Are you buxom?
Most male readers probably immediately respond, “Absolutely not!” Readers, what image pops into your mind when
you see the word, “buxom”? Most readers
probably flash on a mental image of a female “full-bosomed” or “healthily plump
and ample of figure,” as The American
Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition defines the word. (My husband imagines the character of Joan on
“Mad Men.”)
However, guys, suppose you stumble upon a magic lamp. In response to the genie’s offer of a wish,
you wish for a “buxom” woman. Imagine
your surprise when the genie conjures a woman “obedient,” “pliant,” or “tractable,”
some definitions offered by the Oxford
English Dictionary, for a now obsolete usage, and not “full-busomed.”
I first stumbled upon this obsolete definition while reading
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in
graduate school. In the fabliau (an Old
French dirty story) “The Merchant’s Tale,” an old codger decides it is time to
settle down after living 60 years with an “appetite on women,” my rendering of
the Middle English. In convincing
himself that marriage is a good thing, in contrast to his previous promiscuity,
he asks, “For who can be so buxom as a wife?” (line 1287, for those who care). Later, he waxes poetic, imagining that a wife
is a husband’s paradise of earth, “his disport/ So buxom and virtuous is she.”
(lines 1332-33 for those who care). In
this fabliau, January’s concept of a “buxom” or obedient wife becomes
ironic. The young woman he marries may
indeed be buxom, or obedient, to a certain extent. However, she may also be buxom or ample in
figure, in the modern sense as she attracts a young suitor. She ends the tale by having sex in a tree--a
convenient place of escape from her jealous old husband--with that young
suitor.
So, readers, take away these morals: be careful what you wish for. Make sure you know the complete meaning of
words before you let them go. Anyone can be "buxom" without plastic surgery. As I am writing this entry on Earth Day, 2013, cherish trees, for they have
MANY different uses in this world!
Finally, the next time you are at a boring party, liven it up by announcing that you are feeling buxom!
I believe the etymology of this word has its roots in the verb "to bow," making it easy to see where the derivation of the medieval meanings. The Modern German cognate is "biegsam," ("the verb "biegen" means "to bow") which means literally "flexible, supple, plaint" and "amenable" in a more extended sense. It does not carry our Modern English senses of "full-bosomed" or "healthily plump". (The Germans are more literal here, with "gut gestattet" and the more colloquial "gut bestückt" meaning "well-endowed," referring to either men or women. You'd think there'd be enough of these well-endowed Mädchen hanging out--in at least a couple of senses of that expression--in the beer halls of Bavaria that "biegsam" would have undergone a similar semantic development as its English counterpart. I guess those German girls just aren't *obedient* enough in the first place.) I want to check *Piers Plowman* again for a stream called "Buxom of Speech"--or something similar--which Will has to cross on his journey. I seem to remember this surname (or nickname) from the Middle English Dictionary, too. I don't know whether it's listed there as an actual surname, whether I saw it in a book of nicknames, or whether I found it somewhere else, like a will or another document. (If it's not in the MED itself, perhaps I ran across it in the supplement box.) I wonder if the Buxom family is still around.
ReplyDeleteThe etymology of buxom in the verb "to bow" makes sense. I wonder how the meaning of "ample-bosomed" or "healthily plump" came to be?
ReplyDelete