by dried als a pot might be. The two last words are a roundabout expression for wœre.
The verbs delve, cleave, swepe, and wepe take Weak perfects. This process has unluckily always been going on in England.
In Vol. I. page 267, a new meaning is given to the verb spill; what of old was blod is agoten (effusus), now becomes blode es spilte. One of the puzzles in our language is, how ever could the Old English geotan be supplanted by the Celtic pour: this took place about 1500. The former word survives in the Lincoln goyts or canals.
It is curious to mark the various compounds of wil, employed at different times to translate voluntariè. This about the year 800 was wilsum-lice (Vol. I. page 171); about 1250 it was willi; in a rather later copy of this Psalter it was wilfulli: we should now say willingly.
A new phrase crops up, used to translate forsitan; this (Vol. II. page 115) is turgh hap: it is the forerunner of our mongrel perhaps.
We now see the first employment of our word gainsay, the only one of all the old compounds of again that is left to us. In Vol. I. page 269 we read, ‘thou set us in gaine-sagh,’ that is, in contradictionem. This is a true Northern form; a Southerner would have written ayensawe.
The English tongue was still able to turn a substantive into a verb. ‘Qui dominatur’ (Vol. I. page 203) is translated by ‘þat laverdes.’[1]
- ↑ In Shakespere's time, substantives and adjectives could be turned into verbs with ease. Dr. Johnson turns a preposition into a verb: ‘I downed him with this.’
