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deathtocapslock2015-09-10 10:25 pm
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Indestructible Intermezzo II – Etymological Excursus
Indestructible Intermezzo II – Etymological Excursus
While preparing the next post with our other set of miscellaneous cards and thinking further about Severus, I started playing around with an etymological dictionary to see what hidden meanings I might uncover for the terms of our discussion. To see what sort of a resonant background layer I could piece together, if you will.
I found some interesting things.
Including the fact that, while a majority of the terms we encounter relating both to Severus and to the wizarding world itself stem from Latin roots, often via Old French, the words “death” and “eater” are both from non-Latinized Old English and Proto-Germanic roots (*dauthuz and etan), and hence are more ancient to the language and to the British isles than the later Roman and French contributions.
(Curiously, the Old English agent noun form that gives us “eater,” etere meaning “one who eats,” referred especially to a servant or retainer. Er, remind me what role the DEs had to Voldemort again?)
It’s an interesting choice of words when you consider the theory that dark magic is at base merely an older form of magic, pre-formal wizardry.
The term ‘wizardry’ itself, on the other hand, derives from the Middle English wys, ‘wise,’ with a potential original sense of ‘to know the future.’ ‘Witchcraft,’ however, goes right back to Old English again, to wiccecræft, from the words wicce, ‘female sorcerer’ and cræft, ‘skill, power.’ This possibly may go back to a Proto-Germanic root *wikkjaz, ‘necromancer’ or ‘one who wakes the dead,’ from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots like *weg- ‘to be strong, lively,’ a term which is also related to the etymology of our word ‘wake’.
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Our probable-dark-art ‘alchemy,’ on the other hand, has a rather more complicated history, moving from ancient Greek to Arabic, then to medieval Latin and Old French. The OF alchimie, from Latin alkimia, comes via the Arabic al-kimiya from the Greek khemeoia. This word may derive from khymatos, a word meaning ‘that which is poured out’ and which is related to terms dealing with the pharmacological preparation of plants and their juices.
Recall that in part IV of the series I noted that the production of things that can be given to others seems to be a key aspect of the art of alchemy, just as a willingness to give seems to be fundamental to potions- and dark arts-specialist Severus Snape’s core nature.
Now, as a brewer and healer Severus would have been intimately acquainted with the paradoxical relationship of healing and harm-doing, of how the knowledge of one is necessarily based on the knowledge of the other. Thus he would know too how the most powerful medicines are also the most potent poisons—dosage, mixture, application, and context of use being the vital features distinguishing between an act meant to heal and one meant to kill, not the inherent nature of the substance used itself. (Even the Prince, dangerous as he is, provides Harry with the bezoar tip that enables him to save Ron after the latter is poisoned. And didn’t Harry think Severus was poisoning Remus with the Wolfsbane, over the Dark Arts position no less?) But this ability to turn harm into healing, the skill of using deadly things to reverse harm done and increase life, in its essential gesture then echoes the oft-cited shorthand for the process and goal of alchemy: turning base metals like the toxic lead into the noble, beautiful and valuable metal gold. Does it not?
The Greek word pharmakon meanwhile meant both ‘medicinal drug’ and ‘poison,’ as well as ‘charm, spell, enchantment,’ and its relatives were also linked with the practice of magic: pharmakeia, the ‘use of drugs, medicines, potions, or spells; poisoning, witchcraft; remedy, cure,’ from pharmakeus, ‘preparer of drugs, poisoner, sorcerer.’ The related ritual term, pharmakos, referred to a human scapegoat (often a criminal, slave, or disabled person) who would be exiled or sacrificed as an act of social purification of the community. And the Old French derivative of pharmakon via Latin, farmacie, meant specifically a purgative medicine.
Which takes us back to that meaning of alchemy’s precursor term khymatos, ‘that which is poured out,’ and to the resonant image we have near the end of DH of Severus and Harry in the Shack, when Severus gave Harry both the information he needed, and the moral teaching in the form of a model to follow and the right reason to make his choice: the knowledge and choice to die in order to defeat Voldemort and expel his toxin from the wizarding world. That image of Severus literally pouring himself out for Harry, giving him blood and memory, pouring his very life into the boy’s hands in multiple ways, at the moment of his, and carrying with it the knowledge of Harry’s, death.
I’ve always found curiously resonant as well the fact that the word for poison in German and many related languages is spelled the same way as the English noun for something given: Gift. The etymological reason for this is the likely influence of the Greek word dosis, ‘a portion prescribed’ or more literally ‘a giving,’ used by Greek physicians in the sense captured by our modern version of it: a dose or amount of medicine. Meanwhile ‘poison’ (which early on meant also a medicinal or magical drink) and ‘potion’ also stem from the same verbal root, the Latin nominative potio from potare, ‘to drink.’ And the verb form of poison, meaning ‘to kill with poison,’ derives from the Old French poisonner, ‘to give to drink.’
Our poison synonym, ‘toxic,’ on the other hand, derives ultimately from the Greek word for bow, toxon: the term toxicon pharmakon referred to the poison smeared on arrows, and was borrowed into Latin as toxicum, ‘poison.’ Meanwhile the probably-Scythian word for bow that entered Greek as toxon was also borrowed directly into Latin as taxus, the Latin word for ‘yew.’ A tree long associated with both death and resurrection, and from whose wood, of course, Voldemort got his wand.
(Meanwhile, ‘antidote,’ from the Middle French antidot and the Latin antidotum, ‘a remedy against poison,’ stems originally from the Greek antidoton, ‘given as a remedy’ or literally ‘given against,’ from antididonai, ‘give in return,’ from anti- ‘against’ + didonai, ‘to give.’ And even ‘bezoar’ is curious to consider here: originally meaning simply ‘antidote,’ before taking on the specific meaning it later acquired, it stems from the Arabic bazahr, from the Persian pad-zahr, ‘counter-poison,’ a term built from the addition to zahr, ‘poison,’ of the word pad, meaning ‘protecting, guardian, master,’ ultimately from the PIE root *pa meaning ‘to protect or feed.’)
It’s all to do with turning. A turn, a turning inside-out, a transformation that can kill or heal, can heal by killing; death into life, life from death. Drawn from knowledge of and skill with plants and their essences, and linked conceptually to acts of magic. Related deeply and inherently to the act of giving, of freely transferring something to another person, without necessarily an implied sense of receiving something from them in exchange.
Severus Snape. Pharmakeus, pharmakon, and pharmakos. Alchemist.
(Also look at the potential knot of meanings we get when we dive into physician, medical, and iatros. Including the Old English term for the fourth finger, læcfinger, the Latin digitus medicus or in Greek daktylus iatrikos, so called because a vein in that finger was thought to stretch directly to the heart.)
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Moving on in the alphabet from A to F…
Another one of those words that gets tossed around a lot in relation to Severus—including by Voldemort—is ‘faithful.’ This is a word with a range of meanings. The one most directly invoked by Voldemort here is of course ‘loyal,’ but, like its close etymological relative ‘fidelity,’ the word has other connotations of everything from religious piety and belief, to devotedness in marriage, to reliability, to truth and accuracy (for example a ‘faithful translation’), to dutifulness, trustworthiness and sincerity.
The word is a derivative of the term ‘faith,’ of course. This comes to us via Anglo-French and Old French feid and foi, ‘faith, belief, trust, confidence, pledge,’ from the Latin fides, ‘trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, belief,’ stemming from the root fidere, ‘to trust.’ In the Middle English form of fay, it also particularly took on the meaning of ‘a sworn oath,’ and so it was often used in Middle English oaths and asseverations.
We see linguistic traces of fides everywhere still, often linked with oath-taking and/or reliability in human relationships. Consider ‘affidavit,’ a medieval Latin term used at the beginning of sworn statements, meaning ‘he has stated on oath’ and going back to fides via fidus, ‘faithful.’ Even our ‘defy’ traces its lineage back to this potent word, via the Vulgar Latin *disfidare, ‘to renounce one’s faith.’
We have here another linguistic nexus that reflects multiple aspects of Severus’ character, story, and role in the books—everything from his steadfast dutiful devotion, to the question of who trusts him and why, to his renunciation of the DEs and defiance of Albus, to the importance of vows and oaths for his character and which ones he keeps or does not keep. Even his wardrobe hints at further dimensions and depth of the term in relation to him, given the near-priestly character of his strict black garb.
Another fides-linked word that resonates in regard to Severus and Lily meanwhile, one that terri artfully references in her hypothetical ‘Confidere’ charm, is ‘confidence.’ This is another multi-layered term, and like ‘faithful’ it leads us to another point of complexity and linguistic depth to the story.
It comes to English either via Middle French, confidence, or directly from Latin, confidentia, from confidentem, ‘firmly trusting, bold,’ the present participle of confidere, ‘to have full trust or reliance,’ with the nominative confidens; formed by the addition of the intensive prefix com- onto the root fidere, ‘to trust.’ In the sense of bold self-confidence we find it applied to young Severus and Lily in ‘The Prince’s Tale,’ and the presence or absence of Voldemort’s and Dumbledore’s confidence toward Severus, and his toward them, is of course vital to the plot and the progress of the war.
However, confidence is also at root of the Potters’ betrayal and the fallout from that: James’ confidence in Sirius and Peter and James’ and Sirius’ confidence in their own cleverness, together with their lack of confidence (in many senses) in Albus, allow Peter’s faithlessness to bring about the breaking of the Fidelius charm and the Potters’ deaths. And here we bump into that other common meaning of confidence and its relatives, ‘to keep secret or private,’ as in confidential. To confide, and to have a confidant, both words again stemming from the Latin confidere, the latter via French confident, Italian confidente, ‘a trusty friend.’ Faith—the keeping of it, the reliability of those in whom one has it—is fundamentally entangled in our language as well as in the books with the issue of secrets and secrecy, and thus with the violation of secrecy and with betrayal, treason.
Which makes it interesting indeed to note that Severus’ apparently genuine lifelong dear friend and probable first contact with the DEs, the imperius-pleading fellow would-be Secrecy-betrayer Lucius—the man, even, who unknowingly leads Severus to his death at Voldemort’s hand in DH—has the family name Malfoy. A fairly direct and obvious derivative of the French mal-foi, ‘bad faith.’ Though Narcissa’s betrayal of Voldemort proves that this isn’t an inherently bad thing, just as it illustrates, indeed, the importance of family for the Malfoys.
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Speaking of family names: I can’t help but suspect a Malfoy-Prince connection somewhere along the line, though going into all of the reasons why would be a tangent here. So let’s just jump to Prince.
First encountered in the mid-12th century as a surname, it comes from the Old French prince, ‘noble lord,’ from the Latin princeps, ‘first man, chief, leader, ruler, sovereign,’ a noun form of an adjective meaning ‘that takes first,’ from primus, ‘first’ + the root of capere, ‘to take.’
The French connection is interesting, no? As well as the suggestion of being first, which in combination with Severus’ early acknowledged proficiency at and longstanding interest in dark magic, and that house full of old books, makes me wonder about what the Prince family’s general area of magical speciality was and why.
From Prince we get then naturally to Snape, and to a whole set of potent S-words associated with him.
Beyond being a surname and a British place-name with some interesting associations, ‘snape’ is also apparently a verb, meaning ‘to be hard upon, rebuke, revile, or snub.’ It derives from the Old Norse sneypa, ‘to outrage, dishonor, disgrace,’ and may be related to similar-sounding words that reference cutting.
Which would make Severus’ signature spell, ‘Sectumsempra,’ quite fitting, no? While the ‘-sempra’ part clearly goes back to the Latin semper, ‘always, ever, at all times, continuously,’ or literally ‘once for all’—curiously, this comes from the PIE *sem, ‘one, as one, together’—the ‘sectum-‘ part of course derives from the Latin secta, past participle of secare, ‘to cut.’ However, it’s a curious linguistic fact that this participle coincidentally mirrors in spelling, and so is often confused with, the separate Latin term secta, which means ‘manner, mode, following, school of thought,’ or literally ‘road, way, beaten path,’ and so which gives us the modern religious term ‘sect.’ This secta is a feminine form of sectus, from sequi, ‘to follow.’
Sectumsempra: it seems to mean ‘cut forever,’ but etymologically speaking it might just as well mean 'follow forever,' 'follow always,' or to be poetic 'the forever way.' Or even ‘follow together, as one’ if we want to stretch things a bit.
I did mention that we can’t avoid a taste of the paradoxical when dealing with dear Severus, didn’t I?
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And what about that given name of his, while we’re on the subject?
Severus: the name of multiple saints and Roman emperors, from the Latin of course and meaning ‘strict, serious, grave, austere.’ Related to the word ‘severity,’ which comes, via Middle French severite and the Latin severitas, ‘seriousness, sternness, strictness,’ from the original Latin word severus itself; possibly stemming from the PIE *segh, meaning ‘to have, hold,’ or maybe from *se vero, ‘without kindness,’ from se-, ‘without, apart’ and *vero, neuter ablative of verus, ‘true.’ (A Latin word, of course, that links back up linguistically and connotatively with ‘faith’ and fides.)
Related words also include ‘severe,’ from Middle French severe and Latin severus; the modern if little-known ‘asseverate,’ which means ‘to declare earnestly or solemnly or to affirm positively’ and which comes from the Latin asseveratus, PP of asseverare, ‘to affirm, insist on, maintain;’and ‘persevere,’ from the Latin perseverare, ‘to continue steadfastly,’ from persevereus, ‘very strict, earnest.’ All of which are rather meaningful in relation to Severus himself, no?
The name also of course mimics in spelling the English ‘sever,’ which comes via the Anglo-French severer and Old French sevrer, ‘to separate,’ from the Latin separare, ‘to pull apart,’ from se- ‘apart’ and parare, ‘to make ready or prepare.’ Another tie back to Sectumsempra.
The Latin prefix se- is also part of another of our central potent words here, ‘secret’ and its derivatives. It comes to English from the Latin secretus, ‘set apart, hidden, withdrawn, concealed, private,’ the past participle of secernere, ‘to set apart, part, divide,’ from se- ‘without, apart, on one’s own’ and cernere, ‘separate.’ Its relative ‘secrecy,’ meanwhile, comes from secretee, from the Old French secré, a variant of secret, plus the English abstract noun suffix –ty.
Meanwhile, Severus’ name also evokes via the closeness of spelling and sound another set of Latinate words illustrative of his nature and role: ‘serve,’ ‘service,’ and ‘servant.’
The verb ‘serve’ has a wide range of meanings: everything from ‘to render habitual obedience to’ and ‘minister, give aid, help,’ to ‘be in the service of, perform a service for; attend upon, be personal servant to; be a slave; owe allegiance to; officiate at Mass or other religious rites,’ to ‘be beneficial, useful, suitable for a purpose’ and ‘take the place or meet the needs of, be equal to the task,’ and even, in a legal sense, ‘to present,’ that is, to give or deliver, written legal notice. The word stems from the Latin servire, meaning to ‘be a servant, be in service, be enslaved’ but also figuratively meaning to ‘be devoted; be governed by; comply with; conform; flatter.’ It is related to the term servus, ‘slave,’ which also gives rise to the Latin servitium, meaning ‘slavery, condition of a slave, servitude’ and also a collective word for slaves, from which we get the English ‘service’ via Old French servise, ‘act of homage, servitude, service at table, Mass or church ceremony.’
The religious sense of a ‘celebration of public worship’ is an early meaning of ‘service,’ in fact, while the meanings ‘act of serving, occupation of an attendant servant,’ ‘assistance, help, a helpful act,’ ‘provision of food, attendance curing a meal,’ ‘state of being bound to undertake tasks for someone or at someone's direction; labor performed or undertaken for another,’ and ‘employment in a court or administration or as a soldier,’ are all later developments.
The noun ‘servant,’ meanwhile, in the sense of ‘personal or domestic attendant,’ comes from the Old French servant, ‘servant, foot-soldier,’ a noun use of the identical verb servant, ‘serving, waiting,’ PP of servir, ‘to attend or wait upon.’ The word then later developed a sense of ‘professed lover, one devoted to the service of a lady,’ and was used in Biblical translations for the Latin servus and Greek doulos, both of which mean more exactly ‘slave.’ But figurative and religious use of the English term ‘servant’ have of course given it a rather broader and more nuanced connotation than the strict translation of the root would indicate.
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We have two more S-words to get to quickly before we move on to T, though in the context of discussing Severus they both relate to our T-words, as you will see.
These two words are the pair ‘seduction’ and ‘sedition,’ for young Severus following his friend into his anti-Secrecy conspiracy to commit treason.
The English ‘seduction’ comes from the Middle French séduction, from the Latin seductionem (the nominative being seductio), a noun of action from the PP stem of seducere, which gives us the English ‘seduce.’ Originally the word referred, not to strict sexual seduction, but to actions and beliefs more generally; ‘seduce’ in English originally meant ‘to persuade a vassal to desert his allegiance or service,’ just as the Latin seducere meant ‘to lead away, lead astray,’ from se- ‘away’ + ducere, ‘to lead,’ without a sexual connotation. It replaced the Middle English seduisen, from the Middle French séduire, ‘seduce,’ from Old French suduire, ‘to corrupt or seduce,’ originally from the Latin subducere, ‘draw away, withdraw, remove.’
An earlier appearance of the word ‘seduction’ in Middle English with a more specific sense of ‘treason, treachery,’ however, may be due to a confusion with the word ‘sedition,’ which is similarly reflected in the Old French seducion, ‘treason, betrayal.’
‘Sedition’ itself, meaning ‘rebellion, revolt, uprising, attempt to overthrow civil authority’ and the like, comes to English via the Old French sedicion and the Latin seditionem (nominative seditio), ‘civil disorder, dissention, strife, rebellion, mutiny,’ or more literally ‘a going apart or separation,’ again from se- + itio, ‘a going,’ PP of ire, ‘to go.’ Legally it may mean a crime less serious than full treason, but is related and near to it.
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Now on to the treason itself.
The English word ‘treason,’ meaning ‘betrayal, breech of faith’ (there’s that fides again!), comes from the Anglo-French treson and the Old French traison, ‘treason, treachery,’ from the Latin word traditionem, nominative form traditio, which meant ‘a handing over, delivery, surrender.’ The Old French form was influenced by trair, a verb meaning ‘to betray.’ In old English law, interestingly, high treason was the term for treason against the sovereign or state, whereas petit treason referred to betrayal by a subject of another subject, such as the ‘murder of a master by his servant.’
The agent noun ‘traitor’ meanwhile stems from the Old French traitor, traitre, ‘traitor, villain, deceiver,’ from the Latin traditor, ‘betrayer,’ but literally ‘one who delivers.’ This is a derivative of the verb tradere, meaning to ‘deliver or surrender,’ and which also gives us ‘tradition’ via again the Latin traditio and traditionem, ‘delivery, surrender, a handing down, a giving up.’ Tradere itself comes from trans- ‘over’ and dare, ‘to give.’
The English ‘tradition’ is thus, very curiously, a linguistic ‘doublet’ of ‘treason’ and its relatives. At the heart of both words’ linguistic evolution is, note, again that vital gesture of giving, and a strong implicit sense of the question of the importance and nature of our relationships to others.
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A word that I hadn’t originally intended to cover but that came up in my searching is another English term relating to poison: ‘venom.’
Specifically, venom refers to a poison secreted by an animal, but it also has a figurative meaning of bitter language or feelings. The word comes from Anglo-French and Old French venim, venin, meaning ‘poison, malice,’ from the Vulgar Latin *venimen and original Latin venenum, which meant ‘poison’ but earlier also meant ‘drug, medical potion,’ and even ‘charm, seduction.’ The PIE root for this may be *wen-, ‘to strive after, wish, desire.’
Meanwhile, another term I hadn’t meant originally to include, ‘warlock,’ also popped up interestingly when I was digging into ‘traitor.’ Apparently the Old English word wærloga, from which the modern term derives, meant ‘traitor, liar, enemy, devil,’ and came from the addition of an agent noun related to leogan, ‘to lie,’ onto the word wær, ‘faith, fidelity; a compact, covenant, or agreement,’ from the Proto-Germanic *wera- and PIE *were-o- ‘true, trustworthy.’ These elements also give rise to the German word wahr, ‘true,’ and to our ‘very,’ among many other words, via the Latin verus and its derivatives. And their derivations in Old Church Slavonic and Russian even eventually came to mean ‘faith, belief.’
The original sense of ‘warlock’ thus seems to have been roughly ‘oath-breaker,’ particularly of the devil but also in relation to giants and cannibals, and then later meaning ‘one in league with the devil.’ The –ck ending and specific sense of ‘male witch’ are apparently Scottish derivations, the former from the 1680s, the latter from the mid-1500s.
Things get really interesting when you start taking words apart to see how they work and where they come from, I have to say.
While preparing the next post with our other set of miscellaneous cards and thinking further about Severus, I started playing around with an etymological dictionary to see what hidden meanings I might uncover for the terms of our discussion. To see what sort of a resonant background layer I could piece together, if you will.
I found some interesting things.
Including the fact that, while a majority of the terms we encounter relating both to Severus and to the wizarding world itself stem from Latin roots, often via Old French, the words “death” and “eater” are both from non-Latinized Old English and Proto-Germanic roots (*dauthuz and etan), and hence are more ancient to the language and to the British isles than the later Roman and French contributions.
(Curiously, the Old English agent noun form that gives us “eater,” etere meaning “one who eats,” referred especially to a servant or retainer. Er, remind me what role the DEs had to Voldemort again?)
It’s an interesting choice of words when you consider the theory that dark magic is at base merely an older form of magic, pre-formal wizardry.
The term ‘wizardry’ itself, on the other hand, derives from the Middle English wys, ‘wise,’ with a potential original sense of ‘to know the future.’ ‘Witchcraft,’ however, goes right back to Old English again, to wiccecræft, from the words wicce, ‘female sorcerer’ and cræft, ‘skill, power.’ This possibly may go back to a Proto-Germanic root *wikkjaz, ‘necromancer’ or ‘one who wakes the dead,’ from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) roots like *weg- ‘to be strong, lively,’ a term which is also related to the etymology of our word ‘wake’.
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Our probable-dark-art ‘alchemy,’ on the other hand, has a rather more complicated history, moving from ancient Greek to Arabic, then to medieval Latin and Old French. The OF alchimie, from Latin alkimia, comes via the Arabic al-kimiya from the Greek khemeoia. This word may derive from khymatos, a word meaning ‘that which is poured out’ and which is related to terms dealing with the pharmacological preparation of plants and their juices.
Recall that in part IV of the series I noted that the production of things that can be given to others seems to be a key aspect of the art of alchemy, just as a willingness to give seems to be fundamental to potions- and dark arts-specialist Severus Snape’s core nature.
Now, as a brewer and healer Severus would have been intimately acquainted with the paradoxical relationship of healing and harm-doing, of how the knowledge of one is necessarily based on the knowledge of the other. Thus he would know too how the most powerful medicines are also the most potent poisons—dosage, mixture, application, and context of use being the vital features distinguishing between an act meant to heal and one meant to kill, not the inherent nature of the substance used itself. (Even the Prince, dangerous as he is, provides Harry with the bezoar tip that enables him to save Ron after the latter is poisoned. And didn’t Harry think Severus was poisoning Remus with the Wolfsbane, over the Dark Arts position no less?) But this ability to turn harm into healing, the skill of using deadly things to reverse harm done and increase life, in its essential gesture then echoes the oft-cited shorthand for the process and goal of alchemy: turning base metals like the toxic lead into the noble, beautiful and valuable metal gold. Does it not?
The Greek word pharmakon meanwhile meant both ‘medicinal drug’ and ‘poison,’ as well as ‘charm, spell, enchantment,’ and its relatives were also linked with the practice of magic: pharmakeia, the ‘use of drugs, medicines, potions, or spells; poisoning, witchcraft; remedy, cure,’ from pharmakeus, ‘preparer of drugs, poisoner, sorcerer.’ The related ritual term, pharmakos, referred to a human scapegoat (often a criminal, slave, or disabled person) who would be exiled or sacrificed as an act of social purification of the community. And the Old French derivative of pharmakon via Latin, farmacie, meant specifically a purgative medicine.
Which takes us back to that meaning of alchemy’s precursor term khymatos, ‘that which is poured out,’ and to the resonant image we have near the end of DH of Severus and Harry in the Shack, when Severus gave Harry both the information he needed, and the moral teaching in the form of a model to follow and the right reason to make his choice: the knowledge and choice to die in order to defeat Voldemort and expel his toxin from the wizarding world. That image of Severus literally pouring himself out for Harry, giving him blood and memory, pouring his very life into the boy’s hands in multiple ways, at the moment of his, and carrying with it the knowledge of Harry’s, death.
I’ve always found curiously resonant as well the fact that the word for poison in German and many related languages is spelled the same way as the English noun for something given: Gift. The etymological reason for this is the likely influence of the Greek word dosis, ‘a portion prescribed’ or more literally ‘a giving,’ used by Greek physicians in the sense captured by our modern version of it: a dose or amount of medicine. Meanwhile ‘poison’ (which early on meant also a medicinal or magical drink) and ‘potion’ also stem from the same verbal root, the Latin nominative potio from potare, ‘to drink.’ And the verb form of poison, meaning ‘to kill with poison,’ derives from the Old French poisonner, ‘to give to drink.’
Our poison synonym, ‘toxic,’ on the other hand, derives ultimately from the Greek word for bow, toxon: the term toxicon pharmakon referred to the poison smeared on arrows, and was borrowed into Latin as toxicum, ‘poison.’ Meanwhile the probably-Scythian word for bow that entered Greek as toxon was also borrowed directly into Latin as taxus, the Latin word for ‘yew.’ A tree long associated with both death and resurrection, and from whose wood, of course, Voldemort got his wand.
(Meanwhile, ‘antidote,’ from the Middle French antidot and the Latin antidotum, ‘a remedy against poison,’ stems originally from the Greek antidoton, ‘given as a remedy’ or literally ‘given against,’ from antididonai, ‘give in return,’ from anti- ‘against’ + didonai, ‘to give.’ And even ‘bezoar’ is curious to consider here: originally meaning simply ‘antidote,’ before taking on the specific meaning it later acquired, it stems from the Arabic bazahr, from the Persian pad-zahr, ‘counter-poison,’ a term built from the addition to zahr, ‘poison,’ of the word pad, meaning ‘protecting, guardian, master,’ ultimately from the PIE root *pa meaning ‘to protect or feed.’)
It’s all to do with turning. A turn, a turning inside-out, a transformation that can kill or heal, can heal by killing; death into life, life from death. Drawn from knowledge of and skill with plants and their essences, and linked conceptually to acts of magic. Related deeply and inherently to the act of giving, of freely transferring something to another person, without necessarily an implied sense of receiving something from them in exchange.
Severus Snape. Pharmakeus, pharmakon, and pharmakos. Alchemist.
(Also look at the potential knot of meanings we get when we dive into physician, medical, and iatros. Including the Old English term for the fourth finger, læcfinger, the Latin digitus medicus or in Greek daktylus iatrikos, so called because a vein in that finger was thought to stretch directly to the heart.)
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Moving on in the alphabet from A to F…
Another one of those words that gets tossed around a lot in relation to Severus—including by Voldemort—is ‘faithful.’ This is a word with a range of meanings. The one most directly invoked by Voldemort here is of course ‘loyal,’ but, like its close etymological relative ‘fidelity,’ the word has other connotations of everything from religious piety and belief, to devotedness in marriage, to reliability, to truth and accuracy (for example a ‘faithful translation’), to dutifulness, trustworthiness and sincerity.
The word is a derivative of the term ‘faith,’ of course. This comes to us via Anglo-French and Old French feid and foi, ‘faith, belief, trust, confidence, pledge,’ from the Latin fides, ‘trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, belief,’ stemming from the root fidere, ‘to trust.’ In the Middle English form of fay, it also particularly took on the meaning of ‘a sworn oath,’ and so it was often used in Middle English oaths and asseverations.
We see linguistic traces of fides everywhere still, often linked with oath-taking and/or reliability in human relationships. Consider ‘affidavit,’ a medieval Latin term used at the beginning of sworn statements, meaning ‘he has stated on oath’ and going back to fides via fidus, ‘faithful.’ Even our ‘defy’ traces its lineage back to this potent word, via the Vulgar Latin *disfidare, ‘to renounce one’s faith.’
We have here another linguistic nexus that reflects multiple aspects of Severus’ character, story, and role in the books—everything from his steadfast dutiful devotion, to the question of who trusts him and why, to his renunciation of the DEs and defiance of Albus, to the importance of vows and oaths for his character and which ones he keeps or does not keep. Even his wardrobe hints at further dimensions and depth of the term in relation to him, given the near-priestly character of his strict black garb.
Another fides-linked word that resonates in regard to Severus and Lily meanwhile, one that terri artfully references in her hypothetical ‘Confidere’ charm, is ‘confidence.’ This is another multi-layered term, and like ‘faithful’ it leads us to another point of complexity and linguistic depth to the story.
It comes to English either via Middle French, confidence, or directly from Latin, confidentia, from confidentem, ‘firmly trusting, bold,’ the present participle of confidere, ‘to have full trust or reliance,’ with the nominative confidens; formed by the addition of the intensive prefix com- onto the root fidere, ‘to trust.’ In the sense of bold self-confidence we find it applied to young Severus and Lily in ‘The Prince’s Tale,’ and the presence or absence of Voldemort’s and Dumbledore’s confidence toward Severus, and his toward them, is of course vital to the plot and the progress of the war.
However, confidence is also at root of the Potters’ betrayal and the fallout from that: James’ confidence in Sirius and Peter and James’ and Sirius’ confidence in their own cleverness, together with their lack of confidence (in many senses) in Albus, allow Peter’s faithlessness to bring about the breaking of the Fidelius charm and the Potters’ deaths. And here we bump into that other common meaning of confidence and its relatives, ‘to keep secret or private,’ as in confidential. To confide, and to have a confidant, both words again stemming from the Latin confidere, the latter via French confident, Italian confidente, ‘a trusty friend.’ Faith—the keeping of it, the reliability of those in whom one has it—is fundamentally entangled in our language as well as in the books with the issue of secrets and secrecy, and thus with the violation of secrecy and with betrayal, treason.
Which makes it interesting indeed to note that Severus’ apparently genuine lifelong dear friend and probable first contact with the DEs, the imperius-pleading fellow would-be Secrecy-betrayer Lucius—the man, even, who unknowingly leads Severus to his death at Voldemort’s hand in DH—has the family name Malfoy. A fairly direct and obvious derivative of the French mal-foi, ‘bad faith.’ Though Narcissa’s betrayal of Voldemort proves that this isn’t an inherently bad thing, just as it illustrates, indeed, the importance of family for the Malfoys.
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Speaking of family names: I can’t help but suspect a Malfoy-Prince connection somewhere along the line, though going into all of the reasons why would be a tangent here. So let’s just jump to Prince.
First encountered in the mid-12th century as a surname, it comes from the Old French prince, ‘noble lord,’ from the Latin princeps, ‘first man, chief, leader, ruler, sovereign,’ a noun form of an adjective meaning ‘that takes first,’ from primus, ‘first’ + the root of capere, ‘to take.’
The French connection is interesting, no? As well as the suggestion of being first, which in combination with Severus’ early acknowledged proficiency at and longstanding interest in dark magic, and that house full of old books, makes me wonder about what the Prince family’s general area of magical speciality was and why.
From Prince we get then naturally to Snape, and to a whole set of potent S-words associated with him.
Beyond being a surname and a British place-name with some interesting associations, ‘snape’ is also apparently a verb, meaning ‘to be hard upon, rebuke, revile, or snub.’ It derives from the Old Norse sneypa, ‘to outrage, dishonor, disgrace,’ and may be related to similar-sounding words that reference cutting.
Which would make Severus’ signature spell, ‘Sectumsempra,’ quite fitting, no? While the ‘-sempra’ part clearly goes back to the Latin semper, ‘always, ever, at all times, continuously,’ or literally ‘once for all’—curiously, this comes from the PIE *sem, ‘one, as one, together’—the ‘sectum-‘ part of course derives from the Latin secta, past participle of secare, ‘to cut.’ However, it’s a curious linguistic fact that this participle coincidentally mirrors in spelling, and so is often confused with, the separate Latin term secta, which means ‘manner, mode, following, school of thought,’ or literally ‘road, way, beaten path,’ and so which gives us the modern religious term ‘sect.’ This secta is a feminine form of sectus, from sequi, ‘to follow.’
Sectumsempra: it seems to mean ‘cut forever,’ but etymologically speaking it might just as well mean 'follow forever,' 'follow always,' or to be poetic 'the forever way.' Or even ‘follow together, as one’ if we want to stretch things a bit.
I did mention that we can’t avoid a taste of the paradoxical when dealing with dear Severus, didn’t I?
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And what about that given name of his, while we’re on the subject?
Severus: the name of multiple saints and Roman emperors, from the Latin of course and meaning ‘strict, serious, grave, austere.’ Related to the word ‘severity,’ which comes, via Middle French severite and the Latin severitas, ‘seriousness, sternness, strictness,’ from the original Latin word severus itself; possibly stemming from the PIE *segh, meaning ‘to have, hold,’ or maybe from *se vero, ‘without kindness,’ from se-, ‘without, apart’ and *vero, neuter ablative of verus, ‘true.’ (A Latin word, of course, that links back up linguistically and connotatively with ‘faith’ and fides.)
Related words also include ‘severe,’ from Middle French severe and Latin severus; the modern if little-known ‘asseverate,’ which means ‘to declare earnestly or solemnly or to affirm positively’ and which comes from the Latin asseveratus, PP of asseverare, ‘to affirm, insist on, maintain;’and ‘persevere,’ from the Latin perseverare, ‘to continue steadfastly,’ from persevereus, ‘very strict, earnest.’ All of which are rather meaningful in relation to Severus himself, no?
The name also of course mimics in spelling the English ‘sever,’ which comes via the Anglo-French severer and Old French sevrer, ‘to separate,’ from the Latin separare, ‘to pull apart,’ from se- ‘apart’ and parare, ‘to make ready or prepare.’ Another tie back to Sectumsempra.
The Latin prefix se- is also part of another of our central potent words here, ‘secret’ and its derivatives. It comes to English from the Latin secretus, ‘set apart, hidden, withdrawn, concealed, private,’ the past participle of secernere, ‘to set apart, part, divide,’ from se- ‘without, apart, on one’s own’ and cernere, ‘separate.’ Its relative ‘secrecy,’ meanwhile, comes from secretee, from the Old French secré, a variant of secret, plus the English abstract noun suffix –ty.
Meanwhile, Severus’ name also evokes via the closeness of spelling and sound another set of Latinate words illustrative of his nature and role: ‘serve,’ ‘service,’ and ‘servant.’
The verb ‘serve’ has a wide range of meanings: everything from ‘to render habitual obedience to’ and ‘minister, give aid, help,’ to ‘be in the service of, perform a service for; attend upon, be personal servant to; be a slave; owe allegiance to; officiate at Mass or other religious rites,’ to ‘be beneficial, useful, suitable for a purpose’ and ‘take the place or meet the needs of, be equal to the task,’ and even, in a legal sense, ‘to present,’ that is, to give or deliver, written legal notice. The word stems from the Latin servire, meaning to ‘be a servant, be in service, be enslaved’ but also figuratively meaning to ‘be devoted; be governed by; comply with; conform; flatter.’ It is related to the term servus, ‘slave,’ which also gives rise to the Latin servitium, meaning ‘slavery, condition of a slave, servitude’ and also a collective word for slaves, from which we get the English ‘service’ via Old French servise, ‘act of homage, servitude, service at table, Mass or church ceremony.’
The religious sense of a ‘celebration of public worship’ is an early meaning of ‘service,’ in fact, while the meanings ‘act of serving, occupation of an attendant servant,’ ‘assistance, help, a helpful act,’ ‘provision of food, attendance curing a meal,’ ‘state of being bound to undertake tasks for someone or at someone's direction; labor performed or undertaken for another,’ and ‘employment in a court or administration or as a soldier,’ are all later developments.
The noun ‘servant,’ meanwhile, in the sense of ‘personal or domestic attendant,’ comes from the Old French servant, ‘servant, foot-soldier,’ a noun use of the identical verb servant, ‘serving, waiting,’ PP of servir, ‘to attend or wait upon.’ The word then later developed a sense of ‘professed lover, one devoted to the service of a lady,’ and was used in Biblical translations for the Latin servus and Greek doulos, both of which mean more exactly ‘slave.’ But figurative and religious use of the English term ‘servant’ have of course given it a rather broader and more nuanced connotation than the strict translation of the root would indicate.
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We have two more S-words to get to quickly before we move on to T, though in the context of discussing Severus they both relate to our T-words, as you will see.
These two words are the pair ‘seduction’ and ‘sedition,’ for young Severus following his friend into his anti-Secrecy conspiracy to commit treason.
The English ‘seduction’ comes from the Middle French séduction, from the Latin seductionem (the nominative being seductio), a noun of action from the PP stem of seducere, which gives us the English ‘seduce.’ Originally the word referred, not to strict sexual seduction, but to actions and beliefs more generally; ‘seduce’ in English originally meant ‘to persuade a vassal to desert his allegiance or service,’ just as the Latin seducere meant ‘to lead away, lead astray,’ from se- ‘away’ + ducere, ‘to lead,’ without a sexual connotation. It replaced the Middle English seduisen, from the Middle French séduire, ‘seduce,’ from Old French suduire, ‘to corrupt or seduce,’ originally from the Latin subducere, ‘draw away, withdraw, remove.’
An earlier appearance of the word ‘seduction’ in Middle English with a more specific sense of ‘treason, treachery,’ however, may be due to a confusion with the word ‘sedition,’ which is similarly reflected in the Old French seducion, ‘treason, betrayal.’
‘Sedition’ itself, meaning ‘rebellion, revolt, uprising, attempt to overthrow civil authority’ and the like, comes to English via the Old French sedicion and the Latin seditionem (nominative seditio), ‘civil disorder, dissention, strife, rebellion, mutiny,’ or more literally ‘a going apart or separation,’ again from se- + itio, ‘a going,’ PP of ire, ‘to go.’ Legally it may mean a crime less serious than full treason, but is related and near to it.
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Now on to the treason itself.
The English word ‘treason,’ meaning ‘betrayal, breech of faith’ (there’s that fides again!), comes from the Anglo-French treson and the Old French traison, ‘treason, treachery,’ from the Latin word traditionem, nominative form traditio, which meant ‘a handing over, delivery, surrender.’ The Old French form was influenced by trair, a verb meaning ‘to betray.’ In old English law, interestingly, high treason was the term for treason against the sovereign or state, whereas petit treason referred to betrayal by a subject of another subject, such as the ‘murder of a master by his servant.’
The agent noun ‘traitor’ meanwhile stems from the Old French traitor, traitre, ‘traitor, villain, deceiver,’ from the Latin traditor, ‘betrayer,’ but literally ‘one who delivers.’ This is a derivative of the verb tradere, meaning to ‘deliver or surrender,’ and which also gives us ‘tradition’ via again the Latin traditio and traditionem, ‘delivery, surrender, a handing down, a giving up.’ Tradere itself comes from trans- ‘over’ and dare, ‘to give.’
The English ‘tradition’ is thus, very curiously, a linguistic ‘doublet’ of ‘treason’ and its relatives. At the heart of both words’ linguistic evolution is, note, again that vital gesture of giving, and a strong implicit sense of the question of the importance and nature of our relationships to others.
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A word that I hadn’t originally intended to cover but that came up in my searching is another English term relating to poison: ‘venom.’
Specifically, venom refers to a poison secreted by an animal, but it also has a figurative meaning of bitter language or feelings. The word comes from Anglo-French and Old French venim, venin, meaning ‘poison, malice,’ from the Vulgar Latin *venimen and original Latin venenum, which meant ‘poison’ but earlier also meant ‘drug, medical potion,’ and even ‘charm, seduction.’ The PIE root for this may be *wen-, ‘to strive after, wish, desire.’
Meanwhile, another term I hadn’t meant originally to include, ‘warlock,’ also popped up interestingly when I was digging into ‘traitor.’ Apparently the Old English word wærloga, from which the modern term derives, meant ‘traitor, liar, enemy, devil,’ and came from the addition of an agent noun related to leogan, ‘to lie,’ onto the word wær, ‘faith, fidelity; a compact, covenant, or agreement,’ from the Proto-Germanic *wera- and PIE *were-o- ‘true, trustworthy.’ These elements also give rise to the German word wahr, ‘true,’ and to our ‘very,’ among many other words, via the Latin verus and its derivatives. And their derivations in Old Church Slavonic and Russian even eventually came to mean ‘faith, belief.’
The original sense of ‘warlock’ thus seems to have been roughly ‘oath-breaker,’ particularly of the devil but also in relation to giants and cannibals, and then later meaning ‘one in league with the devil.’ The –ck ending and specific sense of ‘male witch’ are apparently Scottish derivations, the former from the 1680s, the latter from the mid-1500s.
Things get really interesting when you start taking words apart to see how they work and where they come from, I have to say.
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Anyway! I had an idea about what it might mean to be an "oath-breaker" in the wizarding world.... The first International Convention of Warlocks took place in 1289. (We'll ignore for now that "international" didn't exist as a word back then.) I'm not sure if there was anything particularly special about that year, though a good chunk of Europe was caught up in either the War of the Sicilian Vespers or the War of the Limburg Succession at the time.
In 1289, however, most of Europe was a feudal society, and most of the wizards attending the convention would have been the vassals of various lords, some of whom were probably currently at war with each other. What if those wizards all participated in the gathering without the consent, or even knowledge, of their respective liege lords? It would have been an act of treason for everyone involved.
In other words, I'm betting that "warlocks" were wizards who broke their oaths to their muggle rulers. They favored a separate wizarding society. It was all for the Greater Good, of course.
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The Scottish connection is very curious, no? XD I like your idea about vassals breaking their oaths in order to found a wizarding society - it's a nice reversal of the later construction of anti-Secrecy types as traitors.