scion and inark and inarm and enarm and inclip and clip and lindisfarne gospels

Ah, before turning to the two remaining words, inarm and inclip, I couldn't help but notice an alternative definition of inarch. It has the meaning in plant biology of "the action or process of grafting by approach." What does that mean? Well, the Century is kind enough to have a picture of the phenomenon. I can't reproduce it here, but I can define it again, and then breiefly describe the picture. It means "to graft by uniting to the stock, as a scion, without separating the scion from the parent tree." Oh, a scion, by the way, has an 'obscure origin' (according to the OED), but is a very old word, and it describes a shoot or twig or a slip for grafting. Its figurative use came later, and its signification as a descendent or heir only goes back to the 19th century. I can't resist Shakespeare's figurative mention, from WT: "You see (sweet Maid) we marry/ A gentler Scion to the wildest Stock."

Now let's return to inarching and my attempt to describe the Century picture. Two small, leafless trees stand next to each other, one growing from the ground and one in a pot. Each of the trees has branches. Inarching is the process by which two branches, one from each tree, are linked to each other by cutting and binding, while each branch stays linked to its respective "tree." The result of the two branches connected is that an arch of sorts is created. This picture then creates a helpful figurative use of inarching and leads to the following questions. (1) Is the goal of intimate human relationships to slice two branches off their respective trees, plant them afresh and "grow them together?" (2) To inarch them so that they still remain connected to their original sources even as they then become united as they grow in the future? (3) Or does the process of inarching graft the one tree onto the other, but allow the respective branches still to live and grow, possibly in different directions after the graft? Nature's pictures as marriage counselors. Give the tree a Ph. D.

Back to Embraces

Inarm and Inclip, then, are our two remaining terms. Both of them have small OED entries, but the latter looks to the verb clip, which will occupy some of my attention here. To inarm means "to clasp within or as with the arms; to embrace; to throw the arms round." There is a one-time attestation of inarm to mean "to arm" for battle, but the frequently-used verb that stands behind this word is enarm. It is interesting, isn't it, that inarm means to embrace while enarm means to accoutre for battle? "She inarmed him while his assistants enarmed him." The OED definition and examples of the use of enarm are thrice as long as those for inarm, which probably is not unexpected if you believe in original sin. Let's just lose ourselves in an embrace this morning, however. From 1612: "Warwickshire..you might call Middle-Engle for equality of distance from the inarming Ocean." Or, from Matthew Henry's biblical commentary: "He [Christ] inarmed them [children], he took them into his embraces." An 1881 book could refer to "Norway's inarming melancholy sea and a slightly earlier book could say: "Gallant and lady...inarming one another." I am sure that when I take my son to college next week, we will see tons of inarming students, squealing in delight upon seeing people whom they forgot to email in the previous four months.

Inclip

Pride of place in using inclip, which also means to "embrace, clasp, enclose," belongs to Shakespeare. From A & C: "Where ere the Ocean pales, or sky inclips/ Is thine, if thou wilt ha't." But the verb clip, which stands behind it, has the much more full attestation. It means to "clasp with the hands" or "hug," though the convoluted etymological explanation in the OED, which even tries to venture into the Lithuanian and Old Slavonic, isn't much help. By the time Shakespeare used the word in 1607 (in Coriolanus: "Let me clip ye/ In Armes as sound, as when I woo'd in heart."), it had a vigorous history stretching back to the English rendering of the Lindisfarne Gospels around 950. When Jesus was said to "take a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said..," (Mk.9:36) the Lindisfarne Gospels have "Clioppende." And in Aelfric's De veteri et de novo testamento,(ca. 1000) he could render Gen. 29:13, where Laban runs to meet Jacob ("he embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house"), as "[he]..cypte hine." And then, lest you think I am stuck in the 11th century, we can rush ahead to more modern times: "I seed 'em clippin' and cuddlin' one another agean th' pin-fold."

The figurative uses of clip, not unexpectedly, abound. "The warmer sunne..With firie arms clipping the wanton ground," or, from 1819: "Shall the grave/ Clip us forever in its chilling arms?" I also learned that to clip may be "said of amplexicaul leaves," which are leaves that are "embracing or clasping the stem; said of sessile leaves, the hollow base of which clasps the stem." But here I see I have gotten myself into things that are too involved for this late in an essay, and I will graciously retreat.

Conclusion

Thus, the words for today take us to the realms of covering, embracing or protecting. I, for one, would rather be inarmed than enarmed today, to inclip and be inclipped, to settle in under the inarching sky, and to be inarked from the storms that blow and bluster not too far from life's front door.

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