I ran across the Russian phrase оконные переплеты, which I knew I’d seen before and looked up, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it meant, so I looked it up again. The dictionary said “window-sash.” I put it down, momentarily satisfied, until it came to me that I didn’t know exactly what a window-sash was either. So I looked that up, and Wiktionary told me it was “The opening part (casement) of a window usually containing the glass panes, hinged to the jamb, or sliding up and down as in a sash window.” (There’s a nice illustration labeled “Woman and boy standing at an open sash window.”) The OED (1909 entry, not yet revised) is wordier:
A frame, usually of wood, rebated and fitted with one or more panes of glass forming a window or part of a window; esp. a sliding frame or each of the two sliding frames of a sash window n. Also (? now only U.S.) applied to a casement.
In early use denoting a glazed frame of wood as distinguished from a leaded window, but now usually applied to a sliding frame in contradistinction to a casement. French sash, a French window (see French window n.).
The etymology is interesting:
From sashes, from French châssis (“frame (of a window or door)”), taken as a plural and -s trimmed off by the late 17th century.
The sad thing is that there was a whole discussion of sash windows at LH in 2010 (starting here), but I had entirely forgotten it.
Another nice etymology I ran across while looking up sash: sassy is “A modification of saucy.” (I probably knew that once, too.)
Will googling “saucy chassis” yield any hits, I wonder? Why yes, yes it will. (Not too many and none of them are obviously obscene.)
That reminds me of French salauds chalauds for “shallow bastards”. Clearly “peu profonds” would be pussyfooting the matter.
“When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.”
That may well be the literary context in which I first encountered “sash.”
there was a whole discussion of sash windows at LH in 2010
Ah, before my time. I could have contributed that I have owned two houses with sash windows, and lived in two others. (All in Yorkshire, houses more than a century old by 2010. As Sashura’ said, “an increasing rarity in England”.) Maintaining them needed all sorts of specialist equipment: typically the ‘sash cord’ holding the balance weight would disintegrate, needing locating (under many layers of probably toxic paint) the special panel to get access into the recessed groove it ran in. The workmanship that went into them!
French (casement) windows open inwards because there’s wooden shutters that close from the outside, isn’t it? Needing shelter from the sun is not a requirement in Blighty. Opening outwards wouldn’t have been an option in case(ment) of two of those houses: they fronted direct on to the street.
For the metathesis compare “sashay” from “chassé”.
Oh! Disney windows that regularly slam down on people’s hands or necks! I figured they must exist in reality somewhere…
The metathesis is intriguing. I wonder if it’s a regular sound law, actually.