des-prefix

Regular Romanic form of Latin dis-, in Old Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Old French; in modern French retained (as dés-) before a vowel or silent h (déshabillé), otherwise reduced to dé- (Old French descharge, modern décharge). In some cases apparently representing a late Latin de- ex-, for Latin ex-. Partly from the frequent substitution of dis-, des-, for Latin dē- in late Latin and Romanic (see de- prefix prefix 6), partly through the phonetic reduction of des- to dé- in later French, the two prefixes have in that language largely fallen together under the modern French dé-. Early Old French words passed into English with the prefix in the form des- (descharge, Middle English descharge); here it was sometimes, in conformity with later Old French pronunciation, reduced to de- (Old French desmembre, demembre, Middle English demembre); but usually the s was retained, and the prefix at length changed back to the Latin type dis- (discharge, dismembre, also spelt dys-) as was also done to some extent in French itself (descorde, now discorde).In English, therefore, des- is merely the earlier form of dis- prefix in words from Old French, e.g. desarm, desblame, descharge, desclaundre, descolour, desdain, desembogue, desere (= desheir), deserite (disherit), desgyse, deshonour, desinteressed, desjoyne, desjune, desmail, desmay, desmesure, desordein, desordere, desparage, desparple, despend, despense, despeople, desplay, desport, despreve (= disprove v.), despute, desray, destempre, desturb, destribute, etc. All these have a later form in dis- prefix, under which they are treated in this Dictionary. Only a few words became obsolete before dis- forms appeared. The prefix is exceptionally retained in descant, and it is occasionally found for de- prefix before a vowel, in chemical terms from modern French, as desoxalic, desoxybenzoin, †desoxydate. In despatch, modern variant of dispatch n., the spelling des- is not historical, but originated in an 18th cent. etymological error.There are many words beginning with des- in which the s belongs to the root-word, and the prefix is de-, as descry, describe, descend, deserve, despair, despite, despoil, destroy. From confusion of these with words in which des- is the prefix, they also were in late Middle English often spelt with dis- (discry, discribe, etc.). And, on the other hand, words in di- followed by s- were sometimes confused with words in dis- prefix, and so also written des- (destinct, destress, etc.). Both these errors have been corrected in the later orthography.