Definition:
As defined by C.S. Lewis in Studies of Words (see below), a word that assigns "a type of character or behavior" to a person's legal, social, or economic rank or status.
See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Words which originally referred to a person's rank . . . have a tendency to become words which assign a type of character or behaviour. Those implying superior status can become terms of praise; those implying inferior status, terms of disapproval. Chivalrous, courteous, frank, generous, gentle, liberal, and noble are examples of the first; ignoble, villain, and vulgar, of the second."
(C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960) - "[T]he breakdown of feudalism intensified the process of deterioration in words applied to those of lower station. Service, being no longer an obligation, became a disgrace. . . . The process is continued in the deterioration of servile from c.1526, and of obsequious from c.1602. (Both words had previously had neutral senses of the kind [Samuel] Johnson recorded in his definition of obsequious as 'obedient; compliant, not resisting.')
"On the other side of the coin, the spirit of free-enterprise capitalism, which in large measure led to the breakdown of feudalism, contributed to the amelioration of free, frank. liberal and generous by stressing magnanimity in material terms as 'bounty' or 'munificence.' ('Free' has this sense of personal generosity recorded from c.1300; liberal from c.1387; frank from c.1484 and generous from c.1623.)
"That moral worth and social status are inextricably intertwined in the idiom of English should not come as a surprise to anyone who has reflected, even casually, on the numerous phrases involving high, great, low and base."
(Geoffrey Hughes, Words in Time. Basil Blackwell, 1988) - "Some roots and words are better 'social climbers' than others--from a neutral, or even negative original meaning they have attained an improved 'social' status. Instances of this type of semantic shift are not as frequent as instances of pejoration; for some reason words are more likely to lose their status and respectability in the language than to 'go up in the world.' Note the social unacceptability, or near unacceptability, of poor, cripple, idiot, stewardess--we have replaced them with underprivileged, disabled, mentally challenged, flight attendant. However, examples of amelioration do exist, as the more recent uses of the adjectives hopping, designer, and cool testify."
(Robert P. Stockwell and Donka Minkova, English Words: History and Structure. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001)
