[Footnote: See the _Instructions for Parish Priests_, p. 69,
published by the _Early English Texts Society_.] When we thus affirm
that the divergent meanings of a word can all be brought back to some
one point from which, immediately or mediately, they every one proceed,
that none has primarily more than one meaning, it must be remembered
that there may very well be two words, or, as it will sometimes happen,
more, spelt as well as pronounced alike, which yet are wholly different
in their derivation and primary usage; and that, of course, between
such homonyms or homographs as these no bond of union on the score of
this identity is to be sought. Neither does this fact in the least
invalidate our assertion. We have in them, as Cobbett expresses it well,
the same combination of letters, but not the same word. Thus we have
'page,' the side of a leaf, from 'pagina,' and 'page,' a small boy;
'league,' a treaty (F. ligue), from 'ligare,' to bind, and 'league' (O.
F. legue), from leuca, a Celtic measure of distance; 'host' (hostis),
an army, 'host' (O. F. hoste), from the Latin hospitem, and 'host'
(hostia), in the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the mass. We have two
'ounces' (uncia and Pers. yuz); two 'seals' (sigillum and seolh); two
'moods' (modus and mod); two 'sacks' (saccus and sec); two 'sounds'
(sonus and sund); two 'lakes' (lacus and lacca); two 'kennels' (canalis
and canile); two 'partisans' (partisan and partegiana); two 'quires'
(choeur and cahier); two 'corns' (corn and cornu); two 'ears' (ohr and
aehre); two 'doles' (deuil and theil); two 'perches' (pertica and
perca); two 'races' (raes and the French race); two 'rocks,' two
'rooks,' two 'sprays,' two 'saws,' two 'strains,' two 'trunks,' two
'burrows,' two 'helms,' two 'quarries'; three 'moles,' three 'rapes'
(as the 'rape' of Proserpine, the 'rape' of Bramber, 'rape'-seed); four
'ports,' three 'vans,' three 'smacks.
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