Grecian To Me!

Griceans can write literarily in both Gricean and Grecian. Grecian is second nature to Griceans. Consider Grice's

razor-cut

Do not modify senses beyond Occam

etc.

He does not use, but he is thinking, Aristotle's homonym.

While 'homonym' is first attested by the OED in 1697, there are earlier cites for the cognate terms:
'homonymous'
'homonymal'
'homonymia',
'homonymie'
-- and indeed the dating here is otiose since it all goes back to some time before there was even a thing called the English language: to wit: Aristotle's Organon:

The OED 1656 cite for 'homonymia' is especially
interesting as a reflection of
an 'Aristotelian' account. It comes from
a history of philosophy"


"Terms are of three kinds,

i. Homonymous,
ii. Synonymous,
and
iii. Paronymous.

Homonymous, whose name only is
common, their Essence divers."

1656. Stanley, Hist. Philos. vi (1701) 244/2

An earlier 1616 quote is also interesting with the example of 'hart', which, way
back then, it was not just a homonym, but a homograph, too, it seems:

"Homonymie, a terme in Logicke,
when one
word signifieth diuers things:

as Hart: signifying

a beast, and
a principall member of the body."

Bullokar, 1616.


-- and then Bullokar also signifies a beast. It cdan also mean the substance out of a member of the body, as in bullshit.

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The other relevant quotes predating 1697 'homonym' are:

* 1551 T. Wilson Logike (1580) 65

Homonymia, whiche maie be called in
Englishe, the doubtfulnesse of one woorde,

when it signifieth diversly.


* 1597 Morley Introd. Mus. 150

You play upon the Homonymie of the word Loue.

And I play with my lust for Loeb.


* 1621 W. Sclater Tythes (1623) 115

Your Minor is euery whit homonymous.

* 1641 H. L'Estrange God's Sabbath 102

For Island..their dayes are homonymall
with ours in England..as derived from the same idoles.

* 1658 Phillips,

Homonymous, things of several kindes, having the same
denomination, a Term in Logick.

* 1661 Fuller Worthies, Lanc.,

[John Smith]
became Fellow and Proctor of the University
[of Cambridge] when past Sixty years of age,

when
the Prevaricators gave him this Homony[m]ous Salute Ave
Pater.)

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"Hart", oddly, was a friend of Grice's. His surname is NOT homonymous today. Etc.

JLS