Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. Word of mouth "spoken words, oral communication" (as distinguished from written words) is by 1550s. A word to the wise is from Latin phrase verbum sapienti satis est "a word to the wise is enough." Word-for-word "in the exact word or terms" is late 14c. Word-processor first recorded 1971 word-processing is from 1972 word-wrap is from 1977. catchword: (printing, historical) A word under the right-hand side of the last line on a book page that repeats the first word on the following page. In the plural, the meaning "verbal altercation" (as in have words with someone) dates from mid-15c. The meaning "promise" was in Old English, as was the theological sense. Old English word "speech, talk, utterance, sentence, statement, news, report, word," from Proto-Germanic *wurda- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian word, Dutch woord, Old High German, German wort, Old Norse orð, Gothic waurd), from PIE *were- (3) "speak, say" (see verb).
To swear by something or someone is in Old English, perhaps originally "in the presence of." Phrase by and by (early 14c.) originally meant "one by one," with by apparently denoting succession modern sense of "before long" is from 1520s.īy and large "in all its length and breadth" (1660s) originally was nautical, "sailing to the wind and off it," hence "in one direction then another " from nautical expression large wind, one that crosses the ship's line in a favorable direction. 1200), hence "in passing by," used figuratively to introduce a tangential observation ("incidentally") by 1540s. This also is the sense of the second by in the phrase by the by (1610s).īy the way literally means "along the way" (c. Elliptical use for "secondary course" was in Old English (opposed to main, as in byway, also compare by-blow "illegitimate child," 1590s, Middle English loteby "a concubine," from obsolete lote "to lurk, lie hidden"). Originally an adverbial particle of place, which sense survives in place names ( Whitby, Grimsby, etc., also compare rudesby).
print) has 38 distinct definitions of it as a preposition. Old English be- (unstressed) or bi (stressed) "near, in, by, during, about," from Proto-Germanic *bi "around, about," in compounds often merely intensive (source also of Old Saxon and Old Frisian bi "by, near," Middle Dutch bie, Dutch bij, German bei "by, at, near," Gothic bi "about"), from PIE *bhi, reduced form of root *ambhi- "around."Īs an adverb by c.
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