Charger, charge
Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2012 11:48 pm
My wife added to the decorations today by setting the plates on chargers, large dishlike things that extend three or four inches around the plates. I got to thinking we also call those things we plug cell phones into "chargers," and likewise the word applies to prancing horses, especially military ones.
Then I looked up charge in our online dictionaries here and found 17 definitions for its use as a verb, and 15 as a noun! The etymologies all go through old English to French meaning to load. The word to me is fascinating for its wide variety of usage. I can't help but wonder whether it is indeed only one word with one derivation. And btw, my original thought about the big plate as a charger is declared obsolete by two dictionaries. I'm old, but that old?
Then I looked up charge in our online dictionaries here and found 17 definitions for its use as a verb, and 15 as a noun! The etymologies all go through old English to French meaning to load. The word to me is fascinating for its wide variety of usage. I can't help but wonder whether it is indeed only one word with one derivation. And btw, my original thought about the big plate as a charger is declared obsolete by two dictionaries. I'm old, but that old?