Mr. Craik suggests, also, that
_quick_ and _wicked_ may be etymologically identical, _because_ he
fancies a relationship between _busy_ and the German _boese_, though
_wicked_ is evidently the participial form of A. S. _wacan_, (German
_weichen_,) _to bend, to yield_, meaning _one who has given way to
temptation_, while _quick_ seems as clearly related to _wegan_,
meaning _to move_, a different word, even if radically the same. In
the "London Literary Gazette" for November 13,1858, I find an extract
from Miss Millington's "Heraldry in History, Poetry, and Romance," in
which, speaking of the motto of the Prince of Wales,--_De par Houmaut
ich diene_,--she says; "The precise meaning of the former word
[_Houmout_] has not, I think, been ascertained." The word is plainly
the German _Hochmuth_, and the whole would read, _De par (Aus)
Hochmuth ich diene_,--"Out of magnanimity I serve." So entirely lost
is the Saxon meaning of the word _knave_, (A. S. _cnava_, German
_knabe_,) that the name _navvie_, assumed by railway-laborers, has
been transmogrified into _navigator_. I believe that more people
could tell why the month of July was so called than could explain the
origin of the names for our days of the week, and that it is oftener
the Saxon than the French words in Chaucer that puzzle the modern
reader.
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