--- title: Words that changed their meaning — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Words that changed their meaning», a lesson of the language course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Words are not frozen: over hundreds of years their meanings drift, like boats slowly carried along by a river, so an old book can use a --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/) / Words that changed their meaning # Words that changed their meaning Lesson 38 of the language course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/0/) — Words are not frozen: over hundreds of years their meanings drift, like boats slowly carried along by a river, so an old book can use a word you know in a way that surprises you. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/1/) — Ella opens a very old book and reads that a man was "silly" because he was happy and blessed; back then "silly" meant blessed, then it drifted to innocent, and only later to foolish. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/2/) — Some words narrow (they come to mean less: "deer" once meant any wild animal), some widen or pick up new jobs (a "mouse" can now sit next to your keyboard), and some go from good to bad or bad to good. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/3/) — New meanings often come from technology, jokes, stories and slang, and the old meaning frequently lives on beside the new one. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/4/) — When something in an old text sounds odd, ask yourself: "Did this word mean something different back then?" - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/5/) — When a word's meaning changes over time, it is called semantic change. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/6/) — "Silly" comes from Old English "sælig", meaning blessed or happy; it later meant innocent, and then foolish. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/7/) — In Middle English "girl" meant any young child, boy or girl; later it narrowed to mean only a female child; narrowing is when a word comes to mean something more specific. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/8/) — Old English "dēor" meant any wild animal, like German "Tier" (animal) today; it narrowed to one kind of animal, the deer, and "hound" once meant any dog, like German "Hund". - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/9/) — Old English "sæd" meant full, as after a big meal; it later came to mean heavy and serious, and then unhappy. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/10/) — "Naughty" comes from "naught", meaning nothing; it first meant having nothing, then wicked, and now mostly a child behaving badly. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/11/) — "Starve" comes from Old English "steorfan", to die, like German "sterben"; it narrowed to die of hunger, and "I'm starving" today usually just means very hungry. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/12/) — Technology gives old words new jobs: a computer mouse, the cloud (online storage), a stream (watching online); the old meanings stay too. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/13/) — "Spam" for junk messages comes from a 1970 Monty Python comedy sketch in which people sing "Spam" over and over, drowning out everything else; Spam is also a brand of tinned meat. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/14/) — "Clue" comes from "clew", a ball of thread; in a Greek myth the hero Theseus used a ball of thread to find his way out of a maze called the labyrinth. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/15/) — In maths and science "random" means by chance; in slang since the 1980s it also means strange or out of place. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/38-words-that-changed-their-meaning/16/) — In the 1500s "bully" meant darling or sweetheart, probably from a Dutch word; it later meant a fine fellow, then a show-off, and then someone who hurts weaker people. - ← previous: [Building words: prefixes, suffixes and compounds](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/37-building-words-prefixes-suffixes-and-compounds/) - next →: [Talking well: politeness, listening and saying sorry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/39-talking-well-politeness-listening-and-saying-sorry/) - ↑ back to [Language](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/)