rd which showed
affection, and meant even "lover." In English now, of course, a bully
is a person, especially a boy, who tyrannizes over people weaker than
himself; but the Americans still use the word in a good sense when
they say "bully for you," meaning "bravo."

We have seen many words whose meanings have become less dignified than
their original meaning; but sometimes the opposite happens. Every one
now speaks with respect of a "pioneer," whether we mean by that people
who are the first to venture into strange lands, or, in a more
figurative sense, people who make some new discovery in science or
introduce some new way of thinking or acting. Yet "pioneers" were
originally merely the soldiers who did the hard work of clearing the
way for an advancing army. They were looked upon as belonging to a
lower class than the ordinary soldiers. But this new and at first
figurative use of the word, applied first to geographical and then to
scientific and moral explorers, has given the word a new dignity.

A group of words which had originally very humble meanings, and have
been elevated in an even more accidental way, are the names of the
officials of royal courts. The word _steward_ originally meant, as it
still means, a person who manages property for some one else. The
steward on a ship is a servant; but the steward of the king's
household was no mean person, and was dignified with the title of the
"Lord High Steward of England." The royal house of Stuart took its
name from the fact that the heads of the family were in earlier times
hereditary stewards of the Scottish kings. So _marshal_, the name of
another high official at court, means "horse boy;" _seneschal_, "old
servant;" _constable_, "an attendant to horses' stalls," and so on.
Some of these words have kept both a dignified and a commoner meaning.
_Constable_, besides being the name of a court official, is also
another term for "policeman."

The word _silly_ meant in Old English "blessed" or "happy," but of
course has wandered far from this meaning. On the other hand, several
words which once meant "foolish" have now quite different meanings.
_Giddy_ and _dizzy_ both had this sense in Old English, and so had
the word _nice_. But later the French word _fol_, from which we get
_foolish_, was introduced into English, and these words soon ceased to
be used in this sense. Before this the two words _dizzy_ and _giddy_
had occasionally been used in the sense in which the