Q. The verbs "harass" and "harry" both can mean to annoy or torment constantly by, or as if by, repeated attacks. These two words must be related, right?A. We can see how you might come to that conclusion, but the answer actually is "no." While it is possible that the meaning of "harass" has been influenced by "harry" (which is an older word), the two words do not, in fact, share the same etymology.
"Harry" or a word resembling it, has been a part of English for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. It took the form "hergian" in Old English and "harien" in Middle English, then passed through numerous variations before finally settling into its modern spelling.
The word's Old English ancestors are related to the Old High German words "herion," "to lay waste," and "heri," "army," terms that are themselves akin to the Greek "koiranos," meaning "ruler."
"Harry" originally meant literally "to raid" or "to pillage," but it soon broadened to encompass the more general meaning "to torment by or as if by constant attack."
The meaning of "harass" is certainly very close to that of "harry." "Harass" can mean "to exhaust or fatigue," "to annoy persistently," or "to worry and impede by repeated raids." But in contrast with "harry," "harass" didn't enter English until the 17th century, and it comes from a completely different source.
English speakers adapted "harass" from the French word "harasser," meaning "to exhaust or fatigue." "Harasser" in turn derives from the Middle French word "harer," itself a descendant of Old French "hare," an interjection used to incite dogs. As with "harry," there is a connection to Old High German, but in this case the kinship is with "hier," meaning "here," and not with "herion" and "heri."
Q. You often describe the derivation of words in your column or state that the derivation is not known. It is not clear to me what constitutes "proof" in the case of word history. I would like to ask what is accepted as proof and whether or not such proofs occasionally break down with time.
A. In the best of all worlds, our etymologies (or word histories) would each be backed by a wealth of historical citations which clearly trace the origin and development of the word in question. In the real world of dictionary editing, however, such incontrovertible evidence is often not available.
And so we are forced to perform a certain amount of etymological detective work, looking for linguistic and historical clues to determine a word's origin.
Examining a word's spelling and pronunciation can often yield valuable etymological information. But the mere phonetic or orthographic resemblance of one word to another is not sufficient grounds for assuming that two words of different languages are related, even if the words happen to mean something similar.
There are too many accidental similarities among words in various languages for these alone to be considered determining factors in etymology. To corroborate these similarities, then, we look for historical evidence that speakers of the borrowing language had some sort of contact with the source language which would account for such a borrowing.
Assuming that there is evidence of contact, any differences in form and pronunciation between the two words would also have to be minimal or, if the borrowing occurred in the distant past, would have to be accounted for by standard laws of sound change between languages.
If all these criteria are met, then we can consider the theory substantiated; if not, and if we are unable to substantiate any other theories, then the English word's origin must be considered unknown.
And yes, our etymologies occasionally do "break down." Sometimes this is due to new evidence which suddenly comes to light; in other instances, after re-examining our evidence, we've simply decided that the case for our original theory was not as strong as we thought. Most of our etymologies, however, have stood up well to the test of time.