Medieval Cookery - Middle-English Word of the Day

Middle-English Word of the Day - February 14, 2008

Undermel (n.) - the afternoon-meal.

For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the lymytour hymself
In undermeles and in morwenynges,
And seyth his matyns and his hooly thynges
As he gooth in his lymytacioun.

- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)

Pronunciation: /undErmEl/

Key
/u/ oo in boot
/n/ n in no
/d/ d in dog
/E/ e in met
/r/ r in red
/m/ m in make
/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.