What is the Teutonic/Saxon word that Huxley refers to? [closed]
Selfhood is close to personality and both self- and -hood have Teutonic/Saxon origins.
Etymology Online:
self-
word forming element indicating "oneself," also "automatic," from Old English use of self (pron.) in compounds, such as selfbana "suicide," selflice "self-love, pride, vanity, egotism," selfwill "free will."
self (pron.)
Old English self, seolf, sylf "one's own person, -self; own, same," from Proto-Germanic *selbaz (source also of Old Norse sjalfr, Old Frisian self, Dutch zelf, Old High German selb, German selb, selbst, Gothic silba), Proto-Germanic *selbaz "self," from PIE *sel-bho-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e-, pronoun of the third person and reflexive (referring back to the subject of a sentence), also used in forms denoting the speaker's social group, "(we our-)selves" (see idiom).
-hood
word-forming element meaning "state or condition of being," from Old English -had "condition, quality, position" (as in cildhad "childhood," preosthad "priesthood," werhad "manhood"), cognate with German -heit/-keit, Dutch -heid, Old Frisian and Old Saxon -hed, all from Proto-Germanic *haidus "manner, quality," literally "bright appearance," from PIE (s)kai- (1) "bright, shining" (Cognates: Sanskrit ketu "brightness, appearance"). Originally a free-standing word (see hade); in Modern English it survives only in this suffix.
American Heritage Dictionary:
selfhood
n.
- The state of having a distinct identity; individuality.
The fully developed self; an achieved personality.
Self-centeredness: "the cult of selfhood that became fashionable in the 1960s" (David Rankin)
This would likely be the word he was referring to.