LL-L "Etymology" 2009.06.29 (04) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 29 June 2009 - Volume 04
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Folks,

I wrote among other things:

Old Saxon has *mako* (pronounced like *macko*) 'companion' which appears to
go back to the same Indo-European root **maĝ-* from which the "make" group
comes. Apart from "make" it also means "knead", "squeeze", "stroke". So
perhaps a *Macker* was originally someone you hugged and petted.
...

Seriously though, I find it interesting that the word group "make" also
connoted "knead". I wonder if this has something to do with making pottery.

This is what the *Oxford English Dicftionary* says about this:

     The word has been referred to the Indo-European base of Welsh *maeddu *to
knead and Old Church Slavonic *mazati *to smear, and perhaps also of ancient
Greek {μάσσειν (compare the perfect passive *μέμαγμαι*, MAGMA n., and MASS
n.2), classical Latin *mācerāre *(see MACERATE v.), and Armenian *macanim *to
cling to; but whether these last three, and indeed the West Germanic verb,
should be referred to this base is not certain. The Indo-European base
perhaps had the sense ‘to knead, work with the hands’ from which, it is
hypothesized, the more general meaning ‘make’ may have developed. The
Germanic verb is also widely considered to be related to the Germanic base
of I-MAKE n. and MATCH n.1, probably an adjective with the sense ‘fit,
suitable’. This adjective must be regarded as a derivative of the verb
(perhaps via the sense ‘that which can be done’) if the above Indo-European
etymology is accepted. An older view took the verb as a specifically West
Germanic derivative (with the original sense ‘fit, arrange’) of the
adjective (which, having reflexes in North Germanic, must go back to Common
Germanic), and treated the further etymology as unknown.
    Old English *macian *and *gemacian *(which continued into Middle English
as *imake*) are much less common than *don *DO v. (which is also the word
most commonly used to translate Latin *facere*), **I-*gewyrcan *WURCHE v.,
and *wyrcan *WORK v. In Old English sense 1a appears to be the commonest
use, followed by senses 34a and 33b (factitive), 38 (causative), and 43a.
Development of senses within English was affected by various secondary
borrowings and influences, e.g. from senses of Latin *facere *and *fierī*;
no attempt has been made to document these exhaustively below. Since it is
uncertain what the original meanings of the word were in West Germanic, the
branches in the semantic arrangement below do not necessarily reflect the
sequence in which the senses arose.

So "match" as in "matchmaker" belongs to the same group.

I also found Old English *maka* 'companion', 'husband', thus a cognate of
Old Saxon *mako*. So we are talking about a "match" here, about someone you
are matched up with. I wonder if later *Macker* is based on a reanalyzed *
-er* form of this. Furthermore, I wonder if the idea "to cling to", "to
stick to" (see above) is implied here.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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