My wife wondered where the word dotard was from, so I investigated; of course it’s derived from the verb dote, originally (per the OED) ‘To act or talk foolishly, stupidly, or irrationally; to have lost control of one’s mental faculties,’ but where was that from? The OED entry (revised 2019) has one of those nice discursive etymologies:
Either (i) < Middle Dutch doten, to be deranged, to become light-headed, dutten to rage (early modern Dutch doten, dutten (1588 in Kiliaan)), cognate with Middle Low German (rare) dōten to be out of one’s mind (rare), further etymology uncertain (see note),
or perhaps (ii) the reflex of an unattested Old English verb possibly related to these.
Notes
It is unclear whether Dutch dutten ‘to take a nap’ (c1599) shows the same word as Middle Dutch doten, dutten. Compare also Middle High German totzen to take a nap, Icelandic dotta to nod from sleep. If the two Dutch verbs do show the same origin, the likelihood is that they are < the same Germanic base as theoten [“To howl”] v.
Compare also Old French, Middle French, French radoter to become childish or senile (late 12th cent.), to waffle (1613), a remodelling (after prefixed verbs in ra-) of Old French redoter to become childish or senile (c1100; < re- re- prefix + an unattested simplex verb *doter ‘to rave, to be out of one’s mind’, either directly < Middle Dutch doten or < its Germanic base).
With the β forms compare doited adj. [“Foolish, crazy; (also) having one’s mental faculties impaired, esp. by old age”] and discussion at that entry [“Apparently a variant or alteration of doted adj.¹, although the quality of the stem vowel (which is a true diphthong and not a digraphic representation of long ō) is difficult to account for; perhaps after doiled adj. (although this is first attested slightly later)”].
(There was a brief mention of dotard here in 2018.) I find that “perhaps the reflex of an unattested Old English verb possibly related to these” somewhat odd; do they do that sort of thing often?
The exact phrase “reflex of an unattested Old English verb” occurs in 21 etymologies there, suggesting it was somebody’s thing.
Interesting because I always thought of the phrase “to dote on someone” as bringing to mind grandparents spoiling their grandchildren, but here I see it suggests an infatuation that implies one has lost one’s mind.
“Fond” similarly originated in a word implying stupidity.
The English are an unromantic people …
Indeed, from my favorite prayer in Titus Andronicus:
Grant I should never be so fond
As to trust man on his oath or bond
The unromantic aspect of the English must have come from the Romans.
Titus Andronicus, certainly, is short on the romance. Not a date movie. As it were.
Though it may have been the inspiration for Great British Bake Off.
“Dotage” must diachronically derive from “dote” rather than the other way ’round, but it displays the relevant unromantic sense more clearly.
I immediately thought of the noun forms dote and doaty in Ulysses (of course):
Ulysses also has dotty, Dottyville, and dotard.
DE:
“Fond” similarly originated in a word implying stupidity.
Compare dotty and of course the vicissitudes of silly. And, at least as germanely, being crazy about something or someone.
i’m pretty sure that i first saw julie taymor’s Titus on a date. not for the romance, though; for the spectacle.
I fell in love with the word “dotard” after the North Koreans used it to describe Trump in 2017 and again in 2019.
Just preceding “dotage” comes the anecdotage.
The North Korean regime has more recently called Pres. Biden a “person in his dotage,” showing what I guess you could call a commendably non-partisan attitude toward U.S. politics. I am vaguely curious as to whether a different (and more rambling) phrase was used in Korean than that previously used for Pres. Trump and translated “dotard” or if the underlying Korean was the same and there was some “elegant variation” on the part of the translator(s).
https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-nuclear-threat-biden-yoon-caf8762465268a3d5fc3739593efeaf6
@Noetica
I think the Hiberno-Irish dote (or at least doaty) might be related to the Irish dalta (daltach would correspond to “doaty”). The Irish word was already used in Middle Irish as a term of endearment. The etymology given by eDil = do+ aite, where aite is ex Lat. alumnus
…if the underlying Korean was the same and there was some “elegant variation” on the part of the translator(s)
They jumped on “person first” bandwagon.
dote and doty remain current in Ireland. Diarmuid O Muirithe in 2013:
My grandmother, six years younger than Nora Barnacle, was “Auntie Doty” to my father’s cousins. Her real name was not Dorothy or any such like; all the girls had Lily-Lolly nicknames, a symptom of the endemic Joycean Catholic Victwardian genteelity that somehow triggered and was subsumed by republican revolution.
In Appalachian English, “doted” or “doty” means rotten, of a log or tooth (something supposed to be hard). Montgomery derives the “dotage”-related meaning from this.
PlasticPaddy wrote, in response to my comment about dot* forms in Ulysses:
I think the Hiberno-Irish dote (or at least doaty) might be related to the Irish dalta (daltach would correspond to “doaty”). The Irish word was already used in Middle Irish as a term of endearment. The etymology given by eDil = do+ aite, where aite is ex Lat. alumnus
Interesting indeed. OED at etymology for “dotey” has “perhaps compare dautie n.” For that (which OED marks as “Scottish English”) we are given this definition: “A person caressed or indulged; a darling, pet, favourite.” And OED’s etymology for this (along with the variant dawtie):
And the etymology for the verb daut or dawt (“transitive. To pet, fondle, caress, make much of. Also absol.“):
And for the familiar verb daunt we have this meaning (linked from the above, and under the broader rubric “II. † To dandle.”):
Mollymooly:
My grandmother, six years younger than Nora Barnacle, was “Auntie Doty” to my father’s cousins.
Strengthening the general impression of tangled and converging etymologies, for the dot[t]* or daut* words. (I had an Auntie Dot/Dorothy.)
Rodger C:
In Appalachian English, “doted” or “doty” means rotten, of a log or tooth (something supposed to be hard). Montgomery derives the “dotage”-related meaning from this.
That sense is recorded in OED also. At “dote n³”: “Decay or rot in a tree or timber. 1874–”, from “dote v²”: “intransitive. Of a tree, etc.: to decay, rot. ? 1440–1883″, with this etymology:
Dod and doddery, now. In the words of Jackie Mason, “Wow, is it busy here!“
How long till the contemporary ‘simp’ loses it’s negative connotations in the same way?
As Lear says to the young lady before him:
Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less.
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man.
Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is, and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments. Nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.
As often in the Poet, we have an ambiguity. Lear is once again fond (in the modern sense) of Cordelia, having lost the fondness (insanity) which has possessed him since Cordelia’s “Nothing, my lord.”
I took a notion at the weekend to look up treasure trove (while watching a programme about Sutton Hoo), and it turns out to be basically treasure trouvée, found treasure, which I hadn’t realised. So I suppose that’s another one for the ‘court martial’ list, although I don’t think you could have treasures trove…
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