based on the similarity of certain characteristic features between objects, persons, qualities or actions: a cold person, to choke a demonstration. Cognitive metaphor is the main source of polysemy. For example, the noun governor originally meant steersman, pilot, and in the 14th century its meaning widened to director, ruler, governor. Later, the original meaning of steersman died out.

The verb jog in the middle of the 16th century meant ‘to shake up and down’, and by the end of the 16th century it acquired the meaning ‘to walk or ride with a jolting pace’. The main modern sense is attested from 1560s but mostly dates from 1948; at first a training regimen for athletes, it became a fad around 1967.

A red-letter day is an important day, like the feast days marked in red on church calendars. A redneck (slang) is a stereotypical member of the white rural working class in the Southern U.S., originally a reference to necks sunburned from working in the fields (Eble, 1992).

The noun vermouth in its original meaning was first recorded in 1806, and it derives from wormwood, the name of the aromatic herb formerly used in the flavoring of the liqueur.

At the same time, hyperbole can be understood as an exaggerated use of a lexical item not meant to be understood literally but expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to the situation. The example can be the use of starving to mean ‘hungry’. Here also belong some of the most frequently used emphatic words: absolutely! awfully! terribly! lovely! magnificent! splendid!

The noun virus was first recorded in 1392 in the meaning of ‘venomous substance’. It derives from the Latin word virus (poison, sap of plants, slimy liquid). The main modern meaning ‘agent that causes infectious disease’ was first recorded in 1728. The computer sense developed from 1972.

A very peculiar kind of semantic change is folk etymology. When people hear a foreign or unfamiliar word for the first time, they try to make sense of it by relating it to words they know well. They guess what it must mean – and often guess wrongly. However, if enough people make the same wrong guess, the error can become part of the language. Such erroneous forms are called folk or popular etymologies.

“Bridegroom provides a good example. What has a groom got to do with getting married? Is he going to ‘groom' the bride, in some way? Or perhaps he is responsible for horses to carry him and his bride off into sunset? The true explanation is more prosaic. The Old English form was bridgome, which goes back to English brydguma, from 'bride' + guma 'man'. However, gome died out during the Middle English period. By the 16th century its meaning was no longer apparent, and it came to be popularly replaced by a similar-sounding word, grome, 'serving lad'. This later developed the sense of 'servant having the care of horses’, which is the dominant sense today. But bridegroom never meant anything more than 'bride's man'”.

Here are a few other folk etymologies:

⁂