Archaic English from William Morris
5 Jan 2020 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneThe other day I read the entirety of one of Morris's pre-Tolkien fantasy novels, The Wood Beyond the World, and gathered a whole bundle of new-to-me archaic terms. They aren't obscure enough to have to stop and look up as you go along, and for most of my life I would have therefore just ignored them, but some of them were so quaint-looking that I bookmarked them all instead to look up the next day.
(William Morris is, of course, the painter, illustrator, wallpaper and textile/tapestry designer, and founder of the Arts & Crafts movement, whose wife Jane was the muse of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There's some vague polyamory rumors about this floating around Tumblr, but the evidence seems conflicting and there are reports he was 'more interested in objects than women' or something like that, which would make a lot of sense of both his personal life and the nature of the romances, such as they are, in his fantasy writings.)
"'But in sooth, however it may be, I thank thee, my Squire and friend, for telling me hereof. And surely no wyte do I lay on thee.'"
wite1 or wyte [ wahyt ], noun
(in Anglo-Saxon law) 1. a fine imposed by a king or lord on a subject who committed a serious crime. 2. a fee demanded for granting a special privilege.
Chiefly Scot. responsibility for a crime, fault, or misfortune; blame.
Origin of wite1
before 900; (noun) Middle English, Old English wīte penalty; cognate with Old High German wīzi, Old Norse vīti; (v.) Middle English witen, Old English wītan to blame
"'So arise, Squire, and take the hounds and come with me; for not far off is a little thicket which mostly harbours foison of deer, great and small.'"
foison. 1 archaic : rich harvest
"He smiled on her licorously, and took her by the shoulders, and kissed her face many times, and then stood aloof from her, and said: 'Now have I had hansel: but tell me, when shall I come to thee?'"
licorous: see lickerish
lick·er·ish (lĭk′ər-ĭsh), adj. 1. Lascivious; lecherous. 2. Greedy; desirous. 3.a. Archaic Relishing good food. b. Obsolete Arousing hunger; appetizing.
[Middle English likerous, perhaps from Old French lecheor, lekier; see lecher.]
hansel, handsel. 1 : a gift made as a token of good wishes or luck especially at the beginning of a new year 2 : something received first (as in a day of trading) and taken to be a token of good luck 3a : a first installment : earnest money b : earnest, foretaste
"a tall fence of flake-hurdles, and a simple gate therein"
flake (plural flakes) (Britain, dialectal) A paling; a hurdle.
Hurdle: A movable frame of wattled twigs, osiers, or withes and stakes, or sometimes of iron, used for enclosing land, for folding sheep and cattle, for gates, etc.; also, in fortification, used as revetments, and for other purposes.
"Walter was much heartened by her words and her voice, and he fell to and made a fire, and a woodland oven in the earth, and sithence dighted his fowl, and baked them after the manner of wood-men."
sithence 1. (obsolete) From or since the time that. 2. (archaic) Seeing that, since.
dight /dʌɪt/ verb LITERARY. past tense: dighted; past participle: dighted
make ready for a use or purpose; prepare.
SCOTTISH•NORTHERN ENGLISH. wipe clean or dry.
"take a cloth and dight it up"
SCOTTISH•NORTHERN ENGLISH. winnow (corn).
"before long they were come up on to the down-country, where was scarce a tree, save gnarled and knotty thorn-bushes here and there, but nought else higher than the whin."
whin /wɪn/, noun, NORTHERN ENGLISH
furze; gorse.
"So they entered, and found beds thereon of heather and ling, and they laid them down sweetly, like brother and sister, when they had kissed each other."
ling /lɪŋ/ noun: ling; plural noun: lings
the common heather of Eurasia, Calluna vulgaris. (The English common names heath and heather are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance in the family Ericacae - the genus Calluna and the genus Erica.)
"Two days he battled thus with storm and blindness, and wanhope of his life; for he was growing weak and fordone."
wanhope (usually uncountable, plural wanhopes). (Britain dialectal or archaic) Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair.
"The chairs and stools were of carven work well be-painted, and amidmost was a great ivory chair under a cloth of estate, of bawdekin of gold and green, much be-pearled."
Baudekin \Bau"de*kin\, n. [OE. bawdekin rich silk stuff, OF. baudequin. See Baldachin.] The richest kind of stuff used in garments in the Middle Ages, the web being gold, and the woof silk, with embroidery; -- made originally at Baghdad. [Spelt also baudkin, baudkyn, bawdekin, and baldakin.]
"the walls hung with arras of the fairest, though he might not tell what was the history done therein."
arras - hanging tapestry
"'I wot not whence she is; but this I wot full surely, that when she goeth away, they whom she leadeth with her shall be well bestead. Again, of her lineage nought know I; but this I know, that they that come of her, to the twentieth generation, shall bless and praise the memory of her, and hallow her name little less than they hallow the name of the Mother of God.'"
bestead (Entry 2 of 2) transitive verb. 1 archaic : help. 2 archaic : to be useful to : avail.
(William Morris is, of course, the painter, illustrator, wallpaper and textile/tapestry designer, and founder of the Arts & Crafts movement, whose wife Jane was the muse of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There's some vague polyamory rumors about this floating around Tumblr, but the evidence seems conflicting and there are reports he was 'more interested in objects than women' or something like that, which would make a lot of sense of both his personal life and the nature of the romances, such as they are, in his fantasy writings.)
"'But in sooth, however it may be, I thank thee, my Squire and friend, for telling me hereof. And surely no wyte do I lay on thee.'"
wite1 or wyte [ wahyt ], noun
(in Anglo-Saxon law) 1. a fine imposed by a king or lord on a subject who committed a serious crime. 2. a fee demanded for granting a special privilege.
Chiefly Scot. responsibility for a crime, fault, or misfortune; blame.
Origin of wite1
before 900; (noun) Middle English, Old English wīte penalty; cognate with Old High German wīzi, Old Norse vīti; (v.) Middle English witen, Old English wītan to blame
"'So arise, Squire, and take the hounds and come with me; for not far off is a little thicket which mostly harbours foison of deer, great and small.'"
foison. 1 archaic : rich harvest
"He smiled on her licorously, and took her by the shoulders, and kissed her face many times, and then stood aloof from her, and said: 'Now have I had hansel: but tell me, when shall I come to thee?'"
licorous: see lickerish
lick·er·ish (lĭk′ər-ĭsh), adj. 1. Lascivious; lecherous. 2. Greedy; desirous. 3.a. Archaic Relishing good food. b. Obsolete Arousing hunger; appetizing.
[Middle English likerous, perhaps from Old French lecheor, lekier; see lecher.]
hansel, handsel. 1 : a gift made as a token of good wishes or luck especially at the beginning of a new year 2 : something received first (as in a day of trading) and taken to be a token of good luck 3a : a first installment : earnest money b : earnest, foretaste
"a tall fence of flake-hurdles, and a simple gate therein"
flake (plural flakes) (Britain, dialectal) A paling; a hurdle.
Hurdle: A movable frame of wattled twigs, osiers, or withes and stakes, or sometimes of iron, used for enclosing land, for folding sheep and cattle, for gates, etc.; also, in fortification, used as revetments, and for other purposes.
"Walter was much heartened by her words and her voice, and he fell to and made a fire, and a woodland oven in the earth, and sithence dighted his fowl, and baked them after the manner of wood-men."
sithence 1. (obsolete) From or since the time that. 2. (archaic) Seeing that, since.
dight /dʌɪt/ verb LITERARY. past tense: dighted; past participle: dighted
make ready for a use or purpose; prepare.
SCOTTISH•NORTHERN ENGLISH. wipe clean or dry.
"take a cloth and dight it up"
SCOTTISH•NORTHERN ENGLISH. winnow (corn).
"before long they were come up on to the down-country, where was scarce a tree, save gnarled and knotty thorn-bushes here and there, but nought else higher than the whin."
whin /wɪn/, noun, NORTHERN ENGLISH
furze; gorse.
"So they entered, and found beds thereon of heather and ling, and they laid them down sweetly, like brother and sister, when they had kissed each other."
ling /lɪŋ/ noun: ling; plural noun: lings
the common heather of Eurasia, Calluna vulgaris. (The English common names heath and heather are shared by some closely related genera of similar appearance in the family Ericacae - the genus Calluna and the genus Erica.)
"Two days he battled thus with storm and blindness, and wanhope of his life; for he was growing weak and fordone."
wanhope (usually uncountable, plural wanhopes). (Britain dialectal or archaic) Lack of hope; hopelessness; despair.
"The chairs and stools were of carven work well be-painted, and amidmost was a great ivory chair under a cloth of estate, of bawdekin of gold and green, much be-pearled."
Baudekin \Bau"de*kin\, n. [OE. bawdekin rich silk stuff, OF. baudequin. See Baldachin.] The richest kind of stuff used in garments in the Middle Ages, the web being gold, and the woof silk, with embroidery; -- made originally at Baghdad. [Spelt also baudkin, baudkyn, bawdekin, and baldakin.]
"the walls hung with arras of the fairest, though he might not tell what was the history done therein."
arras - hanging tapestry
"'I wot not whence she is; but this I wot full surely, that when she goeth away, they whom she leadeth with her shall be well bestead. Again, of her lineage nought know I; but this I know, that they that come of her, to the twentieth generation, shall bless and praise the memory of her, and hallow her name little less than they hallow the name of the Mother of God.'"
bestead (Entry 2 of 2) transitive verb. 1 archaic : help. 2 archaic : to be useful to : avail.
