Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853

of tunne, is not only a genuine Anglo-Saxon word, but the type of a class, of whose existence in that language no Saxonist, I may say no Teutonist, not even the perspicacious and indefatigable Jacob Grimm himself, seems to be aware. The word is exactly analogous to Ger. tönnchen, from tonne, and proves three things:--1. That our ancestors formed diminutives in cen, as well as their neighbours in ken, kin, chen; 2. That the radical vowel was modified: for y is the umlaut of u; 3. That these properties of the dialect were known to Alfred the Great when he added this curious statement to the narrative of Orosius.

E. THOMSON.

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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.

(Continued from p. 376.)

Imperseverant, undiscerning. This word I have never met with but twice,--in Shakspeare's Cymbeline, with the sense above given; and in Bishop Andrewes' Sermon preac