Lending, part 3

May 7th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

The downside to the verb “lend” is it’s irregular. “Lent” is the past tense and past participle, not “lended”:

“He has lent her five bucks a week for about a year, but this week he lent her 20 bucks.”

This “lent,” by the way, is unrelated to the Christian observance of “Lent,” a word that comes from the Old English “lengten,” for “the spring,” which in turn is from Germanic bases for “long” and “day.”

It’s also unrelated to “lentil,” a plant of the pea family, which is also the root for “lens,” whose shape is reminiscent of the lentil seed.

And so we see that the part of the eye that focuses light so we can see is named for a seed. Seems like “seed” should be the past tense of “see,” then, instead of “saw.”

But “see” is another irregular verb.

Entry Filed under: word choices, strict usage, word origins