In that second part we propose to investigate how it happens that words, once created and endowed with a certain meaning, extend that meaning or cont… - Michel Bréal

Historical grammar is now in a position to confirm or to refute.

Sometimes is a synonym which extends itself, and contrasts by just much the domain of its colleague. At other times it is an historical event which comes to modify and renew the vocabulary.

The so-called pejorative tendency has yet another cause. It is in the nature of human malice to take pleasure in looking for a vice or a fault behind a quality. The French have the adjective prude, which had formerly a good and noble acceptation, since it is the feminine of preux. But the spirit of the narrators (perhaps also some feeling of rancour against the loftier virtues) turned this adjective aside towards the equivocal sense that it now bears. Words which refer to the relations of the sexes are especially exposed to changes of this kind. We remember what a noble signification amant and mattress still possessed in Corneille. But they are dethroned, as was Buhle in German. Here we see the inevitable results of a false delicacy ; honourable names are dishonoured by being given to things which are dishonourable.