Indian summer

New England autumnal foliage, trees with brightly colored leaves lining the shore of a lake

16 February 2021

Indian summer is a name for a deceptive period of fair, warm weather in late autumn, often after the first frost. It is deceptive because it hides the fact that winter is about to begin. And the origins of the phrase are similarly cloaked in mystery. Not only are we unsure of the metaphor that underlies the phrase, but date of the earliest written use is also in doubt.

The term Indian summer is not exactly derogatory, but it is one of many terms, tropes, and euphemisms that present and reinforce a European perspective on indigenous culture, such as on the warpath, circle the wagons, and going off the reservation. As such its use should be avoided.

The most probable explanation for the name is that it reflects a European sense that native North American culture is different, false, or even ersatz. The Oxford English Dictionary points to the terms Indian corn (maize) and Indian bread (corn bread), both of which are different from the European equivalents.

Other suggestions include that it was period of hunting and harvest for Native Americans or that the good weather following the harvest was the optimal period for waging war.

Like its origin, the earliest use of the term is also in doubt. The early evidence indicates that Indian summer, like most phrases, was in widespread oral circulation before being written down.

The earliest known written use is by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur), a French settler in New York. In the late eighteenth century he wrote a series of letters and essays about his life in America, and in one he used the phrase Indian summer. He wrote in English, but the manuscript, which survives, is undated, and the original English version of this particular essay was not published until 1925. De Crèvecœur, however, also translated his writing into his native French, and this version was published in Paris in 1784. That French edition gives the date of the essay as 17 January 1774, but a later 1787 edition gives the year as 1778. The editor of the 1925 English edition of his works notes that de Crèvecœur was rather sloppy about his dates, so we can’t be sure exactly when this particular essay was written. The Oxford English Dictionary very conservatively gives the date of de Crèvecœur’s essay as being before 1813, the date of his death, but I think we can confidently conclude that it was written sometime in the 1770s and without doubt before 1784.

His original English version, as published in 1925, reads:

Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer. This is in general the invariable rule: winter is not said properly to begin until these few moderate days and the rising of the waters have announced it to Man.

The relevant passage in the French version of the essay, Description d’Une Chute de Neige, uses the phrase l’Eté Sauvage, and reads:

Quelquefois après cette pluie, il arrive un intervalle de calme & de chaleur, appelé l’Eté Sauvage; ce qui l’indique, c’est la tranquillité de l’atmosphere, & une apparence générale de fumée.

(Sometimes after this rain, there comes an interval of calm and heat, called the Indian summer, indicated by the tranquility of the atmosphere and a general appearance of smoke.)

Indian summer appears in British writing by 1786, indicating that the term had become well-established in North America before this date (more evidence that it was probably in wide circulation in the 1770s). It appears in a poem in the County Magazine of July of that year:

Sad thoughts, adieu! and let me turn my way,
Thro’ the wide plain, and devious thicket stray,
And when by grateful weariness oppress’d,
In yon cool dell, unseen by mortal rest,
Hid from the glaring sun’s descending beams,
And almost musing to the verge of dreams,
While tuneful Thomson and the Mantuan swain,
Exalt the prospect by the rural strain:
And while the bards, before my fancy bring
The Indian summer, and Italian spring,
Rapt let me mark the different climates found,
In TEMPLE’s gardens, and his lawns abound.

Because the OED gives a late date for de Crèvecœur’s essay, the earliest citation in that dictionary is from American Brigadier General Josiah Harmer’s journal for 21 October 1790. Harmer was campaigning in Ohio during the Northwest Indian War and wrote:

Thursday, Octr. 21st—Fine weather—Indian summer. Having completed the destruction of the Maumee Towns (as they are called), we took up our line of march this morning from the ruins of Chillicothy for Ft. Washington. Marched about 8 miles—detached Major Wyllys with 60 Federal & about 300 militia back to where we left this morning, in hopes he may fall in with some of the savages.

This last might seem to lend support for the idea that Indian summer was the optimal period for war, but it reverses the roles, making it the optimal period for warfare against and genocide of the indigenous population.

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Sources:

de Crèvecœur, J. Hector St. John. “A Snow Storm as it Affects the American Farmer.” Sketches of Eighteenth Century America: Letters From an American Farmer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1925, 41. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

de Crèvecœur, Michel Guillaume Jean. “Description d’Une Chute de Neige” (17 January 1774?). Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain, vol. 1.” Paris: Cuchet, 1784, 266. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Harmer, Josiah. “General Harmar’s Journal” (1790). In Basil Meek. “General Harmar’s Expedition.” Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly, 20.1, January 1911, 92–93. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2009, s.v. Indian summer, n.

Penton, John. “Sweet Scenes, That Rich with Various Beauties Poor.” The County Magazine, 7.1, July 1786, 100. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Tréguer, Pascal. “Origin of ‘Indian Summer’ and French ‘L’ Été Sauvage.’” Wordhistories.net, 21 June 2016.

Photo credit: Werner Kunz, 2 November 2008. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Indian giver

1617 engraving of Ralph Hamer, secretary of the Virginia colony, and party meeting with Wahunsenacawh, father of Matoaka (a.k.a. Pocahontas) and leader of the Powhatan, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking peoples living in the Tidewater region of Virginia

15 February 2021

Indian-giver is a racist label for someone who gives a gift and then demands it be given back. Nowadays, its use is chiefly confined to children and the playground. The origin of the term is in the gift economy practiced by many North American indigenous peoples, who as a way of barter would engage in rituals of gift giving, expecting a gift of equivalent value to be given in return.

The term Indian gift is recorded in John Callender’s 1739 Historical Discourse on the Civil and Religious Affairs of the Colony of Rhode-Island. But even in this earliest use, there is a hint of disapproval by Europeans of the practice:

And in another Manuscript he [Roger Williams] tells us, the Indians were very shy and jealous of selling the Lands to any, and chose rather to make a Grant of them to such as they affected, but at the same Time, expected such Gratuities and Rewards as made an Indian Gift often times a very dear Bargain.

By the mid eighteenth century, Indian gift was an established expression referring to the Native American practice. Thomas Hutchinson, in his 1764 History of the Colony of Massachusets-Bay [sic], writes:

The principle or persuasion that all things ought to be in common might cause hospitality, where the like was expected in return, without any great degree of virtue.

To which he appends a note:

An Indian gift is a proverbial expression, signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected.

But by the early nineteenth century, the recognition that the practice was a different type of economy was beginning to fade, and in the eyes of Europeans the practice took on the connotation of duplicity and untrustworthiness. This extended passage from Washington Irving’s 1837 Adventures of Captain Bonneville, while it acknowledges the cultural difference at first, places the term Indian giving in the context of supposed Native American duplicity:

So saying, he made a signal, and forthwith a beautiful young horse, of a brown colour, was led prancing and snorting, to the place. Captain Bonneville was suitably affected by this mark of friendship; but his experience in what is proverbially called “Indian giving," made him aware that a parting pledge was necessary on his own part, to prove that this friendship was reciprocated. He accordingly placed a handsome rifle in the hands of the venerable chief; whose benevolent heart was evidently touched and gratified by this outward and visible sign of amity.

The worthy captain having now, as he thought, balanced this little account of friendship, was about to shift his saddle to this noble gift-horse when the affectionate patriarch plucked him by the sleeve and introduced to him a whimpering whining, leathern-skinned old squaw, that might have passed for an Egyptian mummy, without drying. “This,” said he, “is my wife; she is a good wife—I love her very much.—She loves the horse—she loves him a great deal—she will cry very much at losing him.—I do not know how I shall comfort her—and that makes my heart very sore.”

What could the worthy captain do, to console the tender-hearted old squaw; and, peradventure, to save the venerable patriarch from a curtain lecture? He bethought himself of a pair of earbobs: it was true, the patriarch's better-half was of an age and appearance that seemed to put personal vanity out of the question: but when is personal vanity extinct? The moment he produced the glittering earbobs, the whimpering and whining of the sempiternal beldame was at an end. She eagerly placed the precious baubles in her ears, and, though as ugly as the Witch of Endor, went off with a sideling gait, and coquettish air, as though she had been a perfect Semiramis.

The captain had now saddled his newly acquired steed, and his foot was in the stirrup, when the affectionate patriarch again stepped forward, and presented to him a young Pierced-nose, who had a peculiarly sulky look.

“This," said the venerable chief, “is my son; he is very good; a great horseman—he always took care of this very fine horse—he brought him up from a colt, and made him what he is.—He is very fond of this fine horse—he loves him like a brother—his heart will be very heavy when this fine horse leaves the camp." What could the captain do, to reward the youthful hope of this venerable pair, and comfort him for the loss of his fosterbrother, the horse? He bethought him of a hatchet, which might be spared from his slender stores. No sooner did he place the implement in the hands of young hopeful, than his countenance brightened up, and he went off rejoicing in his hatchet, to the full as much as did his respectable mother in her earbobs.

The captain was now in the saddle, and about to start, when the affectionate old patriarch stepped forward for the third time, and, while he laid one hand gently on the mane of the horse, held up the rifle in the other.

“This rifle,” said he, “shall be my great medicine. I will hug it to my heart—I will always love it, for the sake of my good friend, the bald-headed chief.—But a rifle, by itself, is dumb—I cannot make it speak. If I had a little powder and ball, I would take it out with me, and would now and then shoot a deer: and when I brought the meat home to my hungry family, I would say—this was killed by the rifle of my friend, the bald-headed chief, to whom I gave that very fine horse."

There was no resisting this appeal: the captain, forthwith, furnished the coveted supply of powder and ball; but at the same time, put spurs to his very fine gift-horse, and the first trial of his speed was to get out of all further manifestation of friendship, on the part of the affectionate old patriarch and his insinuating family.

And just the next year, the New-York Mirror includes an article about children’s culture that uses Indian giver. But here, not only has the meaning shifted from an exchange to a demand for return, but it is being used as an insult. From the 23 June 1838 issue:

A schoolboy has a character to gain as well as a solider or a statesman. Among them are distinct species of crimes and virtues. I have seen the finger pointed at the Indian giver. (One who gives a present and demands it back again.) I have heard hiss follow the tell-tale. And what shouts of bitter scorn are raised against the “fellow” who “won’t fight” or the bully who backs out at the moment of danger.

So, in a little more than a century, Indian gift had gone from the disapproving label for a Native American cultural practice to the children’s slur Indian giver.

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Sources:

Callender, John. An Historical Discourse on the Civil and Religious Affairs of the Colony of Rhode-Island. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1739, 31–32. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

“Children and their Concerns.” New-York Mirror, 15.52, 23 June 1838, 413. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. Indian, adj.

Hutchinson, Thomas. The History of the Colony of Massachusets-Bay [sic]. Boston: Thomas and John Fleet, 1764, 469. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Irving, Washington. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, or Scenes Beyond the Rocky Mountains of the Far West, vol. 2 of 3. London: Richard Bentley, 1837, 245–49. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2009, s.v. Indian, adj. and n.

Image credit: Georg Keller, 1617, University of Virginia Special Collections.

valentine

Woman in medieval dress offering a man a heart. Marginalia in a 1338–1410 manuscript containing a copy of the Romance of Alexander

14 February 2021

[This entry makes corrections regarding Charles d’Orléans and his alleged writing of the first valentine message.]

How 14 February, St. Valentine’s feast day, became associated with love and lovers is shrouded in mystery. We do, however, have a good idea of when it happened, that is some time in the late fourteenth century, and the association was firmly in place by the fifteenth. The earliest known reference to the association is by Geoffrey Chaucer, but whether he invented it or if he was just recording it is not known.

There were several saints named Valentine, and little is known about any of them. The Valentine who is celebrated on 14 February was a martyred priest of Rome, but beyond that, his life and deeds are obscure.

The earliest reference to St. Valentine’s day being a day for lovers is in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls, written c.1380. The poem may have been composed to celebrate the marriage contract between King Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia. That contract was solemnized on 2 May 1381, which is the feast day of one of the Valentines—St. Valentine of Genoa. But Chaucer could have written it for another occasion. There are multiple references to Saint Valentine’s day in the poem, so Chaucer clearly meant the poem for the feast day of one of the saintly Valentines. Lines 309–15 of that poem read:

For this was on Seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make,
Of every kynde that men thynke may,
And that so huge a noyse gan they make,
That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake
So ful was that unethe was there space
For me to stonde, so ful was al that place.

(For this was on Saint Valentine’s day, when every fowl of every kind that man can imagine comes there to chose his mate, and then so huge a noise they did make, that earth, and air, and tree, and every lake were so full that scarcely was there space for me to stand, so ful was all that place.)

Chaucer also associates that poem with the holiday in his retraction, probably written shortly before his death in 1400, that is usually included as a coda to The Canterbury Tales. The retraction is a repentance for having written his poetry and mentions most of his works:

the book of Seint Valentynes day of the Parliament of Briddes

Chaucer again mentioned avian mating practices on Saint Valentine’s day in his Legend of Good Women, written c. 1386. Lines 143–52 read:

Upon the braunches ful of blosmes softe,
In hire delyt, they turned hem ful ofte,
And songen, “blessed be Seynt Valentyn,
For on this day I chees yow to be myne,
Withouten repentyng, my herte swete!”
And therwithalle hire bekes gonnen meete,
Yeldyng honour and humble obeysaunces
To love, and diden hire other observaunces
That longeth unto love and to nature;
Construeth that as yow list, I do no cure.

(Upon the branches full of soft blossoms, in their delight, they turned to each other very often, and sang: “blessed be Saint Valentine, for on this day I choose you to be mine, without regret, my sweetheart!” And with that their beaks did meet, bestowing honor and humble services due to love, and did their other observances that conform to love and to nature; construe that as you wish, I don’t care.)

And c. 1445, poet and monk John Lydgate wrote of St. Valentine’s day too. The entry for February in a poetic Calendar of his reads in part:

Be of good comfort and ioye now, hert[e] myne,
Wel mayst þu glade and verray lusty be,
For as I hope truly, Seynt Valentyne
Wil schewe us loue, and daunsyng be with me.
O virgyn Iulyan, I chese now the
To my valentyne, both with hert and mouth,
To be true to þe, would God þat I couth.

(Be of good comfort and joy now, heart of mine,
Well may you glad and very lusty be,
For as I truly hope, Saint Valentine
Will show us love, and dancing be with me.
O virgin Julian, I now choose thee
As my valentine, with both heart and mouth,
To be true to you, would God that I could.)

And a February 1477 letter from Margery Brews, to her fiancé, John Paston III opens with:

Ryght wurschypffull and welebelouyd Volentyne, in my moste vmble wyse I recommande me vn-to yowe.

So, it is clear that by the latter half of the fifteenth century the traditions of St. Valentine’s day, including sending love poetry to one’s lover was well established.

It is often claimed that the first valentine poem or message written to a lover is one by Charles, Duke of Orléans, allegedly penned while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Charles remained a prisoner of the English until 1440. (As a member of the French royal family he was treated rather well, and only a portion of this captivity was spent in the Tower. Most of it was as a “guest” at various noble estates..)

The poem in question, which is indeed by Charles, reads:

Je suis desja d'amour tanné,
Ma tres doulce Valentinée,
Car pour moi fustes trop tart née,
Et moy pour vous fus trop tost né.
Dieu lui pardoint qui estrené
M'a de vous, pour toute l'année.
Je suis desja d'amour tanné,
Ma tres doulce Valentinée.

Bien m'estoye suspeconné,
Qu'auroye telle destinée,
Ains que passast ceste journée,
Combien qu'Amours l'eust ordonné.
Je suis desja d'amour tanné,
Ma tres doulce Valentinée.

(I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine,
Since for me you were born too late,
And I for you was born too soon.
God forgives him who has estranged
Me from you for the whole year.
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine.

Well might I have suspected
That such a destiny,
Thus would have happened this day,
How much that Love would have commanded.
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine.)

The problem is that the poem was not written in England, but rather after he had returned to France, sometime during 1443–60. And many other poets, such as the aforementioned Chaucer and Lydgate, as well as Christine de Pizan had written Valentine’s Day poetry before this. Not to mention that Charles himself wrote some fourteen other poems, in both French and English, with Valentine’s Day as the theme.

But this poem is not a message to a lover, but rather part of a Valentine’s Day practice of holding a lottery which would pair male and female members of the court. The man would serve as the woman’s valentine for the coming year, a ritual enactment of courtly love. In the poem, Charles is telling the much-younger woman he is paired with that he is too old and tired for such nonsense. Rather than writing the first valentine poem, Charles may have written the first anti-Valentine.

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Sources:

Charles, d’ Orléans. Poesies. Paris: C. Gosselin, 1842, 245–46. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Larry D. Benson, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Davis, Norman, ed. Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1 of 3. Early English Text Society, S.S. 20. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006, Item #416, 663. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Jackson, Eleanor. “Charles d'Orléans, earliest known Valentine?” Medieval Manuscripts Blog, British Library, 14 February 2021.

Lydgate, John. “A Kalendare.” The Minor Poems of John Lydgate. Henry N. MacCracken, ed. Early English Text Society, extra series 107. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., 1911. 364. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. valentin(e, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Valentine, n.

Image credit: Oxford Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 264, fol. 59r. In public domain as a mechanical reproduction of a work created before 1925.

in like Flynn

Headshot of actor Errol Flynn, c.1945

11 February 2021

The Americanism in like Flynn means all is set, success is certain. In that way, it is akin to the British Bob’s your uncle. The phrase dates to the early 1940s and has long been associated with the actor Errol Flynn, although there is evidence that this association is after the fact and that the phrase developed in the San Francisco Bay Area as a form of rhyming slang.

The earliest known use of the name Flynn in this context was discovered by word sleuth Barry Popik in the papers of another word sleuth, San Francisco’s Peter Tamony. Tamony’s papers include a usage citation given him by his sister Kathleen, dated 3 July 1940, which reads:

"Your name is Flynn...you're in." Official of BILLY ROSES's "Aquacade"—Golden Gate International Exposition—to party of people, telling them that they would receive passes for 9 pm. show.

(Popik thought the reference to the Golden Gate International Exposition was an error, as Billy Rose’s Aquacade was performing at the New York World’s Fair at the time, but Rose had two productions of his show going simultaneously, one in New York and one in San Francisco. Tamony’s note is undoubtedly correct and refers to the California production.)

The next known appearance in print of your name is Flynn...you’re in is from the sports section of the San Francisco Examiner of 8 February 1942:

Being at wit’s end for your usual big, meaty Sunday theme we are devoting part of today’s column to a questionnaire especially prepared to test applicants for commissions in the Stockton Street tunnel ski patrol.

Answer these questions correctly and your name is Flynn, meaning you’re in, provided you have two left feet and the consent of your parents.

Tamony would weigh in on the subject a year later, writing in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin of 9 February 1943 and providing the earliest in-print example of the phrasing in like Flynn:

SEEMS AS though my guess about the derivation of the phrase, "I'm Flynn" wasn't altogether correct.  I said it meant one was all set, ready, fixed, etc.—and that's right.  But two correspondents, O.B. and John O'Reilly agree that it began with some such phrase as "Well, I'm in like Flynn." Finally, you were "in, Flynn."  Now it's just "I'm Flynn."  The reverse of the phrase is not common, but it started with "I'm out like Stout," which was shortened to "out, Stout" and is now "I'm Stout" (meaning things aren't so good).

This rhyming slang explanation is plausible, but no one has turned up other examples of the stout counterpart, and testimony (e.g., from the two correspondents) without actual citations of use is questionable. I would label this explanation as possible, but unconfirmed.

An article in the U.S. Marine Corps magazine Leatherneck https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/leatherneck from March 1945 has this story, with a passage about a marine taking his girlfriend to the track and betting on a horse named Hogan’s Goat:

So, I put the works on Estrellita’s nose. Then I went back to Dixie.

As I sat down, she looked at me and said: “It’s in?”

“In like Flynn,” I said. I decided for no good reason, to let her think Hogan’s Goat was still our baby.

It seems in like Flynn grew in popularity among U.S. servicemen during World War II. In addition to this Marine Corps reference, the phrase appears in lists of Army and Air Force slang that were published shortly after the war. But it also was popular in sports writing, used to denote an easy win or victory. From the San Francisco Chronicle of 14 July 1946 that bears the supertitle “We’re in Like Flynn”:

The chunky ex-New York Giant chattel, displaying an explosive curve, an intelligently employed change of pace, and an occasional fast ball, was never in trouble. He limited the visitors to single blows in the second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth frames, and was in like Flynn as early as the third when mates stakes him to a 3–0 lead.

The association with Errol Flynn is first recorded later in 1946, when it appears in a list of Air Force slang terms in the journal American Speech:

IN LIKE FLYNN. Everything is O.K. In other words, the pilot is having no more trouble than Errol Flynn has in his cinematic feats.

In addition to his swashbuckling feats in front of the camera, Flynn was well known as a “ladies man,” and it is often thought that in like Flynn has an innuendo of success at sexual conquests. Furthermore, in late 1942 the actor was accused of statutory rape by two female seventeen-year-olds. In the January-February 1943 trial, Flynn’s defense impugned his accusers’ moral character, and he was acquitted. Regardless of the actual facts of the case, the trial was widely perceived as yet another example of a rich and famous man using his privilege to avoid punishment. Flynn had managed to avoid criminal penalties, but his reputation and career were permanently damaged. While he would continue to act until his death in 1959, his star power and financial resources faded considerably.

It may be that in like Flynn was originally inspired by Errol Flynn’s on-screen persona and perhaps his off-screen sexual exploits, but the rape allegations and trial cannot be the origin of the phrase; as we have seen, the phrase was already well established before that occurred. There is no doubt, though, that the actor’s reputation contributed to the popularity of the phrase.

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Sources:

Decker, Duane. “Hogan’s Goat.” Leatherneck, 28.3, March 1945, 19. ProQuest: Trade Journals.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. in like Flynn, phr.

Miller, Edwin H. “More Air Force Slang.” American Speech, 21.4, December 1946, 310. JSTOR.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2004, s.v. Flynn, n.

Popik, Barry. “In like Flynn; Run for the Roses; Yoot.” ADS-L, 13 June 1999.

Stevens, Bob. “We’re in Like Flynn: Seals Slaughter Pathetic Padres for 8th Straight.” San Francisco Chronicle, 14 July 1946, 33. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Sullivan, Prescott. “The Low Down.” San Francisco Examiner—Sports, 8 February 1942, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Unknown photographer, c.1945. Public domain image. National Library of Australia.

hysteria / hysterical

10 February 2021

How did a Greek root referring to the uterus come to mean a state of overwhelming emotion? Through a combination of medieval medicine and many centuries of misogyny, that’s how.

The English word hysteria comes from the post-classical Latin combining form hystero-, which in turn from the ancient Greek ὑστέρα (ystera), meaning the uterus. And hysteria once referred to a supposed physical disease in women caused by dysfunction or displacement of the uterus. The uterus was thought to move up, constricting or blocking the heart or throat. Hysteria was characterized by agitation, difficulty breathing or a sensation of choking, tightness of the chest, and other symptoms. These symptoms roughly correspond to those of the modern, and very real, panic disorder.

But this supposed disease of women was not always labeled hysteria. Long before, the name for this supposed condition was suffocation / rising / fit of the mother. The word mother was also used as a label for the uterus. This English sense of mother is a calque of the Latin matrix, referring to a female breeding animal, or in humans, the womb.

An Anglo-Irish medical text from c. 1300 has the following:

Item pro subbito assensu matricis, hoc est aþye þe verliche rakynggys off þe modyr to wommanhis hert.

(Item, for a suddenly ascending womb, that is for the sudden stretching of the mother to the woman’s heart.)

An John Trevisa’s late fourteenth-century translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things) has this:

The modir in a womman is a singuler membre disposid as a bladdre, & kynde haþ ordeyned þat membre to fonge & resseyue þe humour semynal.

(The mother in a woman is a distinct organ arranged as a bladder and nature has ordained that organ to receive and hold the seminal fluid.)

Bartholomaeus’s original Latin is matrix.

And by c.1450 we see suffocation of the mother in a leechbook, or medical text.

For the suffocacion of the modir lat hir receyue þe smoke of turpentyne laid upon the coles þorow hir mouth.

(For the suffocation of the mother let her receive the smoke of turpentine laid upon the coals through her mouth.)

By the turn of the seventeenth century, we see the adjective hysterical used to refer to the supposed disease. This is part of a general trend toward coining words from Latin and Greek roots that began in the Early Modern era. From Edward Jorden’s 1603 A Briefe Discovrse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother:

Now I come to the kinds and sorts of this disease, which may bee reduced vnto three principall heades, according as euerie part of the bodie belongeth vnto some of the three principall functions which do gouerne the bodie of man. Not that euerie Symptom in this disease doth hurt some of the three functions, for some are onely molestations or deformities, as sudden Collickes, windie humors, noyses, alteration of colour, &c. But because euerie part may well bee mustred vnder some of these generals: and we doe seldome see any hystericall affect wherein some one or mo of the functions are not affected. These functions as they are distinct in office, so they possesse in our bodies seuerall seats and haue seuerall instruments belonging vnto them.

And a little more of than a decade later, Helkiah Crooke was writing about how the uterus is attracted to sweet odors, and therefore travels up the abdomen, causing women to become hysterical. From his 1615 Μικροκοσμογραϕια (Mikrokosmographia), an anatomy text:

Placentinus addeth another argument which hee calleth Inuincible, taken from those women that are Hystericall, that is, haue fits of the Mother. For such woemen although they haue no Respiration at all, doe yet receiue and perceiue odours, and not onely so but are almost miraculously redeemed or recouered by them: what shall wee say vnto the wombe it selfe, doth it not smell? yet no man did euer say that the wombe did respire, but dayly experience teacheth vs that it taketh so great pleasure in sweete Smels and is so offended with that which is noysome and abhominable, that it mooueth and applyeth it selfe manifestly vnto the one and auoydeth the other, euen with Locall and Methematicall motion.

The name hysteria, referring to the supposed disease, is in place by 1757, when it appears in the diary of Virginia planter Landon Carter for 9 March 1757:

She goes on with Floods hysteria medicine.

And it appears in Thomas Marryat’s 1764 The New Practice of Physick:

HYSTERIA

Hysteric Fits, notwithstanding the various shapes they appear in, are too well known to need any description,

The cause is an unequal distribution of the electrical fire, owing in some measure to the peculiar conformation of the uterus and its circumjacent parts—suppression or deficiency of the menstrual flux—delicacy of constitution—luxury—want of exercise—strong inclination to venery—Fluor albus—want of blood—acid gas.

The diagnostics. Syncopes—catchings—rising of hte throat, so as to endanger suffocation—convulsions—quick respiration—laughing—screaming—crying—the hands strongly closed—bawdry expressions—cephalalgia, &c.

The prognostics. If the patient has been long troubled with them, they terminate in perpetual causeless timidity—madness, or—all the horrors of the Hypochondriacal Affection,to which this disorder is very similar—It is by no means dangerous or—if scientifically treated, difficult to cure.

The cure. All evacuations are deleterious, the dry vomit excepted, which succeeds wonderfully, if frequently repeated, and is, propriis viribus, sufficient to effect a cure; but if objected to, the practitioner will find various formulae equally elegant and efficacious subjoined.

But by the early nineteenth century, hysteria had acquired a more general sense, and could now be used to refer to overwhelming emotion in both men and women. From Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 “The Fall of the House of Usher”:

I had taken but a few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—but any thing was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

And the adjective hysterical would specialize even further, referring to something that was very funny, overwhelming one with fits of laughter. This sense is in place by the early twentieth century, when it appears in a movie advertisement in Dundee Scotland’s Courier and Argus newspaper of 18 May 1925:

Sydney Chaplin in
“The Galloping Fish.”
Five Reels of Hysterical Hilarious Merriment.

Sydney Chaplin was the elder half-brother of the more famous Charlie Chaplin.

And by the twenty-first century, despite the fact that most English speakers would know that a hysterectomy referred to the surgical removal of the uterus, hysteria and hysterical had lost any connotation of the female anatomy in the minds of most.

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Sources:

Advertisement. The Courier and Argus (Dundee, Scotland), 18 May 1925, 1. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

Crooke, Helkiah. Μικροκοσμογραϕια: A Description of the Body of Man. London: William Jaggard, 1615, 8.45, 702. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Dawson, Warren R. A Leechbook or Collection of Medical Recipes of the Fifteenth Century (c.1450). London: Macmillan, 1934, 188. London, Medical Society of London Library MS 136.

Jorden, Edward. A Briefe Discovrse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother. London: John Windet, 1603, sig. Dr. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Marryat, Thomas. The New Practice of Physick. Dublin: 1764, 323–24. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. moder, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2020, s.v. hysteria, n., hysterical, adj. and n., hysteric, n. and adj., hystero-, comb. form2; December 2002, s.v. mother, n.1 (and int.).

Poe, Edgar A. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, 5.3, 1 September 1839, 34. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals.

Trevisa, John. On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum (a. 1398), vol. 1 of 3. M.C. Seymour, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, 5.49, 263. London, British Library, Additional MS 27944.