se of soft through
moisture, 'leer' in that of empty, 'eame' in that of uncle, _mother's_
brother (the German 'oheim'), good Saxon-English once, still live on in
some of our provincial dialects; so does 'flitter-mouse' or
'flutter-mouse' (mus volitans), where we should use bat. Indeed of those
above named several do the same; it is so with 'frimm', with 'to sag',
'to nimm'. 'Heft' employed by Shakespeare in the sense of weight, is
still employed in the same sense by our peasants in Hampshire{131}.

{Sidenote: _Vigorous Compound Words_}

A number of vigorous compounds we have dropped and let go. 'Earsports'
for entertainments of song or music ({Greek: akroamata}) is a constantly
recurring word in Holland's _Plutarch_. Were it not for Shakespeare, we
should have quite forgotten that young men of hasty fiery valour were
called 'hotspurs'; and even now we regard the word rather as the proper
name of one than that which would have been once alike the designation
of all{132}. Fuller warns men that they should not 'witwanton' with God.
Severe austere old men, such as, in Falstaff's words would "hate us
youth", were 'grimsirs', or 'grimsires' once (Massinger). 'Realmrape'
(=usurpation), occurring in _The Mirror for Magistrates_, is a vigorous
word. 'Rootfast' and 'rootfastness'{133} were ill lost, being worthy to
have lived; so too was Lord Brooke's 'bookhunger'; and Baxter's
'word-warriors', with which term he noted those whose strife was only
about words. 'Malingerer' is familiar enough to military men, but I do
not find it in our dictionaries; being the soldier who, out of _evil
will_ (malin gre) to his work, shams and shirks and is not found in the
ranks{134}.

Those who would gladly have seen the Anglo-Saxon to have predominated
over the Latin element in our language, even more than it actually has
done, must note with regret that in many instances a word of the former
stock had been dropped, and a Latin coined to supply its place; or where
the two once existed side by side, the Saxon has died, and the Latin
lived on. Thus Wiclif employed 'soothsaw', where we now use proverb;
'sourdough', where we employ leaven; 'wellwillingness' for benevolence;
'againbuying' for redemption; 'againrising' for resurrection;
'undeadliness' for immortality; 'uncunningness' for ignorance;
'aftercomer' for descendant; 'greatdoingly' for magnificently; 'to
afterthink' (still in use in Lancashire) for to repent; 'medeful', which
has given way