Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-08-18
THE WORD CHATELAINE.
Something About the Derivation and Mean
ings of the Word.

ings of the Word.
Tudor jerks writes about Refer
ence Books" in st. Nicholas. Mr..
jerks says: Suppose little boy is
reading story and he comes to
the word chatelaine. 1t may seem
to him an interesting bit of Ian
guage. He thinks he would like to
know what it means. Consequently
he shuts his book, keeping his finger
in the place, and runs down stairs
to where his father is busy in the
study preparing a speech upon the
coming school election. Father"
he says, what is chatelaine9''
We will suppose that his father is
a man who has sufficient informa-
ton to give a general answer to the
question.
ga chatelaine, he may say, is
the lady who is the presiding mis-
tress of castle.
The boy opens his book and reads
again the sentence in which he
found the word. Then he giggles
"That can't be right" he says,
"for here it speaks of q lady who
hung a chatelaine to her belt. Be-
sides, it says that the chatelaine
was made OF hammered silver, so it
can't be a lady who is mistress of a
castle"
cob, /" his father replies, "that is
different. There the word means a
little continuance ladies wear at
their belts to hold chains from
! which they suspend keys and tab
lets, pin boxes and such things
"Then how did you come to make
such mistakes" the boy asks.
1t was not mistake, his father
| replies. "The word means what 1
said too"
Tits queer that it should mean
two such different things. How
does it happenS" the boy asks.
Then the father-if he happens to
be the right kind of a father-puts
aside his work and Gays, Bring me
the dictionary
The dictionary is brought and
opened to the word, and father and
son devote few moments to the in
quiry how 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
s 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 castelar,, short
form of the Latin word castellanus,
meaning man who is the keeper
OF owner of a castellum, or castle.
And then the dictionary says "v.
castle, SO they turn back to castle.
They find that castle comes from
castel or chastel, which is the same
word in q different form that now
appears as chateau, and that il
comes from the Latin castrum,
meaning a camp, while castrum
comes from casa, the Latin for hut,
word still in the same form in
Italian. CA curious instance of this
word is 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 cover--that is, a covering
I from the weather-and that comes
from the Sanskrit root chhad, which
means a 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 the
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 was 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 ]
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 you?' we
ourselves may add that little moral
to the fable.