A skeleton found under a municipal car park in the city of Leicester has been confirmed as that of King Richard III, who died in 1485 (article here). Richard hasn't got a particularly illustrious reputation - I can remember reading stories of the princes in the Tower (murdered by Richard, supposedly) at school, and probably most people 'know' that Richard was a hunchback, as depicted iconically by Antony Sher in a 1984 production (see a picture on this page).
Shakespeare's description of Richard III as "that foule hunch-backt toade" is the first citation for the word hunch-backed in the OED (1598). Before this edition of the play Shakespeare had written 'bunch-backt', a word in common use at the time (the first OED citation is 1519).
The verb 'hunch' was in English in the 1580s, but not meaning 'to form into a hump' - that only came later, after 'hunch-backed'. The original meaning of 'hunch' was to push or thrust. There are other words in the OED describing the same hunch-backed condition. They are: hump-backed (first OED citation 1681), crump-backed (1661), crook-backed (1477), crouch-backed (1606), hulch-backed (1653), hutch-backed (1668), huck-backed (or huckt-backt) (1631), and huckle-backed (1652).
The sense of the noun 'hunch' meaning 'intuitive feeling' dates back to the beginning of the 20th century only.
Comments