Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

OED kids

4 views
Skip to first unread message

Django Cat

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 6:41:30 AM2/9/12
to
Feeding kid/kids into Google Translate in German gives me kind/kinder.
This is a good result, as it means the German-speaking EFL students I'm
writing for can latch on the a near cognate. But it's never occured to
me that 'kind' might be the root of 'kid' for a child - (and now I've
mistyped that as 'kin' - there's another one). I always thought goats
were in the equation. Anyone out there with an OED open? Peter?

DC

--

Adam Funk

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 7:06:00 AM2/9/12
to
I'm not Peter, but I've got the OED open. "Kid" (young human) & "kid"
(young goat) are the same word, but the human meaning is much more
recent.

Etymology:

Middle English kide , kede , kid , commonly regarded as < Old Norse
kið (Swedish, Danish kid ) < Germanic *kiðjom , related to German
kitz , kitze from Old High German chizzî , kizzîn < Germanic *kittîn
from originally *kiðnīn .

The final -e of Middle English kĭde is not explicable from Old Norse
kið , but the initial k makes it still more difficult to refer the
word to any Old English type.

Meaning 1a. "The young of a goat" goes back to c1200.

1b. "A young roe-deer during its first year. Obs. So German kitz in
various districts (Bavaria, Tyrol, etc.); cf. Old High German
rêchkizzi, Middle High German rêchkitze.In Turberville (1576),
Manwood (1598), and later writers.", has citatios from 1486 to
1891.

5a. slang "A child, esp. a young child. (Originally low slang,
but by the 19th c. frequent in familiar speech.)" goes back to 1642.


--
By dint of plentiful try...catch constructs throughout our code base,
we are sometimes able to prevent our applications from aborting. We
think of the resultant state as "nailing the corpse in the upright
position". [Verity Stob]

Django Cat

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 7:27:47 AM2/9/12
to
Nice one - thanks.

DC

--

Peter Duncanson (BrE)

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 9:22:30 AM2/9/12
to
On Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:41:30 GMT, "Django Cat" <nota...@address.com>
wrote:
The OED has the child sense of kid in the same article as the goat
sense. The use of kid for a child is much older than I would have
guessed.

Etymology: Middle English kide , kede , kid , commonly regarded as
< Old Norse kiš (Swedish, Danish kid ) < Germanic *kišjom , related
to German kitz , kitze from Old High German chizzī , kizzīn <
Germanic *kittīn from originally *kišni-n .

The final -e of Middle English ki(de is not explicable from Old
Norse kiš , but the initial k makes it still more difficult to refer
the word to any Old English type.

5. slang.
Thesaurus »
Categories »

a. A child, esp. a young child. (Originally low slang, but by the
19th c. frequent in familiar speech.)

[a1642 T. Middleton & W. Rowley Old Law (1656) iii. ii. sig. F4v,
Ime old you say Yes parlous old Kidds and you mark me well.]
1690 T. D'Urfey Collin's Walk iv. 183 At her Back a Kid that
cry'd, Still as she pinch'd it, fast was ty'd.
1719 T. D'Urfey Wit & Mirth II. 193 Send your Kid home to me, I
will take care on 't.
1841 Ld. Shaftesbury Diary 16 Aug. in Life (1886) I. ix. 347
Passed a few days happily with my wife and kids.
1861 W. Morris in J. W. Mackail Life W. Morris (1899) i. 161
Janey and kid are both very well.
1894 E. Lynn Linton One too Many I. vi. 132 The mother cannot
live, and the poor little kid must have gone to the workhouse.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

Django Cat

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 9:33:50 AM2/9/12
to
That /is/ surprising - I'd have guessed it was no older than the 50s -
and possible an AmE import.

DC

--

Adam Funk

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 3:04:07 PM2/9/12
to
On 2012-02-09, Django Cat wrote:

> Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:

>> The OED has the child sense of kid in the same article as the goat
>> sense. The use of kid for a child is much older than I would have
>> guessed.
...
>> 5. slang.
>> Thesaurus »
>> Categories »
>>
>> a. A child, esp. a young child. (Originally low slang, but by the
>> 19th c. frequent in familiar speech.)
>>
>> [a1642 T. Middleton & W. Rowley Old Law (1656) iii. ii. sig.
>> F4v, Ime old you say Yes parlous old Kidds and you mark me well.]
>> 1690 T. D'Urfey Collin's Walk iv. 183 At her Back a Kid that
>> cry'd, Still as she pinch'd it, fast was ty'd.
>> 1719 T. D'Urfey Wit & Mirth II. 193 Send your Kid home to
>> me, I will take care on 't.
>> 1841 Ld. Shaftesbury Diary 16 Aug. in Life (1886) I. ix. 347
>> Passed a few days happily with my wife and kids.
>> 1861 W. Morris in J. W. Mackail Life W. Morris (1899) i. 161
>> Janey and kid are both very well.
>> 1894 E. Lynn Linton One too Many I. vi. 132 The mother cannot
>> live, and the poor little kid must have gone to the workhouse.
>
> That /is/ surprising - I'd have guessed it was no older than the 50s -
> and possible an AmE import.

Ah, well you haven't been mingling enough in low-slang-using circles.
;-)


--
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
chance. [Robert R. Coveyou]

Django Cat

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 3:59:10 PM2/9/12
to
> > That is surprising - I'd have guessed it was no older than the 50s -
> > and possible an AmE import.
>
> Ah, well you haven't been mingling enough in low-slang-using circles.
> ;-)

I haven't been alive long enough more like.

DC

--

John Varela

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 5:09:17 PM2/9/12
to
On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 14:33:50 UTC, "Django Cat" <nota...@address.com>
wrote:
Older than the 50s in my experience, but I believe that it was
considered substandard usage then. Does anyone have an old
dictionary to check?

--
John Varela

Joy Beeson

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 10:27:51 PM2/9/12
to
On 9 Feb 2012 22:09:17 GMT, "John Varela" <newl...@verizon.net>
wrote:

> Older than the 50s in my experience, but I believe that it was
> considered substandard usage then. Does anyone have an old
> dictionary to check?

In the forties, children would respond "I'm not a baby goat!" if
called "kid".

In the sixties, students of children's literature referred to their
field as kiddylit.

--
Joy Beeson, seventy-year-old Hoosier
joy beeson at comcast dot net

Robert Bannister

unread,
Feb 9, 2012, 10:28:14 PM2/9/12
to
I thought it might come from Greek - kitsikas? Something like that.


--
Robert Bannister

Adam Funk

unread,
Feb 13, 2012, 3:20:42 PM2/13/12
to
On 2012-02-09, Django Cat wrote:

> Adam Funk wrote:

>> I'm not Peter, but I've got the OED open. "Kid" (young human) & "kid"
>> (young goat) are the same word, but the human meaning is much more
>> recent.
>>
>> Etymology:
>>
>> Middle English kide , kede , kid , commonly regarded as < Old Norse
>> kið (Swedish, Danish kid ) < Germanic *kiðjom , related to German
>> kitz , kitze from Old High German chizzî , kizzîn < Germanic
>> *kittîn from originally *kiðnīn .
...
> Nice one - thanks.

Going back to the question of whether "kid" & "kind" are cognates:

das Kitz: mittelhochdeutsch kiz, kitze, ahd chizzī(n),
Verkleinerungsform zu einem germanischen Wort mit der Bedeutung
»Tierjunges« und ursprünglich wohl Lockruf

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kitz

das Kind: mittelhochdeutsch kint, althochdeutsch kind, eigentlich =
Gezeugtes, Geborenes, substantiviertes 2. Partizip eines
Verbstammes mit der Bedeutung »gebären, erzeugen«

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Kind

So if English "kid" is cognate with German "Kitz", then it appears not
to be related to de "Kind" (unless I'm misreading the German --- I'm
checking in AUG).


--
Some say the world will end in fire; some say in segfaults.
[XKCD 312]
0 new messages