To lean

To lean

Most of us can imagine the logic that would lead an ancient verb meaning to lean to give birth to these words:

lean

ladder 

lid

low

decline

incline

recline

declivity

Though it’s a bit of a logical stretch, most of us can also invent a path for this ancient word meaning to lean to have given us the word climax. 

Some less likely siblings of lean’s precursor, though, need a bit of explanation.

When the word climate appeared in English in the 1300s, it came from this same ancient root because climate referred to horizontal zones on the earth’s surface, measured against the slope (or lean) of the globe’s surface. Within a century, scientists began to focus more on the weather in those zones than on the land itself, & climate began its ooze into its modern usage.

Also in the 1300s, English borrowed a word from Anglo-French to mean one who lives under the patronage of another (one who leans on his/her patron) — client. This Anglo-French word also came from that ancient word meaning lean, & within a century assumed the meaning a lawyer’s customer. Two centuries later, client’s meaning broadened to mean any businessperson’s customer.

Because a person tends to lean before completely taking to bed, in the early 1600s a related word began to mean a bedridden person. Soon, the word began to refer to a medical facility housing bedridden people, & so today we have the word clinic.

For those who are wondering, the lean that means thin, spare, with little flesh or fat came from an entirely different source & has nothing to do with all this.

I’d love to hear whether any of these leaning words surprised you.

My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary,  Etymonline,  & Wordnik.