Archaic Meanings
To interpret an adjectival nickname we must go to its meaning in Chaucer and his contemporaries. Silly, Seeley, Seely
“This sely, innocent Custance” (B, 682)—
still means innocent when we speak of the “silly sheep,” and happy in the phrase “silly Suffolk.” It is cognate with Ger. selig, blessed, often used in speaking of the dead. We have compounds in Sillilant, simple child (Chapter X), and Selibarn. Seely was also used for Cecil or Cecilia. Sadd was once sedate and steadfast
“But thogh this mayde tendre were of age,
Yet in the brest of hire virginitee
Ther was enclosed rype and sad corage”
(E, 218);
and as late as 1660 we find a book in defence of Charles I. described as—
“A sad and impartial inquiry whether the King or Parliament began the war.”
Stout, valiant, now used euphemistically for fat, is cognate with Ger. stolz, proud, and possibly with Lat. stultus, foolish. The three ideas are not incompatible, for fools are notoriously proud of their folly and are said to be less subject to fear than the angels. Sturdy, Sturdee, once meant rebellious, pig-headed—
“Sturdy, unbuxum, rebellis, contumax, inobediens.” (Prompt. Parv.)
Cotgrave offers a much wider choice for the French original—
“Estourdi (étourdi), dulled, amazed, astonished, dizzie-headed, or whose head seemes very much troubled; (hence) also, heedlesse, inconsiderate, unadvised, witlesse, uncircumspect, rash, retchlesse, or carelesse; and sottish, blockish, lumpish, lusk-like, without life, metall, spirit”
Sly and its variant Sleigh have degenerated in the same way as crafty and cunning, both of which once meant skilled. Chaucer calls the wings of Daedalus “his playes slye,” i.e. his ingenious contrivances. Quick meant alert, lively, as in “the quick and the dead.” Slight, cognate with Ger. schlecht, bad, once meant plain or simple.
Many adjectives which are quite obsolete in literary English survive as surnames. Mid. Eng. Lyle has been supplanted by its derivative Little, the opposite pair surviving as Mutch and Mickle. The poor parson did not fail—
“In siknesse nor in meschief to visite
The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lyte.”
(A, 493.)
We have for Lyte also the imitative Light; cf. Lightwood. With Little may be mentioned Murch, an obsolete word for dwarf—
“Murch, lytyl man, nanus.”
(Prompt. Parv.)
Lenain is a fairly common name in France. Snell, swift or valiant, had become a personal name in Anglo-Saxon, but we find le snel in the Middle Ages. Freake, Frick, also meant valiant or warrior—
“Ther was no freke that ther wolde flye”
(Chevy Chase);
but the Promptorium Parvulorum makes it equivalent to Craske (Chapter XXII)—
“Fryke, or craske, in grete helth, crassus.”
It is cognate with Ger. frech, which now means impudent. Nott has already been mentioned (Chapter II). Of the Yeoman we are told—
“A not hed hadde he, with a broun visage.”
(A, 109.)
Stark, cognate with starch, now usually means stiff, rather than strong—
“I feele my lymes stark and suffisaunt
To do al that a man bilongeth to.”
(E, 1458.)