Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Sayers, William

Titel

The etymologies of the English polysemes clout and cuff

Ist Teil von

• ANQ (Lexington, Ky.), 2019-01, Vol.32 (1), p.1-5

Ort / Verlag

Philadelphia: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Sayers discusses the etymologies of the English polysemes clout and cuff. In an entry first published in 1891 and not fully updated, the Oxford English Dictionary offers three general meanings for clout: first, 'piece, patch, flat piece, shred,' with preferential use as 'a piece of cloth'; second, a heavy blow, especially with the hand; a cuff'; and third 'personal or private influence; power of effective action, weight'. Subsections of the entry juxtapose these two latter significations. While one might readily accept the extension from blow to the capacity to give one, and thence to latent influence and power, Sayers examines the relationship between a piece of something such as fabric and a blow with the hand, aside from the questionable affinity of being on a comparable scale and relatively inconsequential within their respective typologies.