Like many a Canadian gardener, this old greenthumb is dreaming of spring’s surge, of peated loam awaiting seed, of rock-garden nooks for new alpine plants. As spring creeps reluctantly forward this year across Canada, I’m going to examine the etymology and word lore of some garden words, beginning today with the spruce tree and some fascinating lore about its botanical name and the history of the word spruce. Spruce belongs to the plant group that botanists have called Pinaceae, the pine family. The genus name of spruce is Picea from the Latin name for the pitch pine, picea stems from pix, picis Latin for black sticky pitch that the Romans made by boiling down pine resin. Cognates, related words, of pix are the Greek word for pine tree pitys, the Attic Greek for pitch pitta, and perhaps the Old English pich. All these forms stem from a Proto-Indo-European root *pi or *pa which denoted fat, grease, gum, resin, sticky material. One extension of *pi gives pine tree.
For those of us who think the monogenesis of all world languages may be true, you can even find the *pi ‘fat’ root in the Latin adjective pinguis ‘fat,’ in Homer’s Greek word for ‘fat’ pion, and in the Classical Greek word for ‘lard’ pimele. The Latin adjective pinguis has several rare descendants in English. Pinguid is a synonym for fat or greasy. The generic name of the swamp-loving butterwort plant is Pinguicula ‘little fat one.’ Pinguefy means to fatten up, to make greasy. In this age of obesity, perhaps these words will cease to be obsolescent and gain new use.
Here is a butterwort, Pinguicula vulgaris. Butterworts capture and digest insects in a manner similar to sundews. Their leaves have a greasy, sticky feel, like butter. Some varieties curl the edges of their leaves in response to capturing an insect with the sticky glue. Note how close the Classical Greek word pimele is to the North American Cree word for ‘prepared fat’ pemmican. The Cree word for fat is pime. Kan means ‘prepared’ in Cree, hence pime-kan is ‘prepared fat.’ It is my contention that the same root shows up in Chinese! The PIE root *pin or *pim becomes nasalized in Chinese as feng, one of the Chinese terms for ‘fat.’ The single origin for all of the world’s languages is an exciting and controversial topic we shall save for another day. However, if any readers have thoughts or suggestions about it, please send me an email to canadiansayings@mountaincable.net
Here a Plains First Nations woman spreads drying Saskatoon berries, used as an ingredient in pemmican. Image source: National Archives of Canada / PA-44566 Just what was pemmican? Buffalo meat was beaten with a pemmican-pounder, mixed with fat and cran-berries or saskatoons or any available berry, and then sewn as a hard ball into a pemmican bag made of skin. Pemmican had a shelf life that would make any modern food-packaging company green with envy. It lasted forever and supplied iron and protein on the longest, remotest trips through the wilderness. Canada ’s fur trade, and hence the opening-up of the country itself, was absolutely dependent on pemmican. There were, of course, variations in the ingredients, hence names like deer or moose pemmican. Tight in its bag, pemmican would keep even if dumped overboard from a canoe. * * * I’m going to use two symbols more often on this site, starting today. What do < and > mean in linguistic descriptions? Linguistics has borrowed these two arithmetical operator signs. As a mathematical symbol > means ‘greater than’ and < means ‘less than.’ But in language study, > means ‘develops into, is the root of.’ And < means ‘stems from, derives from, is related to.’ The French word for spruce tree is l’épinette ‘little fir needle’ < diminutive of épine ‘spine, fir needle’ < spina Latin ‘ spine, prickle.’ The earliest use of épinette to mean spruce tree is a document of la Nouvelle France dated 1664. Root beer in Québec is le bière d’épinette literally ‘spruce beer.’ From Prussian to Spiffy: the Word Lore of Spruce This next passage is complex and tricky, so you may wish to read it twice. Borussia was the first Baltic or Slavic name for East Prussia . In German Borussia became Preussen, in medieval Latin Prussia, in Middle English by 1386 Chaucer writes Pruce, borrowing it from Norman French Pruce, a variant spelling of la Prusse, Prussia.
Very soon after Pruce was borrowed into Middle English, the initial and still mysterious s was added to get the word spruce. This additional form with initial s appears very early in English documents, by 1378. On the other hand, the first documented use of Pruce in the form Pruz is about a century earlier, on a ship’s bill of lading written in England around 1300 in anglicized Norman French: “Dec. de stokfisshe venaunt del Pruz, quart” which may be translated ‘about a hundred Prussian stockfish, in good condition.’ So Pruce and Spruce both meant Prussia in early English. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Spruce was completely replaced as the name of the country by Prussia . By then however spruce was firmly established as the name of a fir tree. As an adjective and a verb it also still carried its meaning of dressed-up and to dress up.
The Blue Spruce, commonly used as a Christmas tree in North America, is the state tree of both Colorado and Utah. How did these ‘tree’ and ‘dressed-up’ meanings come to be? Well, some of the Prussian species of fir trees were thought to be the most elegantly formed, with the straightest trunks of all evergreen conifers, the best of trees for use as the masts of British ships.
The British were also partial to chests made of various Prussian fir wood. Let’s eavesdrop on three last wills and testaments. From 1493: “I beqwethe to Anneys my doughter a litell spruce forcer.” A forcer was a chest. From 1522: “I bequeathe to my said Wyffe. . .a spruse coffer.” For over three hundred years Brits were mad-keen for any garment made of Prussian leather, the material being particularly desired for vests and overwear. Another will from 1597 leaves “my best gowne and a spruce jerkyn.”
A jerkin is a waist-length vest, a sleeveless garment that was worn over a shirt or doublet. During the 16th and 17th centuries a jerkin was made of leather or fabrics like wool and heavy linen, quilted and modestly decorated. In A Briefe Description of the Whole Worlde (1599), George Abbot wrote “the English do. . . bring from thence a kinde of leather, which was wont to be used in Jerkins, and called by the name of Spruce-Leather-Jerkins.” A writer in 1606 envies “the sprewsest Citie-lads” for their foppish finery. The most famous English dandy or fop was George Bryan (1778-1840) known as “Beau” Brummel, shown below in a contemporary watercolor.
In 1609 dramatist Thomas Dekker writes of “the neatest and sprucest leather.” It is not far from such usage to persons sprucing up before going out for the evening, or sprucing up the cottage for the weekend. Part 2 discusses species of spruce & uses such as spruce tea and spruce beer.
©2005 William Gordon Casselman ................................................................................ If you enjoyed this, sample more from my book Canadian Garden Words.
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