1816, false spelling of local in a sense "a place, a locality, a scene," especially with reference to circumstances connected with it, from this sense in French local, noun use of local (adj.), from Latin locus "a place" (see locus). The English spelling with -e probably is based on morale and intended to indicate stress.
The word's right to exist depends upon the question whether the two indispensable words locality & scene give all the shades of meaning required, or whether something intermediate is useful. [Fowler]
c. 1200, niedfulle, "necessary, needed, useful," also "in want, poor, hungry, starving, having or exhibiting need or distress," from need (n.) + -ful. Meaning "characterized by need" is from mid-13c. From mid-14c. as "indispensable, necessary," also "urgent, demanding attention."
As a noun, "the poor," from c. 1200. The meaning "what is necessary" is from 1709. The colloquial sense of "cash" is recorded from 1774 in phrase the needful "ready money." Related: Needfully; needfulness.
the hand opposed to the left hand, late Old English rihthand; see right (adj.2) + hand (n.). So called as the one normally the stronger of the two. Applied to the right side generally by c. 1200. As a symbol of friendship or alliance, by 1590s. Figurative for "indispensable helper, person of use or importance," 1520s (right-hand man is attested by 1660s). Right-handed "having the right hand more useful than the left" is attested from late 14c.; as an adjective from c. 1700. Right-hander, of persons, "one who uses the right hand more skillfully than the left" is by 1885.
1856, "style in fine art, artistic skill, faculty of producing excellence rapidly and easily," from French chic "stylishness" (19c.), originally "subtlety" (16c.), which is of unknown origin. Perhaps [Klein] it is related to German Schick, Geschick "tact, skill, aptness," from Middle Low German schikken "arrange appropriately," or Middle High German schicken "to arrange, set in order." Or perhaps it is from French chicane, from chicanerie "trickery" (see chicanery).
Meaning "Parisian elegance and stylishness combined with originality" is by 1882 ("Pall Mall Gazette," 1888, calls it "an untranslatable word, denoting an indispensable quality"). As an adjective, in reference to persons, "stylish," 1879 in English. "Not so used in F[rench]" [OED].
also muckraker, c. 1600, "one who rakes muck" (earliest use is in a figurative sense: "a miser"), from muck-rake "rake for scraping muck or filth" (mid-14c.), from muck (n.) + rake (n.). The figurative meaning "one who inquires into and publishes scandal and allegations of corruption among political and business leaders" was popularized 1906 in speech by President Theodore Roosevelt, in reference to the "man ... with a Muckrake in his hand" in Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" (1684) who seeks worldly gain by raking filth.
The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck. [T. Roosevelt, quoted in "Cincinnati Enquirer," April 15, 1906.]
Muck-rake (n.) in sense "person who hunts scandal" is attested from 1872. To muck-rake (v.) in the literal sense is from 1879; figuratively from 1910. Related: Muck-raking.
c. 1200, "a servant, a functionary;" c. 1300, "instrumental musician, singer or storyteller;" from Old French menestrel "entertainer, poet, musician; servant, workman;" also "a good-for-nothing, a rogue," from Medieval Latin ministralis "servant, jester, singer," from Late Latin ministerialem (nominative ministerialis) "imperial household officer, one having an official duty," from ministerialis (adj.) "ministerial," from Latin ministerium (see ministry). The connecting notion to entertainers is the jester, musician, etc., as a court position.
Specific sense of "musician" developed in Old French, and the Norman conquest introduced the class into England, where they assimilated with the native gleemen. But in English from late 14c. to 16c. the word was used of anyone (singers, storytellers, jugglers, buffoons) whose profession was to entertain patrons. Their social importance and reputation in England deteriorated and by Elizabethan times they were ranked as a public nuisance. Only in 18c. English was the word limited, in a historical sense, to "medieval singer of heroic or lyric poetry who accompanied himself on a stringed instrument." Compare troubadour, jongleur.
By 1843 in American English in reference to a class of singers of "Negro melodies" and delineators of "plantation life," usually white men in blackface (burnt cork). The act itself dates to c. 1830.
The characteristic feature of such a troupe or band is the middle-man or interlocutor, who leads talk and gives the cues, and the two end-men, who usually perform on the tambourine and the bones, and between whom the indispensable conundrums and jokes are exchanged. As now constituted, a negro-minstrel troupe retains but little of its original character except the black faces and the old jokes. [Century Dictionary, 1895]
