1802: wizard vs. dullard Nov 20, 2019

'Wizard' and 'dullard' today mean very different things, one of which is magical and the other is simply pejorative, but they come from same template. Indeed, the '-ard' suffix is simply to nominalize an adjective. In the case of 'dullard', this is easily parsed meaning 'dull person', but 'wizard' parses as 'wiz' originating as 'wise'. The early meaning of this word was a sagely, non-magical person. There will be more on this tomorrow.

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