The Middle English Period

Many more Latin-derived words came into use during this period, largely connected with religion, law, medicine and literature, including scripture, collect, meditation, immortal, oriental, client, adjacent, combine, expedition, moderate, nervous, private, popular, picture, legal, legitimate, testimony, prosecute, pauper, contradiction, history, library, comet, solar, recipe, scribe, scripture, tolerance, imaginary, infinite, index, intellect, magnify and genius. But French words continued to stream into English at an increasing pace, with even more French additions recorded after the 13th Century than before, peaking in the second half of the 14th century, words like abbey, alliance, attire, defend, navy, march, dine, marriage, figure, plea, sacrifice, scarlet, spy, stable, virtue, marshal, esquire, retreat, park, reign, beauty, clergy, cloak, country, fool, coast, magic, etc.

• Many more Latin-derived words came into use during this period, largely connected with religion, law, medicine and literature, including scripture, collect, meditation, immortal, oriental, client, adjacent, combine, expedition, moderate, nervous, private, popular, picture, legal, legitimate, testimony, prosecute, pauper, contradiction, history, library, comet, solar, recipe, scribe, scripture, tolerance, imaginary, infinite, index, intellect, magnify and genius. But French words continued to stream into English at an increasing pace, with even more French additions recorded after the 13th Century than before, peaking in the second half of the 14th century, words like abbey, alliance, attire, defend, navy, march, dine, marriage, figure, plea, sacrifice, scarlet, spy, stable, virtue, marshal, esquire, retreat, park, reign, beauty, clergy, cloak, country, fool, coast, magic, etc.
• A handful of French loanwords established themselves only in Scotland (which had become increasingly English in character during the early Middle English period, with Gaelic pushed further and further into the Highlands and Islands), including bonnie and fash. Distinctive spellings like "quh-" for "wh-" took hold (e.g. quhan and quhile for whan and while), and the Scottish accent gradually became more and more pronounced, particularly after Edward I's inconclusive attempts at annexation.