Middle-English Word of the Day - April 16, 2008
Abusioun (n.) - deceit.
Many a subtil resoun forth they leyden;
They speken of magyk and abusioun.
But finally, as in conclusioun,
They kan nat seen in that noon avantage,
Ne in noon oother wey, save mariage.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)
Pronunciation: /AbusiaUn/
Key
/A/ a in father
/b/ b in boy
/u/ oo in boot
/s/ s in hiss
/i/ i in machine
/aU/ au in Paul, aw in awl
/n/ n in no
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/
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