Middle-English Word of the Day - December 7, 2007
Wastel (n.) - a cake made of the finest flour.
Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;
And al was conscience and tendre herte.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)
Pronunciation: /wAstEl/
Key
/w/ w in we, away
/A/ a in father
/s/ s in hiss
/t/ t in tie
/E/ e in met
/l/ l in lily
The Middle-English Word of the Day is selected from Mayhew and Skeat's
"Concise Dictionary of Middle English."
As found on Greg Lindahl's website
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/concise/concise.html
The example text was found at the
Middle English Collection
of the
University of Virginia Library.
http://etext.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html
The approximate pronunciation is determined using Carol Hamill's Middle English Pronunciation Guide
and noted using upon the ASCII-IPA Standard
http://www.island.net/~hamill/medieval/mepronunc.html
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/IPA/
The Middle-English Word of the Day is automatically distributed Monday through Friday.
To subscribe, send email to mewd-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
© Copyright 2007 Medieval Cookery