Fall again
Last week we considered some descendants of the Latin root cadere, to fall. This week we’ll take a look
at some less likely descendants of that same word.
When the conductor’s baton falls
it establishes the cadence, of the piece. Cadence showed up in English in the
late 1300s, meaning flow of rhythm in
verse or music.
The
past participle of the Latin word cadere was casus, meaning a mishap, accident, chance or opportunity
(not only can we fall on bad times, we can fall on good fortune). Casus
gave birth to a number of English words, one of the first being case.
Used as early as the 1200s to mean what
befalls one, then in the 1300s adding its grammatical sense & the
meaning an instance or example. From
there it blossomed to include all the meanings of case we employ today.
In
the late 1300s the word occasion came to English. It
traveled through Old French from casus, & throws light on an occasion
(or falling) being referred to with
the idiom “what’s going down”.
Another
form of casus/cadere is cidere. It brought us the word incident
(meaning event) in the early 1400s.
It also brought us recidivist, to fall back
again, a word used to refer to one
who falls back into sin in the 1400s & adding the meaning a relapsed criminal in the 1800s. Also
born of cidere is the word coincide, meaning to fall together. Coincide showed up in the
1700s. And though a fallen apple might get turned into cider, there is no etymological
relationship between cider & cidere.
When
cadere
made its way into Vulgar Latin, it was used to refer to the fall of the dice, then made its way through French to show up in
the 1300s as the English word chance. In French law when land went
to the state due to the lack of heirs, the Latin word excadere, to fall away became in French escheat,
which made its way into English in the 1400s as cheat.
All
from a little old word meaning to fall. I’m hoping, dear reader,
you’ll post a comment. I’m particularly interested in which of these
descendants of cadere surprised or intrigued you most.
I knew there was a reason I should have stuck with Latin in school. It really comes in handy as your posts often remind me, Charlie. I think I've "fallen" into a lot of these derivations, specifically bad times and good fortune and in that order. Almost a pre and post of my life before I discovered the Central Coast and met so many terrific folks here including you. Wonderful as always. Hugs, Paul
ReplyDeleteHi Paul - always great to "see" you - may you only fall into wonderfulness.
ReplyDelete