th Ger.
stolz, proud, and possibly with Lat. stultus, foolish. The three
ideas are not incompatible, for fools are notoriously proud of their
folly and are said to be less subject to fear than the angels.
Sturdy, Sturdee, once meant rebellious, pig-headed--

"Sturdy, unbuxum, rebellis, contumax, inobediens." (Prompt. Parv.)

Cotgrave offers a much wider choice for the French original--

"Estourdi (etourdi), dulled, amazed, astonished, dizzie-headed, or
whose head seemes very much troubled; (hence) also, heedlesse,
inconsiderate, unadvised, witlesse, uncircumspect, rash, retchlesse,
or carelesse; and sottish, blockish, lumpish, lusk-like, without life,
metall, spirit"

Sly and its variant Sleigh have degenerated in the same way as crafty
and cunning, both of which once meant skilled. Chaucer calls the
wings of Daedalus "his playes slye," i.e. his ingenious contrivances.
Quick meant alert, lively, as in "the quick and the dead." Slight,
cognate with Ger. schlecht, bad, once meant plain or simple.

Many adjectives which are quite obsolete in literary English survive
as surnames. Mid. Eng. Lyle has been supplanted by its derivative
Little, the opposite pair surviving as Mutch and Mickle. The poor
parson did not fail--

"In siknesse nor in meschief to visite
The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lyte."

(A, 493.)

We have for Lyte also the imitative Light; cf. Lightwood. With Little
may be mentioned Murch, an obsolete word for dwarf--

"Murch, lytyl man, nanus."

(Prompt. Parv.)

Lenain is a fairly common name in France. Snell, swift or valiant,
had become a personal name in Anglo-Saxon, but we find le snel in the
Middle Ages. Freake, Frick, also meant valiant or warrior--

"Ther was no freke that ther wolde flye"

(Chevy Chase);

but the Promptorium Parvulorum makes it equivalent to Craske (Chapter
XXII)--

"Fryke, or craske, in grete helth, crassus."

It is cognate with Ger. frech, which now means impudent. Nott has
already been mentioned (Chapter II). Of the Yeoman we are told--

"A not hed hadde he, with a broun visage."

(A, 109.)

Stark, cognate with starch, now usually means stiff, rather than
strong--

"I feele my lymes stark and suffisaunt
To do al that a man bilongeth to."

(E, 1458.)

DISGUISED SPELLINGS

But Stark is also for an earlier Sterk (cf. Clark and Clerk), which
represents Mid. Eng. stirk, a heifer. In the cow with the crumpled
horn we have a derivat