The mechanism is usually the same: a word is used loosely, the loose sense becomes common, and the precise one falls away. Here are fifteen that travelled unusually far.
1. Nice
It began from a Latin root meaning ignorant, and passed through senses including foolish, then fussy and precise, before settling on agreeable.
A trace of the older sense survives in phrases about a nice distinction, meaning a fine one. Nice is the word that started as an insult and ended as the blandest compliment available.
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2. Awful
Originally it meant full of awe – inspiring reverence and wonder, and applied to things that were magnificent rather than terrible.
The intensity survived while the direction reversed entirely. Awful is the word that kept its force and lost its admiration.
3. Silly
It descends from a root meaning blessed or fortunate, moved through innocent and harmless, and arrived at foolish by way of the idea that the harmless are easily deceived.
Every step is small and the total distance is enormous. Silly is the word that got from blessed to daft one reasonable move at a time.
4. Terrific
It meant causing terror, in exact parallel with terrible, and the two were interchangeable.
Only one of them reversed, which is why the pair now sit at opposite ends. Terrific is the word that separated from its own twin.
5. Nervous
It meant sinewy, strong and vigorous, from the root for sinew, and described physical robustness.
The modern sense arrived through medical language about the nerves. Nervous is the word that once meant the opposite of what it now describes.
6. Egregious
It meant standing out from the flock, and it was a compliment – distinguished, remarkable, exceptional.
It now appears almost exclusively before words like error. Egregious is the word that kept the standing out and lost the approval.
7. Artificial
It meant full of artistry, made with skill, and was a term of praise for something well crafted.
As mass production spread, made by art came to mean not natural. Artificial is the word that was ruined by manufacturing.
8. Girl
In Middle English it referred to a young person of either sex, with additional words used when the sex needed specifying.
The narrowing to one sex happened gradually and is documented rather than disputed. Girl is the word that used to cover everybody young.
9. Meat
It meant food in general, of any kind, with flesh being one variety among many.
The older sense survives fossilised in sweetmeat, which contains no meat in the modern sense. Meat is the word whose original meaning is preserved in a single surviving compound.
10. Deer
It meant any wild animal, and its cousins in related languages still carry that general sense today.
The narrowing to one species is an English development. Deer is the word that used to mean all of them.
11. Clue
It was a clew – a ball of thread – and became a hint through the story of a thread unwound to find the way back out of a labyrinth.
So following a clue is a literal description of what somebody once did with string. Clue is the word that is a metaphor nobody remembers making.
12. Decimate
It described a Roman punishment applied to a military unit, involving the removal of one in ten, and therefore meant to reduce by a tenth.
The broader modern sense of destroying most of something is now standard, correct and used by everyone, which is how language works. Decimate is the word people are still arguing about long after the argument ended.
14. Myriad
It meant precisely ten thousand, as a specific number in Greek, and was used as such.
The vague sense of a great many came later and entirely displaced the arithmetic. Myriad is the word that stopped being a number.
15. Naughty
It meant having naught – possessing nothing, hence poor – before moving to morally bad and then weakening to mild disobedience.
Its current strength is far below anything it once carried. Naughty is the word that went from destitute to a mild reprimand for a child.
16. Bully
It was a term of affection, applied to a person one liked, and survives in the old phrase about something being bully for you.
How it inverted is not fully settled. Bully is the word that turned from a compliment into its exact opposite.
Drift Is What Words Do
None of these shifts was a mistake or a decline. Each is the ordinary process by which a loose use becomes common, the common use becomes standard, and the original sense steadily drops out.
It is worth resisting the instinct to treat the older meaning as the correct one. Every word on this list is being used correctly right now by everybody, in a sense its earlier speakers would not have recognised – and the same thing is currently happening to words nobody has noticed yet.
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