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WAINSCOT,
panelled boards on the walls of rooms. (Du.) In Shak. As You
Like It, iii. 3. 88. Applied to any kind of panelled
work. I find: 'a tabyll of waynskott with to [two]
joynyd trestellis;' Bury Wills, ed. Tymms, p. 115, in a will dated 1522; also 'a
rownde tabyll of waynskott with lok and key,' id., p. 116; also 'a brode
cheste of wayneskott,' id. p. 117. Still earlier, I find waynskot
in what appears to be a list of imports; Arnold's Chron. (1502), ed. 1811, p.
236, l. 4. Hackluyt even retains something of the Du. spelling,
where he speaks of 'boords [boards] called waghenscot;' Voyages, i. 173.—Du.
wagen-schot, 'wainscot;' Hexham. Low G. wagenschot,
the best kind of oak-wood, well-grained and without knots. Cf. Low
G. bökenschot, the best kind of beech-wood, without knots (in which the
former part of the word is Low G. böken, beechen, adj. formed from
book, a
beech. (We must here remark that E. wainscot, in the building trade,
is applied to the best kind of oak-timber only, used for panelling because it
would not 'cast' or warp; see Wainscot in Trench, Select Glossary.)
β. [The rest of this article is wrong, being founded on a misconception; for the
correct account, see Addenda.] The use of wainscot was not, originally, for walls, as may easily appear on investigation; and, phonetically,
the A. S. wáh became woghe or wowe in M. E., in which the resemblance to
wainscot does not extend beyond the letter w. Besides, the word is
Dutch, in which language the old equivalent of A. S. wáh was O. Du.
weegh (E.
Müller). γ. A glance at Hexham's Du. Dict. will shew 24 compounds
beginning with wagen-, in which wagen = E. wain; so also Low G.
wage means 'a
wain' or waggon. The Du. schot (like E. shot) has numerous senses,
of which one is 'a closure of boards,' Hexham. It also meant 'a
shott, a cast, or a throwe, the flowre of meale, revenue or rent, gaine or
money, a shot or score to pay for any things,' id. Sewel also
explains schot by 'a wainscot, partition, a stop put to anything, the pace (of a
ship), a hogs-sty.' We may also remember that Du. wagen means a
carriage or coach as well as a waggon. δ. The orig. sense would
appear to be wood used for a board or partition in a coach or waggon, which
seems to have been selected of the best quality; thence it came to mean boards
for panel-work, and lastly, panelling for walls, esp. oak-panelling, once so
much in vogue. ε. As to the etymology, there can be no doubt; the
Du. wagen is cognate with E. wain; and the Du. schot is cognate with E.
shot,
used in many senses. Thus wain-scot is exactly composed of the Du.
equivalents of E. wain and E. shot. See Wain and
Shot.
¶
Sewel does indeed explain Du. weeg by 'wainscot,' but this is an equivalent
meaning, not an etymology; he also explains weeg by 'houte wand,' i.e. wooden
wall, without meaning that weeg is the same word as wand. The O.
Friesic word for 'wall' is wach (Richtofen). Der. wainscot, verb. [※]
ERRATA The earliest example of the use of the word is in the Liber Albus, p. 238, where
it is spelt weynscotte. In a number of Taalstudie, 1883, p.
65, kindly sent me from Amsterdam, there is an elaborate article (in English) on
this word by J. B. Vinckers, of Kampen, dated Oct. 7, 1882. The
author proves, carefully and conclusively, that the derivation which I have
given (from Du. wagen) is practically wrong, and that the derivation
(from Du. weeg), which I have rejected, is really the true
one. The whole argument turns upon the fact (hitherto unknown to me)
that the Du. form wagenschot is an accommodated one, due to a popular
etymology which misunderstood a word of which the former half had become
obsolete. The E. wainscot is borrowed, as shewn, from Du. wagenschot,
in which wagen seemed to mean 'waggon'; but, as a fact, the n has
been inserted, and the true old form was waeghe-schot; both of these
forms are given by Kilian. But waeghe is from O. Du. waeg,
another form of weeg, a wall; see Ten Kate, Aenleiding, ii.
507. Ten Kate not only gives waeg-luis, weeg-luis, a bug,
lit. 'wall-louse,' but distinctly points out the origin of the Du. wageschot
(as he spells the word). 'Dutch shipwrights (says Herr Vinckers)
still use a very remarkable term wageren, meaning "to cover the
inside of a ship with boards," from which is derived the pl. noun wageringen,
the inside boards, i.e. exactly the wand-schot or wagen-schot of a
ship.' He further instances the parallel term seen in A. S. wah-þiling,
lit. 'wall-planking.' Hence the etymology must be amended
accordingly. The Du. wagenschot is a substitution for O. Du.
wageschot or rather waegheschot, from O. Du. waeg, a wall, and
schot, a wooden
covering, panelling of boards. β. The O. Du. waeg is closely related
to A. S. wah a (wooden) wall, also written wag, waeg (gen. wages), and Icel.
veggr, a wall, whence vegg-þili, wainscoting. These words are
connected by Fick with
✔WA, to bind; iii. 302. To the same root
we may refer E. wattle and Goth. waddjus, a wall, orig. wattled
work. γ. The above etymology is proved by the existence of a
parallel O. Du. form wandschot, from wand, a wall; and it is remarkable that
this wand is derived from wand (mod. Du. wond ), pt. t. of
winden, to wind; from
the same notion of wattled work. δ. The whole difficulty arises from
the insertion of an unoriginal n, which can be accounted for only as being due to
popular etymology, and in no other way. Disguised words of this
character are extremely deceptive.
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