An etymology for campshed

Coates, Richard

Abstract

The Oxford English Dictionary [OED] defines this word as follows: ‘[a] facing of piles and boarding along the bank of a river, or at the side of an embankment, to protect the bank from the action of the current, or to resist the out-thrust of the embankment.’1 It is recorded from 1471 onwards, and from the late seventeenth century is also found in the form campshot and similar. An older instance may be one noted by Laura Wright: le Campete kaij, recorded in 1333,2 but if this is relevant its form is in need of elucidation. Rather than its being a defective spelling for campshed, Wright suggests it is a ‘spelling for “the campt key”, where <campt> represents the devoicing of “camped”, a back-formation from camp-shide [see below, RC], where -shide was still transparent in meaning and so could be elided, giving a meaning of “the campshed/campshot quay”’. This would evidently make it a relative, not an ancestor, of campshed.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jan 13, 2023
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 1, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 14, 2025
• Journal: Notes and Queries
• Print ISSN: 0029-3970
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-6941
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 70
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjad003
• Keywords: Library and Information Sciences, Literature and Literary Theory, Linguistics and Language, Language and Linguistics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10391919
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/nq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/notesj/gjad003/6987010?login=true