The rather mundane word, bracket, has a sexier history than you might expect.

A word that changes its meaning can be either an example of melioration, where the word takes on a more favorable connotation (see the recent post on paradise which changed its meaning from an orchard to the heavenly garden of God) or deterioration where it takes on a more negative association.

So how will we describe the change in the Spanish word, bragueta (from which English borrowed bracket), which was initially a word for codpiece but became used for the object that holds up a shelf?

And how did a codpiece become something that holds up shelves? With very little imagination at all: bracket describes an architectural member that stands out at right angles from the wall and often supports a shelf or beam. Lets say no more or we shall find ourselves deeply in the realm of double entendre.

So is the transformation of bracket from a codpiece to a piece of hardware for erecting shelves an example of the word taking on more favourable or less favourable connotations? Is it melioration or deterioration?

Changing from a term for something that is sexy, if perhaps nowadays a little vulgar, to a term for something mundane but certainly more respectable is neither more favourable nor more negative. One minute you are the very epitomy of renaissance manhood the next you are a piece of hardware for holding up a kitchen shelf. Sounds very much more like middle-agedness.