The best instance I can think of is “disgruntled”. “Gruntle” is either archiac or out of common use.
Also…
“gormless” (gorm?)
“uncouth” (couth?)
“feckless” (feck?)
Is there a linguistic term for this? And are there any other words that fit that term?
“Nonchalant” is another example, and it’s more interesting since it’s a negative word that has outlived its positive.
Johanna
December 22, 2002, 5:20am
4
Couth is from an Old English word meaning ‘known’.
Feck is from Scottish dialect, a shortened form of “effect.”
Gorm was never a word apart from being an element in the whimsical coinage “gormless,” AFAIK.
Gorm apparently was a word . . . sort of.
From Dictionary.com
From dialectal gawm, sense, from Middle English gome, notice, from Old Norse gaumr.
I hate to post twice in a row like this, but it seems that chalant never was an English word to begin with.
Again, from Dictionary.com
Nonchalant
. . .
French, from Old French, present participle of nonchaloir, to be unconcerned : non-, non- + chaloir, to cause concern to (from Latin calre, to be warm, heat up.
And from their word history in the entry:
A nonchalant person is not likely to become warm or heated about anything, a fact that is underscored by the etymology of the word nonchalant. It stems from Old French, where it was formed from the negative prefix non- plus chalant, the present participle of the verb chaloir, “to be concerned.” This in turn came from the Latin word calre, which from its concrete sense “to be hot or warm” developed the figurative sense “to be roused or fired with hope, zeal, or anger.” French formed a noun nonchalance from the adjective nonchalant that was borrowed into English by 1678; the adjective itself was borrowed later, as it is not attested for another half-century.
So it appears that we borrowed nonchalant directly from French without also borrowing the positive from which it derives. Man, I love etymology.
Capitation lives on though - as a form of taxation and (usually medical) remuneration.
“Uncanny” from the Scots “canny” for “natural.”
sugaree
December 22, 2002, 11:07pm
11
Canny is a living word. It means shrewd.