CRONE-Meaning and origin?
Brian J Goggin
On Thu, 23 Jan 1997 09:22:42 -0500, Wade Lippman
<tol...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>Yesterday a woman told me she hoped to be a crone. I thought it odd
>that someone would want to be an old witchlike woman. She said the
>ancient meaning was "wise-woman", and that the meaning had been
>deliberately distorted to denigrate women.
>I looked it up in my 25 year old dictionary; it confirmed my definition,
>and gave the origin as a middle Dutch word meaning dead body.
>Is there any truth to her claim, or is it fanciful nonsence?
>
>I looked on the web, and crone seems to be a popular feminist term. I
>figure it might be a case of the oppressed adopting a term of derision,
>like "Yankee Doodle Dandy", or "Nigger".
The OED says
"In the sense _old ewe' the word appears to be related to early
mod.Du. kronje, karonje, _adasia, ouis vetula, rejecula' (Kilian),
believed to be the same word as karonje, kronje, MDu. caroonje,
croonje carcass, a. NFr. carogne carcass: see carrion. As applied to a
woman, it may be an Eng. transferred application of _old ewe' (though
the evidence for the latter does not yet carry it back so early); but
it was more probably taken directly from ONF. carogne (Picard carone,
Walloon coronie) _a cantankerous or mischievous woman', cited by
Littré from 14th c. App. rare in the 18th c., till revived by Southey,
Scott, and their contemporaries."
The meanings given are
1. A withered old woman (Rarely applied to a worn-out old man.)
2. An old ewe; a sheep whose teeth are broken off. Also crone sheep.
bjg
Gwen Lenker
Brian J Goggin <b...@wordwrights.ie> wrote in article
<32e79eae...@news.eunet.ie>...
[snip]
> it was more probably taken directly from ONF. carogne (Picard carone,
> Walloon coronie) _a cantankerous or mischievous woman', cited by
> Littré from 14th c. App. rare in the 18th c., till revived by Southey,
> Scott, and their contemporaries."
A peek into alt.support.menopause seems to confirm this definition as
particularly apt.
Wade Lippman
Yesterday a woman told me she hoped to be a crone. I thought it odd
that someone would want to be an old witchlike woman. She said the
ancient meaning was "wise-woman", and that the meaning had been
deliberately distorted to denigrate women.
I looked it up in my 25 year old dictionary; it confirmed my definition,
and gave the origin as a middle Dutch word meaning dead body.
Is there any truth to her claim, or is it fanciful nonsence?
I looked on the web, and crone seems to be a popular feminist term. I
figure it might be a case of the oppressed adopting a term of derision,
like "Yankee Doodle Dandy", or "Nigger".
Thanks.
Bill Shatzer
In a previous article, tol...@frontiernet.net (Wade Lippman) says:
>Yesterday a woman told me she hoped to be a crone. I thought it odd
>that someone would want to be an old witchlike woman. She said the
>ancient meaning was "wise-woman", and that the meaning had been
>deliberately distorted to denigrate women.
>I looked it up in my 25 year old dictionary; it confirmed my definition,
>and gave the origin as a middle Dutch word meaning dead body.
>Is there any truth to her claim, or is it fanciful nonsence?
>
>I looked on the web, and crone seems to be a popular feminist term.
-snips-
Ya' gotta be careful about getting your etymologies from folks of the
feminist persuation. Surely you remember the campaign of a couple
years back to coin the word "herstory" as substitute for "history"
based on a complete misunderstanding of the etymology of "history".
Cheers,
--
- Bill Shatzer bsha...@orednet.org -
"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to
old ladies."
Copy Desk
In pagan circles, and I confess I haven't checked beyond that, the
explanation is that crone originally meant wise woman, one skilled in the
use of herbal medicine. As these women often had important religious
positions in pre-Christian European societies, they became targets when the
great conversion waves began.
Crone became synonymous with witch.
t.i.a.
djs
--
_______________________________________
And don´t look at me in that tone of voice!
http://www.xs4all.nl/~dsuchard
Wade Lippman <tol...@frontiernet.net> wrote in article
<32E774...@frontiernet.net>...
> Yesterday a woman told me she hoped to be a crone. I thought it odd
> that someone would want to be an old witchlike woman. She said the
> ancient meaning was "wise-woman", and that the meaning had been
> deliberately distorted to denigrate women.
> I looked it up in my 25 year old dictionary; it confirmed my definition,
> and gave the origin as a middle Dutch word meaning dead body.
> Is there any truth to her claim, or is it fanciful nonsence?
>
Lars Eighner
In article <5cbhjr$3...@ednet2.orednet.org>,
bsha...@orednet.org (Bill Shatzer) wrote:
|Ya' gotta be careful about getting your etymologies from folks of the
|feminist persuation. Surely you remember the campaign of a couple
|years back to coin the word "herstory" as substitute for "history"
|based on a complete misunderstanding of the etymology of "history".
"Herstory" was introduced with very conscious irony, at least in
this part of the world, in the early 1970s. It was nearly ten
years before I met women who really believed, from explainations
of the word "herstory," that "history" had been "his + story." It
isn't is the first time irony has gone wrong.
--
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= (210)979-7124 = San Antonio TX 78231 ===== alt.books.lars-eighner ========
= eig...@aperion.com ====================== now at better ISPs everywhere =
= http://www.io.com/~eighner = http://www.aperion.com === eig...@io.com ===
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
>>Yesterday a woman told me she hoped to be a crone....She said the
>>ancient meaning was "wise-woman", and that the meaning had been
>>deliberately distorted to denigrate women.
Let me once again put on my ill-fitting sociologist hat, and speculate that
actually it is the feminists who are doing the distorting, ameliorating the
sense, taking over, as is not unusual, a derisive word and wearing it as a
badge of pride. And might I further suggest that their basis for doing so,
consciously or not, is their recognition that we all, with any luck, get older.
We men, in general, remain blissfully unaware of this fact, and consider
ourselves as virile, attractive, and athletic as ever until one day we hurt
ourselves. But we do not so often allow women this "luxury"; we make it
constantly clear that the marks of attractiveness and desirability in women are
the marks of youth. Some women deal with this by going into denial or by
enlisting the aid of plastic surgeons in resisting the inevitable. But this
woman seems to have decided to accept the inevitable; to contest the notion
that desirability=youth; and to look for the positives in growing old, among
which, often, is the accumulation of wisdom.
The shift in meaning might be likened to the status of the word "nerd". This
was universally a pejorative term, until it was realized that, although indeed
nerds may have execrable social skills, they are not unlikely to turn out
somewhere on the continuum from high-income to obscene-wealth.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Roots
>Surely you remember the campaign of a couple
> years back to coin the word "herstory" as substitute for "history"
> based on a complete misunderstanding of the etymology of "history".
I've run into the same misunderstanding with "manual labour".
TsuiDF
Which surely means, "He's from Barcelona."
Stephanie M. in HK
Earle D. Jones
In article <32EC31...@netvigator.com>, TsuiDF <s...@netvigator.com> wrote:
>Roots wrote:
>>
======clippit======
A *crone* is a Japanese copy of some object.
earle
=====
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__/\_\
/\_\/_/
\/_/\_\ earle
\/_/ jones
Daan Sandee
In article <01bc0ba5$81b28140$2b85...@muldrew.nbnet.nb.ca> "Roots" <!mul...@nbnet.nb.ca> writes:
>
> >Surely you remember the campaign of a couple
>> years back to coin the word "herstory" as substitute for "history"
>> based on a complete misunderstanding of the etymology of "history".
>
>I've run into the same misunderstanding with "manual labour".
And the more obvious folk etymology of "emancipation."
Warning, horrible OSism follows : people objecting against "man csh" and
wanting it replaced with "fem csh."
True-life story : German indefinite pronoun "man" being replaced by "frau."
By some feminists, not because of false etymology, but to make a point.
Daan Sandee
Burlington, MA Use this email address: sandee (at) east . sun . com
James Cookson et Karin Montin, s.e.n.c.
See Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology for the original use of Crone in the feminist
sense and etymology, bogus or not. She also followed up with the Feminist
Wickedary if you like that kind of thing.
Christian Weisgerber
[F'up2 alt.usage.german]
san...@sun.nospam (Daan Sandee) writes:
> True-life story : German indefinite pronoun "man" being replaced by "frau."
> By some feminists, not because of false etymology, but to make a point.
Some people also think it's cool to replace "man" with "mensch".
--
Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber na...@mips.pfalz.de
See another pointless homepage at <URL:http://home.pages.de/~naddy/>.
-- currently reading: A.E. van Vogt, The Voyage of the Space Beagle --
Susan C. Mitchell
James Cookson et Karin Montin, s.e.n.c. <jc...@aei.ca> wrote:
: See Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology for the original use of Crone in the feminist
: Wickedary if you like that kind of thing.
I think you mean the Websters' New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English
Language. Fun to read, if you regard etymology as a creative art. (And
yes, the apostrophe up there is *exactly* where it should be.)
Think globally, act locally.
Susan
--
================== NEW ADDRESS: sus...@primenet.com ==================
"Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer | "sus...@xroads.com"
dangerous. I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, | is no longer valid.
desperado." -- Harlan Ellison |
Raymot
In article <01bc0976$d6dc8b60$55d72299@default>, gale...@msn.com says...
Now, that's not nice, Gwen. Anyhow, I always assumed that
menopause preceded cronedom.
In the modern Wiccan movement, there is apparently a resurrection
of the concept of "wise-woman", and the term "crone" has been
adopted by some as a badge of honour.
The "crone", of course, is the third stage of womanhood, represented
by Hecate in the Diana/Selene/Hecate (virgin/mature woman/crone)
triple moon-goddess. In her capacity as waning-moon goddess, Hecate
(with all that annoying women's business out of the way) can
concentrate solely on wisdom.
Of course, in pragmatic terms, she is a High Priestess who has
passed her use-by date as a symbolic fertility Goddess in coven
ritual, such as the bearing of the new Sun-king each Summer
Solstice. I think it's in the interests of coven harmony for such
a woman to pass to the next stage of the cycle, acknowledged
as the "crone", the "wise-woman", an "elder".
I don't think the etymology of "crone" supports this usage, but
my experience of witches leads me to believe that a fidelity to
etymology is not their primary virtue.
Raymot
=======
Brisbane, Australia
rmot...@powerup.com.au
http://www.powerup.com.au/~rmottare/
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