The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-07-18
THE WORD cHArELa,as
..ething About the Dsriv.tso, =.
ings of the Word.

4uuor 'enAs writes about Ret,
ence Books" in st. Nicholas III
jerks says: Suppose a little ho-
reading a story and he couo.
the word chatelaine. 1t NAV
to him an interesting bit Of -
guage. He thinks he would N.
know what it means. Conseon.-.,
he shuts his book, keeping his A.
in the place, and runs down 80
to where his father is busy in =.
study preparing speech upop y.
coming school election. FAITH y
he says, what is chateIaine,s
We will suppose that his father,
a man who has sufficient inform.
ton to give a general answer 70 u.
question
A chatelaine, he may say a;.
the lady who is the presiding m;s
tress of a castle"
The boy opens his book and rad.
again the sentence in which -
found the word. Then he gjegIas
THAT can't be right" he ssS.
''for here it speaks of a lady who
hung a chatelaine to her belt p
sides, ii says that the chatelsins
was made of hammered silver so;,
can't be lady who is mistress Of .
CASTLE"
Oh, his father replies, THAT /,
different. There the word mesns .
little contrivance ladies wear Al
their belts to hold chains from
which they suspend keys and tab
let's, pin boxes and such things"
"Then how did you come to maka
such mistaken" the boy asks.
1t was not a mistake, " his father
replies. 1.-The word means whstI
said too"
1T is queer that it should mean
two such different things How
does it happeni" the boy asks.
Then the fatheF-if he happens to
be the right kind of a father-puts
aside his work and says, Bring me
the dictionary"
The dictionary is brought and
opened to the word, and father and
son devote a few moments to the in
quiry how a single word can have
two meanings apparently so diff
ferent. They find that chatelaine
comes from the French, and was at
first spelled chastelaine, but that the
has disappeared, leaving only a
little footprint in the shape of an
accent over the a. Then it is dis
covered that chatelaine is really a
form of the word castellan, short
form of the Latin word castellauus.
meaning man who is the keeper
or owner of a castellum, or castle.
And then the dictionary says ".
castle, so they turn back tn castle.
They tind that castle comes from
castel or chastel, which is the same
word in a different form that now
appears as chateau, and that il
comes from the Latin castrum,
meaning a camp, while oastrum
comes from casa, the Latin for hut,
word still in the same form in
Italian. "a curious instance of this
word ls seen in the name of the boy
who stood upon the burning deck,
Casabianca, which is simply White
house"). Casa is the same word as
case or oover-that is, covering
from the weather-and that comes
from the Sanskrit root chhad, which
means cover. Also from the
same root come cassock, chasuble
and casino, which, it may sur
prise you to learn, are relatives Of
the chatelaine with which we start
ed. Now when we come to tine
meaning of chatelaine we see that
it meant, at first, the mistress of a
castle-that is, keeper of the keys
to its supplies and stores-the house
keeper or housewife, and that her
name wus applied to the little bunch
of keys carried at her belt, Just as
in English we speak of a house
wife, meaning a little case or box
that contains needles, thread, scis-
sors, thimble, and SO ON. So now
we can see exactly how the same
word can mean a lady who is mis-
tress of a castle and a little con-
trivance for carrying at the belt
keys and other useful things.
After the boy has learned all these
things he turns to his father little
scornfully and says: "Humph! If l
had known you were going TO look
in the dictionary, could have done
that myself" Then if his father
doesn't say, why didn't your" we
ourselves may add that little moral
to the fable.