Hither Thither

A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase. An example for a word sense is 'navy' in ' merchant navy', which means 'commercial fleet' (although that sense of navy is obsolete elsewhere). An example for a phrase is ' in point' (relevant), which is retained in the larger phrases ' case in point' (also 'case on point' in the legal context) and ' in point of fact', but is rarely used outside of a legal context.

English-language examples

* ''ado'', as in " without further ado" or " with no further ado" or " much ado about nothing", although the homologous form "to-do" remains attested ("make a to-do", "a big to-do", etc.)
* ''amok'', as in " run amok"
* ''bandy'', as in " bandy about" or "bandy-legged"
* ''bated'', as in " wait with bated breath", although the derived term "abate" remains in non-idiom-specific use
* ''beck'', as in " at one's beck and call", although the verb form "beckon" is still used in non-idiom-specific use
* ''champing'', as in "champing at the bit", where "champ" is an obsolete precursor to "chomp", in current use
* ''coign'', as in " coign of vantage"
* ''deserts'', as in "just deserts", although singular "desert" in the sense of "state of deserving" occurs in nonidiom-specific contexts including law and philosophy. "Dessert" is a French loanword, meaning "removing what has been served," and has only a distant etymological connection.
* ''dint'', as in " by dint of"
* ''dudgeon'', as in " in high dudgeon"
* ''eke'', as in " eke out"
* ''fettle'', as in " in fine fettle", although the verb, 'to fettle', remains in specialized use in metal casting.
* ''fro'', as in " to and fro"
* ''hark'', as in "hark back to" or "hark at you"
* ''helter skelter'', as in "scattered helter skelter about the office", Middle English to hasten
* ''hither'', as in "come hither", "hither and thither", and "hither and yon"
* ''inclement'', as in "inclement weather”
* ''jetsam'', as in "flotsam and jetsam", except in legal contexts (especially admiralty, property, and international law)
* ''kith'', as in " kith and kin"
* ''nap'', meaning to steal, as in " kidnap"
* ''lo'', as in "lo and behold"
* ''loggerheads'' as in " at loggerheads" or loggerhead turtle
* ''muchness'' as in " much of a muchness"
* ''neap'', as in " neap tide"
* ''pale'', as in " beyond the pale"
* ''shebang'', as in " the whole shebang", although the word is now used as an unrelated common noun in programmers' jargon.
* ''shrive'', preserved only in inflected forms occurring only as part of fixed phrases: 'shrift' in " short shrift" and 'shrove' in " Shrove Tuesday"
* ''spick'', as in " spick and span"
* ''turpitude'', as in "moral turpitude"
* ''vim'', as in " vim and vigor"
* ''wedlock'', as in "out of wedlock"
* ''wend'', as in "wend your way"
* ''yore'', as in " of yore", usually "days of yore"

"Born fossils"

These words were formed from other languages, by elision, or by mincing of other fixed phrases.
* ''caboodle'', as in " kit and caboodle" (evolved from "kit and boodle", itself a fixed phrase borrowed as a unit from Dutch )
* ''druthers'', as in " if I had my druthers..." (formed by elision from "would rather" and never occurring outside this phrase to begin with)
* ''tarnation'', as in " what in tarnation...?" (evolved in the context of fixed phrases formed by mincing of previously fixed phrases that include the term "damnation")
* ''nother'', as in " a whole nother..." (fixed phrase formed by rebracketing ''another'' as ''a nother'', then inserting ''whole'' for emphasis; almost never occurs outside this phrase)

See also

* Bound morpheme
* Collocation — tendency of one word to occur near another
* Cranberry morpheme — morpheme which has no independent meaning in a lexeme
* Fossilization (linguistics)
* Siamese twins (linguistics)

References

{{Reflist

Historical linguistics
Lists of English words
Vocabulary
Archaic words and phrases
Idioms