Essay – Definition, Etymology, and Why this Blog is Called “Essays”

Tumblr has gotten me a good start in blogging short stuff, quotes, audios, and videos, but I think I need to start doing some longer posts. So I did yet another WordPress install, and hopefully this time I’ll actually write some posts. (I have about 10 different things I thought of at SXSW that I need to write, so I’ll have no dearth of inspiration for a little while.) On this blog, I think I’ll be writing a lot about some useful tricks and life hacks I’ve been using to make it easier for me to make good choices ( about exercising, eating write, working, learning, and life in general). I hope you find some of my lifestyle design tips useful in cultivating the habit of virtue.

Tangential Quote from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics:

It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.

Since I already used blog.kortina.net as the domain for I had to come up with an interesting domain for this blog. I was considering using easygood.org, but after setting up the blog under that domain, I was writing some of the sub-heading copy for that blog and came back to using a word I am quite partial to: “essay.”

Typically, we think of essay as a 3-10 page paper written as a homework assignment, but I’ve had more than one Professor remind me of the etymology of this word. The first definition listed for “essay” in the Oxford English Dictionary is “The action or process of trying or testing.” Teachers make you write essays because they want you to attempt to make sense of the subject material you’re studying.

I’ve always like the unfinishedness and lack of understanding that the word “essay” connotes, so I decided to just use the essays.kortina.net as the name of this blog.

For the word nerds, here is the entire entry from the OED for “essay:”

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[a. OF. essai, essay: see ASSAY n. For several of the senses see also SAY.
In 18th c. the accent. was sometimes on the 2nd syll.]

I. The action or process of trying or testing.

{dag}1. A trial, testing, proof; experiment; = ASSAY n. 1, 3. Obs.
c1600 SHAKES. Sonn. cx, Worse essays proved thee my best of love. 1605 BACON Adv. Learn. II. vii. §7 Democritus..attributed the form thereof [of the ‘frame of things’] able to maintain itself to infinite essaies or proofs of nature. 1631 HEYLIN St. George 247, I will make bold to venture on it, by way of tryall and essay. 1648 Eikon Bas. 26 It was the first overt Essay to be made, how patiently I could bear the loss of my kingdoms. 1660 SHARROCK Vegetables Ep. Ded., You were pleased to judge me able, and..to propose..that I should make an essay of that ability. 1704 ADDISON Italy (1733) 195 After having made Essays into it, as they do for Coal in England. 1745 De Foe’s Eng. Tradesman I. xii. 98 He has made an essay by which he knows what he can, and cannot do. 1812 J. HENRY Camp. agst. Quebec 28 From the essays made, it seemed to me that, etc.

{dag}b. spec. The trial of metals; = ASSAY 6. Obs.
1668 in Phil. Trans. III. 821 The Ore being ground..they divide it in several heaps, and then by lesser Essays, they find out how much silver is contained in every heap. 1731-6 in BAILEY (folio).

{dag}2. A trial specimen, a sample, an example; a rehearsal. Cf. ASSAY 17. Obs.
1614 SELDEN Titles Hon. 22 An essay also of that age’s vnhappie affectation of Greek patch. 1656 BLOUNT Glossogr., Essay, a flourish or preamble. 1659 HAMMOND On Ps. cvi. 16-18 Paraphr. 532 Two terrible essayes of God’s wrath were here shewed. a1674 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. (1704) III. xv. 498 A small essay of my zeal for..your Majesty. 1684 T. BURNET Th. Earth II. 55 These are lesser essays or preludes to the general fire. 1734 tr. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827) VII. XVI. §9. 110 Gave an essay in this first action of what might be expected one day from his valour and bravery.

{dag}3. Venery. a. = ASSAY 9. In phrase to take essay. b. concr. The part of a deer in which trial was made of the ‘grease’; the breast or brisket.
1611 COTGR., Foulz..cut out from betweene the necke, and the essay of a Deere. 1658 PHILLIPS s.v. Essay, The Essay of Deer is the breast or brisket..in French la hampe. 1694 Acct. Denmark in 1692 (ed. 3) 160 One that is likeliest to give a good Gratuity to the Huntsman, is invited to take Essay.

{dag}4. A taste, or first taste, of food or drink presented to a great personage; = ASSAY 12. Obs. exc. Hist.
1598 in FLORIO s.v. Fare la credenza. 1632 in COTGR. 1682 G. ROSE Instr. Officers of the Mouth 16 The Master Cook is desired not to forget his Larding-pricks, nor the Master-Butler his Essay. Ibid. 94 Let him [the Royal Butler] bring in his Wine, present his Bason and Ewer to wash, take his Essay both of Wine and Water. 1708 J. CHAMBERLAYNE St. Gt. Brit. I. III. iii. (1741) 168 A Viscount may have a Cover of Essay holden under his Cup, while he drinks, but no Essay taken as Dukes, Marquises and Earls may have.

II. A trying to do something.

5. An attempt, endeavour. Const. after, at, {dag}of, on, towards, and to with inf.
1598 YONG Diana 77 They were all but papers of essaies Of that. a1652 J. SMITH Sel. Disc. vii. (1821) 364 Languishing creatures..we are, in our essays after heaven. 1682 DRYDEN Satyr 3 Whose first Essay was in a Tyrants praise. 1738 Col. Rec. Penn. IV. 316 Essays..to encourage the raising some of these Commodities. 1762 J. BROWN Poetry & Mus. (1763) 74 The first rude Essays towards an expressive Melody in barbarous Countries. 1778 SIR J. REYNOLDS Disc. viii. (1876) 447 An artist, in his first essay of imitating nature. 1820 W. IRVING Sketch Bk. II. 325 Our first essay was along a mountain brook. 1853 C. BRONTË Villette viii, Is this your first essay at teaching? 1860 TYNDALL Glac. I. xxvii. 206 Making a preliminary essay upon the glacier. 1865 LIVINGSTONE Zambesi Introd., I am now in this my second essay at authorship.

b. concr. The result of an attempt. nonce-use.
1697 DRYDEN Virg. Past. vii. 42 These Branches of a Stag, this tusky Boar (The first essay of Arms untry’d before).

{dag}6. A hostile attempt. Obs.
c1640 J. SMYTH Lives Berkeleys (1883) I. 229 The King at Canterbury grants him a generall protection from all Essayes for a year following.

{dag}7. A first tentative effort in learning or practice; = ASSAY 16. Obs.
1656 COWLEY Pindar. Odes Pref., This Essay is but to try how it [Pindar's Poetry] will look in an English Habit. 1663 J. SPENCER Prodigies Pref. B., Admiration is..an Essay to knowledge. 1665-9 BOYLE Disc. Occas. Medit. Wks. 1772 II. 356 The green and immature essays of early Writers. 1700 DRYDEN Fables (1773) Pref., The first of Homer’s Iliads (which I intended as an Essay to the whole work). 1723 SHEFFIELD (Dk. Buckhm.) Wks. (1753) I. 64 My hand is yet untaught to write to men; This is th’ essay of my unpractis’d pen. 1734 tr. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827) I. 377 These were considered only as essays preparatory to the great design.

b. A rough copy; a first draft.
1656 J. HARRINGTON Oceana (1700) 174 The List..enter’d in the Parish Book, and diligently preserv’d as a Record, call’d the first Essay. 1793 GOUV. MORRIS in Sparks Life & Writ. (1832) I. 417, I have made an essay of a letter.

8. A composition of moderate length on any particular subject, or branch of a subject; originally implying want of finish, ‘an irregular undigested piece’ (J.), but now said of a composition more or less elaborate in style, though limited in range.
The use in this sense is app. taken from Montaigne, whose Essais were first published in 1580.
1597 BACON (title) Essayes. 1607-12 {emem} Essays, Ded. Prince Henry (Arb.) 158 For Senacaes Epistles..are but Essaies{em}that is dispersed Meditations..Essaies. The word is late, but the thing is auncient. 1665 GLANVILL Sceps. Sci. Addr. 16 No higher title, then that of an essay, or imperfect offer at a Subject. c1700 Poem to Roscommon (J.), Yet modestly he does his work survey, And calls his finish’d poem an essay. 1712 ADDISON Spect. No. 476 {page}1 The Wildness of those Compositions which go by the Names of Essays. 1764 REID Inquiry Ded., This leaves me no room to doubt of your favourable acceptance of this essay. 1782 V. KNOX Ess. (1819) I. i. 1 Essays..may now convey the idea of regular treatises. 1843 MACAULAY (title) Critical and Historical Essays. 1865 DICKENS Mut. Fr. II. i, She could write a little essay on any subject.

III. 9. Phrase, in all essays: under all circumstances. Obs. Cf. ASSAY 21, 22.
1669 STURMY Mariner’s Mag. 20 And so likewise I have shown you thus much of the Practick part of Navigation, in which you may perceive that I have wrought the Ship in all Essays, in Words and proper Sea-Phrases; and if I was at Sea, I should perform it both in Word and Deed.

10. attrib. and Comb., as essay-weaver, -writer; also essay-hatch (see quot.); essay-scale, a test-scale.
1721-1800 BAILEY, *Essay Hatch, [among Miners] a Term for a little Trench or Hole which they dig to search for Oar. 1684 R. WALLER Nat. Exper. 149 Putting in the *Essay-Scales two Steel Wires of equal Weight. 1884 Punch 16 Feb. 84/1 And twaddling *essay-weavers, mild boilers-down of Lamb! 1711 SHAFTESBURY Charac. (1737) III. 97 We *essay-writers are of the small-craft, or galley-kind. 1851 HELPS Friends in C. I. 29 The fault into which you essay-writers generally fall.

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