Runcible
LFS
title suggests, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. In
the book a meal in a monastery is described as including "runcible peas".
I have only ever come across the word in the context of Edward Lear's
owl and pussy cat who used a runcible spoon and I had always believed
that Lear had invented the word. As I am reading the book on my e-reader
which has a built-in dictionary, I tapped on the word and as I expected
the Lear version of the definition appeared.
Further investigation in the OED online (I really don't like the new web
layout) provided reference to Lear but also the suggestion that the word
was "Prob. a fanciful alteration of rouncival".
Rouncival turns out to be a type of pea. The word has also had a series
of other meanings, now obsolete (they've also made it much more
difficult to cut and paste from the OED pages), to wit:
a wart;
Gigantic, huge; robustious [I had to look that up: it appears that it is
another obsolete word] ;
A monster;
A woman of large build and boisterous or loose manners;
A heavy fall, a crash;
A form of alliterative verse.
How odd that a single word could at various times have had such a wide
variety of meanings.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
Plac
It used to mean "cannonball" as well.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
Not to mention his aunt Jobiska's
runcible cat with crimson whiskers.
"What are crims, mommy?" asked our daughter.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Donna Richoux
[snip "runcible"]
> Further investigation in the OED online (I really don't like the new web
> layout) provided reference to Lear but also the suggestion that the word
> was "Prob. a fanciful alteration of rouncival".
>
> Rouncival turns out to be a type of pea. The word has also had a series
> of other meanings, now obsolete (they've also made it much more
> difficult to cut and paste from the OED pages), to wit:
>
> a wart;
> Gigantic, huge; robustious [I had to look that up: it appears that it is
> another obsolete word] ;
> A monster;
> A woman of large build and boisterous or loose manners;
> A heavy fall, a crash;
> A form of alliterative verse.
>
> How odd that a single word could at various times have had such a wide
> variety of meanings.
Yes, that is striking. I tried "rounceval" in MW-U to see if there was a
clue as to why, and it says that it came from a placename. That could
have given rise to a variety of dissimilar properties! (Like Boston
baked beans, Boston terrier, Boston cream pie, etc.)
Main Entry: 1 rounceval
Function: adjective
Etymology: from Rouncesvalles, Roncevaux, mountain pass in northern
Spain; from the gigantic bones shown there as those of the paladins of
Charlemagne slain in battle in 778
obsolete : HUGE, LARGE
I find a great many versions of this definition but not many uses of the
word... I see there was a hospital of St. Mary Rounceval in Westminster
in medieval times... Oh, look, Roncesvalles was where Roland of "The
Song of Roland" was supposed to have died. I read that in eighth grade.
The largeness appears to be the common element for most of them.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Eric Walker
[...]
> I have only ever come across the word in the context of Edward Lear's
> owl and pussy cat who used a runcible spoon and I had always believed
> that Lear had invented the word. As I am reading the book on my e-reader
> which has a built-in dictionary, I tapped on the word and as I expected
> the Lear version of the definition appeared. . . .
There is a web site, "The Runcible Ansible"; you might email its
maintainer, David Langford, and ask him whence he took the word.
http://news.ansible.co.uk/Ansible.html
(Don't ask what an ansible is--if you read s.f. you'll know, else it
doesn't much matter here.)
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Steve Hayes
wrote:
Not to mention his aunt Jobiska's
philli...@googlemail.com
LFS
--
Laura (emulate St George for email)
Mike Barnes
vintage messages. I assume GG does little or nothing to alert its users,
where perhaps it used to.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
James Silverton
than his cat, Foss?
--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)
Extraneous "not." in Reply To.
Whiskers
to usenet posts older than about six weeks; that feature was too
sensible to survive long.
--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~