HANDSOME

Evening Star, Issue 19662, 15 September 1927, Page 15

HANDSOME

ITS SEVERAL DEFINITIONS In the light of the primary significance of the word “ handsome ” as easy to handle, dexterous or skilful with the use of the hands, the old proverb, “Handsome is that handsome does,” is a saying of peculiar force. Men who could work dexterously were spoken of as “ handsum,” as was the original spelling, and as persons who arc able to do things well have always inspired admiration the transition in moaning from ability to work well to comeliness in appearance is easily accounted for (says the ‘ Christian Science Monitor’)- Perhaps the dignity characteristic of tho term, which is sometimes defined as “ beautiful with dignity,” is due to inheritance from this original meaning of accomplishment. Moreover, in tho use of “handsome” there is a suggestion of full size or stateliness. Thus “handsomely” has come to denote liberally or generously. Cowpcr, in one of his letters written in 1783, thus applies the word to the inanimate tree; “I can look at a handsome tree every day of my life with new pleasure.” At first “ handsum ” had much the same significance as “ handy ” —in fact, differing from it only in ending. “Handsum” is formed from “hand” and “ sum,” “ sum ” being an Old Eugglish suffix used to form adjectives from nouns and other adjectives. Only two or three of the Old English terms formed in this way are now current, the most common of these being “winsome.” “Handsome” dates back only to tho fourteenth century, as do also a number of other words similarly formed, such ns “cumbersome,” “fulsome,” “ gamesome,’ “ gladsome,” , “ lightsome,” and “wholesome.”