accidentally killed _hyppish_; for the word _hipped_ was used of a horse
lamed in the hip, and alongside of this _hipped_, and maybe attracted by
it, an adjective _hypt_ arose. When once _hyp_ and _hypt_ were confounded
with _hip_ and _hipped_, _hyppish_ would suffer and lose definition. But
_hypt_ and _hipped_ combined forces, and were probably even from the first
in their present uncertain condition, for when nowadays a man says that he
is _hipped_, he has no definite notion of what he means except that he is
in some way, either in his loins or mind incapacitated and out of sorts.
Whether _hypt_ and _hipped_ have mortally wounded each other or are still
fighting in the dark may be open to discussion: _hyppish_ has now a fair
field, and if people would know what the word means, it might be restored,
like _nesh_, to useful domestic activity.

6. The example given of the word _fast_ on p. 12 suggests another matter
to which attention might be paid. If one looks up any word in the Oxford
Dictionary, one will be almost distressed to see how various the
significations are to which it is authoritatively susceptible. A word
seems to behave like an animal that goes skirting about discontentedly, in
search of a more congenial habitation. It is sometimes successful, and
meets with surprising welcome in some strange corner where it establishes
itself, forgetful of its old home: sometimes, like the bad spirit in the
gospel, it will return to the house whence it came forth. It is, of
course, natural and essential to a living language that such shades and
varieties of meaning should evolve themselves, although they are
incidentally a source of ambiguity and subtle traps for careless logic;
but when these varieties so diverge as to arrive ultimately at absurdities
and contradictions, then it is advisable to get rid of them. In such
extreme cases the surgeon's knife may sometimes save life; it is the only
cure; and _to use a word in a deforming or deformed sense should be
condemned as a solecism_. Contributions, stating examples of this with the