misdemeanant

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/1/2012 12:11 PM, you wrote:
>Wonder if when it's pronounced in a courtroom setting it gets
>secondary stress on the last syllable, the way "defendant" does on
>the "(d)ant", as we've discussed in prior threads.  (I would
>pronounce both with essentially no stress and a schwa, but it's
>definitely pronounced with an aesh, in the latter case at least.  Of
>course "misdemeanant" would come up a lot less in court than "defendant".

mis-de-mean-ANT?  Not likely -- "Miss Demean, Aunt"?  More likely
mis-de-MEAN-ant, to stress the culpability of the de-fen-DANT.
:-)

I note that the OED has "misfease", but no "misfeasant", just
"misfeasor".  For "mal-", there is no "malfease" -- nor any other
verb!  But there is the "-ant" -- "malfeasant" (n.).

Joel


>LH
>
>On Apr 1, 2012, at 11:58 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
> > came across this useful counterpart to "felon" a little while ago
> ("felon" : "felony" = "misdemeanant" :  "misdemeanor").  new to me,
> but far from new: as 'a person convicted of a misdemeanor or guilty
> of misconduct', it's in NOAD2; AHD5 has a similar entry, and OED3
> (June 2002) has cites going back to 1819 (and marks the word as
> "now chiefly U.S."). OED3 also has an etymology tracing the noun
> back to a verb "misdemean" 'to misbehave, misconduct oneself' (with
> cites from the 16th century and the label "now rare").
> >
> > arnold
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org