March 6, 2014

mental capacity, art, science (1903)

A very interesting knowledge-word is English craft ("skill, ability, trade") which in Middle English signified "might, power, ability, art, craft, deceit" – and the corresponding M. H. G. adjective crafi, "skillful, sly," our crafty, "cunning, sly." The cognate Modern High German word Kraft signifies, like Dutch Kracht and Danish kraft, "power, strength, force of an army, multitude, abundance" and the Anglo-Saxon craeft, besides these, meant also "mental capacity, art, science." The final etymology of craft is doubtful, but Skeat suggests kinship with cramp, and derivation from the Teutonic krap, "to draw forcibly together." If this etymology be true, it is curious that the verb "to cram" is cognate. Craft is evidently a word which has undergone, as Kluge points out, specialisation within the mental sphere, the English crafty being the latest development.

Alexander F. Chamberlin (1903)