PHILOLOGY IS HERE! (You asked for it, crackie!
)
So, exploring the three words -
Hoard is fairly straightforward: a Germanic word in origin, with existing cognates still in German,
Hort, and Luxembourgish,
hoart. Through a process called rhotacism, whereby 'z' or 's' sounds may be changed to 'r' sounds, it is also related to the common words 'house' (English),
Haus (German), and
Haut (German for 'skin'). These all convey some idea of covering: a hoard is a thing 'covered over', a house provides protection by being a cover, and skin obviously covers us. These words (and many others) all derive from the Proto-Indo-European root
*(s)keu-, 'cover, conceal'. (The asterisk in linguistics denotes a probable, but hypothetical, reconstructed form.)
Share is a little more complex. It is also Germanic, stemming from the Old English word
scearu (the spelling 'sc' approximated our modern pronunciation 'sh' in this period).
Scearu, meaning "a part or division, a piece cut off" also comes down to us in the modern word shear, and is cognate with the German
Schar "troop, band" or more literally "a part of an army", and
scheren "to cut (something) off". There are similar forms in Dutch (
scheren 'to shave') and Swedish (
skåra 'cut'), Greek (
keirein 'to cut'), Latin (
caro "flesh", which was originally used in the sense "a piece of flesh"), and even old Irish (
scar(a)im "to disconnect or divide"). These all came from the Proto-Indo-European root
*(s)ker(ə)-, meaning, you guessed it, "to cut".
Finally,
pilfer. This is where it gets interesting (and muddled). On first glance, a dictionary will tell you that pilfer comes through Middle English from the Old French
pelfre, the origin of which is unknown. This also yielded the now archaic English word 'pelf' which means 'spoils, loot'. However, a little digging in the DEAF (Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français) database shows that
pelfre is probably related to the vulgar Latin roots
*faluppa or
*feleppa (it's debated by scholars whether
pelfre is derived from this latter or is the root of it.) In either case, it seems to be related through the process of metathesis, which refers to the switching of sounds between syllables or sound clusters in words, a common form of sound change seen in modern English in such words as nuclear (often pronounced "nookyooler") or the pronunciation of comfortable as "comfterbull". This root, which originally meant 'piece of straw; something worthless', gave rise to many varied words, but an interesting development in the word's travels to its modern day meaning is that Ancient French
pelfre also meant "used clothes or linen" as well as "goods taken by violence or in battle". This shows the mental link between how a word that originally meant scraps of straw and came to be therefore synonymous with worthlessness was used to describe the spoils of war as, quite literally, "tattered clothing", and eventually shifted in meaning to the connotation of precious items, in the continued sense of "those things taken from the enemy".
I did find one further connection quite interesting:
*faluppa also became vulgar Latin
*infrapedare which in turn yielded modern Italian
frappare which means "to cut or prune". Other derivatives in various Romance languages carry the meanings of tear, foliage, and ragged, all evoking the idea of something which has been cut or shredded, which at once hearkens back to the original meaning of worthless (and perhaps even broken shreds of straw), and also connects it remotely with our previous word "share", which came from a root meaning "to cut". In essence, although coming from different roots, both pelf and shares could be defined as "bits of something which have been cut away" but their meanings have developed through the ages into one portion of something that is taken against someone's will, and one portion that is freely given away.
Summary - Hoard, dictionary definition "a treasure, valuable stock or store, an accumulation of something for preservation or future use", root meaning "something which is covered or concealed"
Share, dictionary definition "portion of something belonging to an individual", root meaning "a piece which is cut off, separated"
Pilfer, dictionary definition "to steal in small quantities", root meaning "something which is torn or worthless"
Thanks for giving me a good excuse to indulge my curiosity and delve into some word histories,
@crackie. You're probably regretting ever learning what a philologist was, but that's shenanigans for you!
We have to lend an air of credibility and legality to the proceedings, in case suspicious eyes are watching. We're preserving our cover! (Plus I've been reading Cicero, whose grandiose rhetorical style is sticking in my head, so... XD )