| 释义 |
-ence suffix
a. Fr. -ence, ad. L. -entia, forming abstr. ns., usually of quality, rarely of action, on ppl. stems in -ent-, e.g. sapient-em knowing, sapient-ia knowingness, sapience; audient-em hearing, audient-ia the process of hearing, audience. As the ppl. stem had -ent-, -ant-, the derivative ns. had -entia (prūdentia), -antia (īnfantia); but all these were levelled in OFr. to -ance, in words that survived in popular use, or were formed analogically on the pr. pple. in -ant; as aidance, assistance, complaisance, contenance, nuisance, parlance, séance. These were ns. of action or process, the value with which the suffix was retained in Fr. as a living formative. But subsequently other L. words in -ntia, which had not survived in the living language, were readopted on the analogy of these, but with -ence or -ance according to the L. vowel, e.g. absence, clémence, diligence, élégance, présence, providence, prudence, tempérance, violence. These were ns. of quality or state; all Fr. words in -ence are of this class. Both classes were adodpted in ME. in their actual Fr. forms and senses, which they generally still retain; but since 1500, some of those in -ance have been altered back to -ence after L. All words since adopted from or formed on L., follow L. precedent as to -ence or -ance. The result is that the modern spelling of individual words, and still more of groups of cogn. words, is uncertain and discordant; cf. assistance, consistence, existence, resistance, subsistence; attendance, superintendence; ascendant, -ent, -ancy, -ency, condescendence; dependant, -ent, -ance, -ence, independence; appearance, apparent; pertinence, appurtenance. In sense, words in -nce are partly nouns of action, as in OFr., partly of state or quality, as in L. The latter idea is more distinctly expressed by the variant -ncy (see -y = -ie:—-ia) which has been formed in Eng. as a direct adaptation of L. -ntia; see -ency, -ancy. |