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end. This historic event was called Norman Conquest , which brought about momentous consequences and changed the whole course of English language. With the French2speaking Nor2 mans becoming the ruling class , French was used for all state affairs and for most social and cultural matters. Conse2 quently , French words were comprehensively adopted. In law and governmental administ ration section , there were judge , jury , justice ; in religion section , there were confess , divine , sermon , in science section , there were medicine rem2 edy , surgeon ; in art section , words were beauty , image , de2 sign , and in clothing section , word were coat , gown , robe , dress. In addition to this , some affixes of French and Italian were also anglicized at the same time , prefix like dis2 , en2 , inter2 , mal2 , non2 , re2 , semi2 , and suffix like able , 2al , 2ar2 cy\ 2ency , 2ant \ 2ent , all became the important element s of English vocabulary formation. The third period ———Modern English Period extends f rom 1500A. D. to the present day. In the 16th century , the movement of Renaissance st ressed on studying Latin and Greek classics , which enriched English vocabulary by adding Latin and Greek loan vocabulary. Words like chaos , crisis , emphasis , climax , appendix , comedy , drama were borrowed at that time. What’ more , f rom the British Bourgeois2demo2 cratic Revolution in 1640 , colonization and t rade onwards , English has borrowed vast quantities of words f rom every known language , as said in the Encyclopedia American : " The English language has vast debt s. In any dictionary some 80 % of the ent ries are borrowed. " [3 ] From above , we may perceive that the historical devel2 opment of English vocabulary is just the same as the human society’s development . In a sense , it is the reflection of the latter. The long course of English vocabulary development has proved , undoubtedly , that a certain kind of language cannot live out of the human society. Aside f rom the development of English vocabulary , so2 cial development should also be taken into consideration in the research of the causes of changes in English word mean2 ing. " In general ,changes of meaning not only refer to the al2 teration of the meaning of exiting words , but also the addi2 tion of new meaning to established words. " [4 ] Needless to say , the meaning of English word changes partly because of linguistic causes , such as the tendency towards ellip sis and towards analogy , however , it changes largely because of so2 cial factors , most significantly , the great changes appeared in consequence of social development . Human society is marching on , some object s , concep2 tions and ideas have changed under the new circumstances. However , people are accustomed to use their original. The word " atom"is a typical example regards to the alteration of the meaning of the exiting words because of historical rea2 sons. For a long time , people considered that atom was the smallest invisible particle of matter in the word , so it got it s name f rom Greek. But with the development of science and technology , it has been proved that " atom" can be fatherly subdivided into a proton , neut ron , and elect ron , neverthe2 less , " atom" is still kept to a scientific concept . Here are two examples about the addition of new mean2 ing to established words. "Manuscript" originally referred to articles written by hand , however , nowadays , those articles brought to