lachryman.

Etymology: < (i) Middle French, French †lachryma exudation of juice or gum from plants (1596 in the passage translated in quot. 1601, or earlier; with the sense ‘tear’, compare Old French, Middle French (rare) lacrime (13th cent.)), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin lacrima tear, exudation of juice or gum from plants, in Old Latin dacrima (only recorded in grammarians) < a suffixed form of the Indo-European base of tear n.¹ Compare earlier lachrymal adj., Lacryma Christi n.Romance parallels. Compare Catalan llàgrima (14th cent.), Spanish lágrima (13th cent.; c1200 as †lacrima ), Portuguese lágrima (13th cent.), Italian lacrima (mid 13th cent.; first half of the 13th cent. as †lagrema , †lagrima ), all earliest and chiefly in sense ‘tear’. The usual French word for ‘tear’ is larme (see larmoyant adj.), which reflects popular phonological development of the Latin noun. Etymology of the Latin word. The Latin word is often held to represent a borrowing (rather than a cognate) of ancient Greek δάκρυμα tear, the chief reason being the problematic origin of the suffix, the expected Latin form of which would be -men (see -ment suffix); the suffix -ma is not productive in Latin and extension in -ma of a stem in -u- has no parallels. However, ancient Greek δάκρυμα itself is relatively recent in attestation, nor is it the usual word for ‘tear’ (which is δάκρυov ). An alternative possibility is that -ma in Old Latin dacrima represents an earlier -na (neuter plural of the suffix -nus ), with dissimilation. With the change of initial d- to l- compare classical Latin lingua tongue (see tongue n.). Form history. In classical Latin lacrima also occurs in the forms lacruma , lachryma (attested in inscriptions), lachrima (c200 a.d. in an inscription); in post-classical Latin also lacryma (from 5th cent. or earlier in inscriptions). The ch of the prevailing standard English spelling of this and related words stems from the classical Latin practice (especially from c200 a.d.) of writing ch (instead of c ) before r ; compare e.g. anchor n.¹, pulchritude n., sepulchre n. Older Latin manuscripts favour the spelling without -h-. In Latin the etymological spelling with -u- is more frequent in inscriptions than that with -i-, especially in older inscriptions; variation between the two is found in even the oldest manuscripts. The medial y, in post-classical Latin simply a graphic variant of i, has been retained in modern English spelling under the influence of the view that classical Latin lacrima is an adoption of ancient Greek δάκρυμα.