Re: CHAT: Lost (was: Azurian.)
| From: | Alex Fink <a4pq1injbok_0@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Thursday, August 9, 2007, 21:23 |
|---|
On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 23:20:05 -0500, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>
wrote:
>On Aug 8, 2007, at 12:33 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>> A quick scan through /usr/dict/words, leaving out compounds with
>> -frost, -most. -post and so on, finds 14 -ost words, exactly split 7-7
>> between short and long O:
>
>I keep thinking there's a word I know of that ends in -most but which
>doesn't actually come from compounding with the word most, but I
>can't seem to think what it is. (As I recall, it originally ended in -
>mest, which consisted of the final -m of the root and the superlative
>morpheme -est, but was later remodeled by analogy to <most>.)
Sounds like _foremost_. http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=foremost says
| O.E. fyrmest "earliest, first, most prominent," from P.Gmc. *formo-
| (related to O.E. fruma "beginning"), superl. of the root of Eng. fore +
| additional superl. suffix -est. Cf. O.Fris. formest, Goth. frumists.
| Altered on the assumption that it is a compound of fore and most.
Alex
Replies