Again, the word _disgust_, by which we express complete loathing for anything, used merely to mean "dislike" or "distaste." In the same way, the word _loathe_, by which we mean "to hate" or feel the greatest disgust for, originally meant merely "to dislike." The stronger meaning came from the fact that the word was often used to describe the dislike a sick person feels for food. Every one knows how strong this feeling can be, and it is from this that _loathe_ and _loathsome_ took the strong meaning they now have. Curiously enough, the adjective _loath_ or _loth_, from the same word, has kept the old mild meaning. When we say we are "loth" to do a thing, we do not mean that we hate doing it, but merely that we feel rather unwilling to do it. In Old English, too, the word _filth_ and its derivative _foul_ were not quite such strong words as _dirt_ and _dirty_.
Again, the words _stench_ and _stink_ in Old English meant merely "smell" or "odour." One could then speak of the "sweet stench" of a flower; but in the later Middle Ages these words came to have their present meaning of "smelling most disagreeably."
We saw how the taking of the word _fol_ from the French, meaning "foolish," caused the meaning of several English words which before had this meaning to be changed. The coming in of foreign words has been a very common cause for such changes of meaning. The word _fiend_ in English has now a quite different meaning from its original meaning in English, when it simply meant "enemy," the opposite to "friend." When the word "enemy" itself was borrowed from the French, the word _fiend_ came to be less and less often used in this sense. In time _fiend_ came to be another word for _devil_, the chief enemy of mankind. But in modern times we do not use the word much in this sense. It is most often now applied to persons. It sounds rather milder than calling a person a "devil," but it means exactly the same thing.
The word _stool_ came to have its present special meaning through the coming into English from the French of the word _chair_. Before the Norman Conquest any kind of seat for one person was a "stool," even sometimes a royal throne. The word _deer_ also had in Old English the meaning of "beast" in general, but the coming in of the word _beast_ from the French led to its falling into disuse, and by degrees it became the special name of the chief beast of chase.