Middle-English Word of the Day - March 6, 2008
Disport (n.) - pleasure, recreation.
This phebus, that was flour of bachilrie,
As wel in fredom as in chivalrie,
For his desport, in signe eek of victorie
Of phitoun, so as telleth us the storie,
Was wont to beren in his hand a bowe.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)
Pronunciation: /dIspOrt/
Key
/d/ d in dog
/I/ i in bit
/s/ s in hiss
/p/ p in pepper
/O/ o in cloth
/r/ r in red
/t/ t in tie
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 2008 Medieval Cookery