Middle-English Word of the Day - January 22, 2008
Swonken (v.) - worked, toiled (past participle of "swink").
Aleyn wax wery in the dawenynge,
For he had swonken al the longe nyght,
And seyde, fare weel, malyne, sweete wight!
- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)
Pronunciation: /swOnkEn/
Key
/s/ s in hiss
/w/ w in we, away
/O/ o in cloth
/n/ n in no
/k/ k in kin
/E/ e in met
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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