Early Modern English

==Vocabulary==
A number of words that are still in common use in Modern English have undergone [[semantic field|semantic narrowing]].

The use of the verb "to suffer" in the sense of "to allow" survived into Early Modern English, as in the phrase "suffer the little children" of the ''King James Version'', but it has mostly been lost in Modern English.<ref>Doughlas Harper, https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer#etymonline_v_22311 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104010424/https://www.etymonline.com/word/suffer#etymonline_v_22311 |date=4 November 2018 }}</ref> This use still exists in the [[idiom]] "to suffer fools gladly".

Also, this period includes one of the earliest Russian borrowings to English (which is historically a rare occasion itself<ref>Mirosława Podhajecka Russian borrowings in English: A dictionary and corpus study, p.19</ref>); at least as early as 1600, the word "[[:wikt: steppe|steppe]]" (rus. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%8C степь])<ref>Max Vasmer, Etymological dictionary of the Russian language</ref> first appeared in English in [[William Shakespeare]]'s comedy ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]''. It is believed that this is a possible indirect borrowing via either German or French.

The substantial borrowing of Latin and sometimes Greek words for abstract concepts, begun in Middle English, continued unabated, often terms for abstract concepts not available in English.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Franklin |first1=James |date=1983 |title=Mental furniture from the philosophers |url=http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf |journal=Et Cetera |volume=40 |issue= |pages=177–191 |doi= |access-date=29 June 2021 |archive-date=23 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081123101442/http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/mental.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>