akilter

[Mark Mandel]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

>                  Similarly with these a- adjectives, the
> meaning ends up approximating 'a bit off', whether by reinforcing the
> base ("akimbo", "awry", etc.) or reversing it ("akilter").  The fact
> that "kilter" is so rare itself doesn't hurt.

What's the base of "akimbo"? OED etym:

[Deriv. unknown. Prof. Skeat (Append.) gives a suggestion of
Magnussen, comparing the earliest known forms with Icel. keng-boginn,
-it, 'crooked' (Vigfusson), lit. 'bent staple-wise, or in a horse-shoe
curve'; other suggestions are a cambok in the manner of a crooked
stick (ME. cambok, med.L. cambuca [long u], see CAMMOCK); a cam bow in
a crooked bow. None of these satisfies all conditions.
  The difficulty as to a-cambok, a cam bow, is that no forms of the
word show cam-, from which the earliest are the most remote. The Icel.
keng-boginn comes nearer the form, but there is no evidence that it
had the special sense of a-kimbo, and none that the latter ever had
the general sense of 'crooked.' It also postulates an early Eng.
series of forms like *keng-bown or *keng-bowed, *keng-bow, *akengbow,
quite unknown and unaccounted for.]

--
Mark Mandel

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