Editing Latin influence in English (section)

==Early Middle Ages==
The [[Germanic tribes]] who later gave rise to the English language  traded and fought with the Latin speaking [[Roman Empire]]. Many words for common objects entered the vocabulary of these Germanic people from Latin even before the tribes reached Britain: ''anchor'', ''butter'', ''camp'', ''cheese'', ''chest'', ''cook'', ''copper'', ''devil'', ''dish'', ''fork'', ''gem'', ''inch'', ''kitchen'', ''mile'', ''mill'', ''mint'' (coin), ''noon'', ''pillow'', ''pound'' (unit of weight), ''punt'' (boat), ''sack'', ''street'', ''wall'', ''wine''.

Christian missionaries coming to Britain in the 6th or and 7th century brought with them Latin religious terms. Some of these words are [[English words of Greek origin|ultimately of Greek origin]], as much of the technical language of Christianity developed from the Greek of the New Testament and the works of those fathers of the Church who wrote in Greek.

During this time, Catholic monks mainly wrote or copied text in Latin, the prevalent medieval lingua franca in Europe. When monks occasionally wrote in the vernacular, Latin words were translated by finding suitable Old English equivalents. A Germanic word was often adopted and given a new shade of meaning in the process. Such was the case with Old English ''gōdspell'' ("gospel") for Latin ''Evangelium''. Previously, the Old English word simply meant "good news", but its meaning was extended in Old English to fit a religious context. The same occurred for the Old Germanic pagan word ''blētsian'', which meant "to sacrifice, consecrate by shedding blood". It was adapted by Old English scribes and Christianized to become the word ''bless''. Similarly ''fullwiht'' 
(literally, "full-being") and the verb ''fullian'' came to mean "baptism" and "to baptise" respectively, but probably originally referred to some kind of rite of passage.

Whenever a suitable Old English substitute could not be found, a Latin word could be chosen instead, and many Latin words entered the Old English lexicon in this way. Such words include: ''biscop'' "bishop" from Latin ''episcopus'', Old English ''tepid'' "carpet" from Latin ''tapetum'', and Old English ''sigel'' "brooch" from Latin ''sigillum'', ''culcer'' and ''læfel'' "spoon" from Latin ''coclearium'' and ''labellum'' beside Old English ''spōn'' and ''hlædel'' (Modern English ''ladle''); Old English ''forca'' from Latin ''furca'' "fork" next to Old English ''gafol''; Old English ''scamol'' "chair, stool" from Latin ''scamellum'' beside native ''stōl'', ''benc'' and ''setl''. All told, approximately 600 words were borrowed from Latin during the Old English period.<ref>Lounsbury, ''History of the English Language'', page 42.</ref> Often, the Latin word was tightly restricted in sense, and was not widely used by the general populace. Latin words tended to be literary or scholarly terms and were not very common. The majority of them did not survive into the Middle English Period.