carp

carp¹ to complain

Etymology

The verb meaning to complain is inherited from Middle English carpen (“to talk, speak, tell”),^[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse karpa (“to brag, boast”),^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} whose further history is uncertain.^[4][5] Merriam-Webster compares Icelandic karpa (“to dispute, wrangle”), karp (“arrogance, boasting”) and Old Frisian kerp (“dispute”),^[10] and the MED notes that the Middle English evidence points to an original meaning "to speak, talk", the Scandinavian senses being later.^[2] The OED takes the early, mostly northern and alliterative poetic senses from Old Norse, and the later prose senses of finding fault as derived from or influenced by Latin carpō (“to pluck; figuratively, to slander”),^[4][7] and most dictionaries likewise see Latin influence in the modern sense.^{[5][3][11][12][8]} The Latin verb is from Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“to gather, pluck, harvest”),^[5] and is related to harvest.^[11][3] Johnson derived the English verb from Latin alone.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To speak, talk: before 1240, in the Wohunge of the Cotton Homilies.^[4] Barnhart dates carpen "to talk" to about 1225,^[3] and Etymonline to the early 13th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English carpen meant to talk, chat or tell, chiefly in northern and alliterative poetry.^[4][2] Chaucer used it twice for chattering or gossiping, Gower for conversing and telling a story.^[14] From about 1425 it also meant to sing or recite as a minstrel,^[4] a use that lasted in Scots into the 19th century: in Scott's Minstrelsy (1802) "aye he harped and aye he carped".^[15][4] Trench notes that the Promptorium Parvulorum glosses it with Latin words for talking and chatting, and that no hint of fault-finding appears before the 16th century.^[16] The sense "to talk censoriously, find fault" is dated by the OED to 1548^[4] and by Ayto and Hoad to the 16th century,^[11][12] whereas Barnhart and Etymonline find it already in the late 14th century, in about 1378.^[3][5] Langland's Piers Plowman (1377) already used it for idle chatter.^[4] By Johnson's time it meant to censure or cavil, usually with at.^[13] The noun carp, discourse, is recorded in about 1400, and carping speech from 1618;^[4][7] in American slang a carp is a complainer.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1240 – to speak, talk (obsolete by 1575).^[4] Barnhart dates it to about 1225.^[3]
• before 1375 – to say, tell; to discourse of something, in William of Palerne.^[4]
• 1377 – to prate, chatter, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[4]
• c. 1400 – noun, discourse (obsolete).^[4]
• c. 1425 – to sing or recite as a minstrel.^[4]
• 1548 – to find fault, cavil, the current sense.^[4] Barnhart finds it in about 1378.^[3]
• 1587 – carp at.^[4]
• 1618 – noun, carping speech, a cavil.^[4][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To complain or find fault in a petty, nagging way, often with at: He carps at every decision the referee makes.^[9][10][4]
2. (obsolete, 1240–1575) To talk, speak.^[4][2][7]

Noun

1. A complaint; a carping remark.^[10][7][4]

Word family

• carper
• carping

carp² fish

Etymology

The fish is inherited from Middle English carpe,^[2] borrowed from Old French carpe,^{[5][4][7][12][8]} from Old Occitan carpa,^[3][8][12] and directly borrowed from Late Latin carpa.^[3][5][7] Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com route it through Middle French, and Dictionary.com takes the French word from Middle Dutch karpe or karpe.^[10][18] Brachet cites the Late Latin word from Cassiodorus (before 575), of a fish of the Danube: “destinet carpam Danubius”.^[4] The word is probably of Germanic origin;^{[6][10][3][5]} compare Old High German karpfo, modern German Karpfen, Middle Dutch carpe, Dutch karper and Old Norse karfi.^{[10][5][3][8]} The OED sees a possible Proto-West Germanic *karpo, but calls the original source unknown,^[4] Etymonline suggests an unrecorded Gothic word as the immediate source of the Latin,^[5] Barnhart a pre-Germanic word of the Alps,^[3] and Weekley a Germanic or Slavic origin.^[19] The Latin word is the source of Italian carpa, Spanish carpa and Romanian crap.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The freshwater fish: 1393, in Latin accounts of an expedition that record money spent on pikes et carpes.^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century,^[5] and the OED's first record is from the Promptorium Parvulorum (c. 1440).^[4] In Anglo-Norman carpe is recorded from 1275, also as a surname.^[20]

Semantic evolution

The carp was introduced into England as early as the 14th century and was commonly bred in ponds;^[4][5] accounts of 1462 record great and small carps being put into a pond.^[2] The MED also has the word for a carp in heraldry.^[2] Johnson (1755) called it simply a pond fish.^[13] From 1789, in G. White's letters on the natural history of Selborne, the name was applied to other fishes of the same family, such as the goldfish and the crucian carp.^[4] In Ulster dialect a carp was the sea-bream.^[15]

Timeline

• 1393 – the freshwater fish.^[2][3]
• 1462 – great and small carps put into a pond.^[2]
• 1789 – other fishes of the carp family.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large freshwater fish (Cyprinus carpio) of ponds and slow rivers, native to Asia and long bred in Europe for food: They stocked the lake with carp.^[10][4][7]
2. Any of various related fishes of the same family, such as the goldfish.^[4][7]

Word family

• crucian carp
• grass carp
• carpsucker