by James Hunt
If you ’re the sort of person who gets crumpled out of shape over the abuse of words like less and few , if you hate that literally no longer mean literally , and if you could stand to like less about the great unwashed saying they could care less , then we ’ve bring bad news for you : Language rarely does what you think it should . Even the most basic of Holy Scripture can well commute their meanings over sentence . To prove it , here are seven words that used to entail something , and now mean precisely the opposite .
1. AWESOME
First document circa 1600 as part of Early Modern English , the original substance ofawesomeis scarcely obscured : something which barrack or is full of awe . But when it was coined it referred to awe as in terror , rather than the innovative form , " astonishment . " Of naturally , given the frequence with which it rick up in New conversation , perhaps it ’s not quite the peak it once was .
2. SILLY
In Middle English , the wordseelymeant felicitous . But by the time people were pronouncing ( and spelling ) it assilly , it had come to mean someone innocent or worth of commiseration or sympathy . From there it came to mean naive and unsophisticated , before arriving at its forward-looking usage of ignorant or foolish .
3. EGREGIOUS
Traced back to its etymological root , egregiouscomes from the Latinex grege , intend " rising above the flock . " In a very specific way , it meant exceptional or magisterial . The word arrived in English in the other 1500s and by the round of the 1600s , a century of deliberately ironical usage had twist the word ’s substance to the point where , even now , you only really see someone key out something as flagrant if it ’s also spoiled ( as in an egregious misplay ) .
4. AWFUL
As if to prove that there ’s absolutely no logical system to language change , whileawesomewas going on its journey from uncollectible to unspoiled , awfulwas going in the paired direction . Originally , in the 1300s , it meant something awe - inspiring , worthy of respect and admiration . It was only in the 1800s that it came to mean something specifically bad .
5. TERRIFIC
If you squint you may probably see how the wordterrific — first document in the 1660s — could mean " frightening . " Something fantastic filled you with terror ; it was literally terrifying . In the mid-18th one C , terrific come to mean something great or hard , and by the late nineteenth century it had morphed into its New significance : excellent .
6. SMART
In late Old English , somethingsmeartwas painful or cutting . Indeed , that meaning survives in the form " that smarts . " It was n’t long beforesmartcame to mean someone with quick wit ( as in , having a sharp glossa ) , and from there it became associated with general intelligence .
7. NICE
It almost flabbergast the psyche to think that a word so tepid and noncommittal in its praise might have once been violative , but it arrived into English from the Old Frenchnice , where it meant goosey or frail . During the in-between ages it came to stand for shy , reserve , or fastidious , and it was only in the mid- to tardy 1700s — when society begin to take for those qualities tidy — that the discussion started to take on positivistic meanings .
