Many of these pairs of words seem to have no relation at all with each other, so much has one or the other, or both, changed in meaning from that of the original word from which they come. A familiar pair of doublets is _dainty_ and _dignity_, both of which come from the Latin word _dignitas_. _Dignity_, which came into the English language either directly from the Latin or through the modern French word _dignité_, has not wandered at all from the meaning of the Latin word, which had first the idea of "merit" or "value," and then that of honourable position or character which the word _dignity_ has in English. _Dainty_ has a quite different meaning; though it, too, came from _dignitas_, but through the less dignified way of the Old French word _daintie_.
The English words _dish_, _dais_, _desk_, and _disc_ all come from the Latin word _discus_, by which the Romans meant first a round flat plate thrown in certain games (a "quoit"), and secondly a plate or dish. In Old English this word became _dish_. In Old French it became _deis_, and from this we have the English _dais_--the raised platform of a throne. In Italian it became _desco_, from which we got _desk_; and the scientific men of modern times, in their need of a word to describe exactly a round, flat object, have gone back as near as possible to the Latin and given us _disc_. It is to be noticed that the original idea of the Latin word--"having a flat surface"--is kept in these four descendants of a remote ancestor.
The words _chieftain_ and _captain_ are doublets coming from the Late Latin word _capitaneus_, "chief;" the former through the Old French word _chevetaine_, and the latter more directly from the Latin. _Frail_ and _fragile_ are another pair, coming from the Latin word _fragilis_, "easily broken;" the one through Old French, and the other through Modern French.
Both these pairs of words have kept fairly close to the original meaning; but _caitiff_ and _captive_, another pair of doublets, have quite different meanings from each other. Both come from the Latin word _captivus_, "captive," the one indirectly and the other directly. _Caitiff_, which is not a word used now except occasionally in poetry, means a "base, cowardly person;" but _captive_ has, of course, the original meaning of the Latin word.