Hausmeister @hausmeister

8 Beiträge8 Beteiligte0 Beiträge heute

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 1 T.

1 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

un-sceþþigness, f.n: innocence, harmlessness. (UN-SHETH-thi-ness / ˈʌn-ˌʃɛθ-θɪ-nɛs)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 2 T.

2 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

uppe-weardes, adv: upwards. (UP-puh-WEH-ar-duss / ˈʌp-pə-ˌwɛard-əs)
Image: Caligula Troper; England (Worcester?), 2nd half of 11th century; British Library, Cotton MS Caligula A XIV, f. 18r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript illustration of Christ disappearing into the heavens, with only his feet and legs visible; angels observe from heaven and a crowd of people from the ground.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 3 T.

3 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

weorþ-mynd, m/f.n: honour, glory, favour, fame. (WEH-orth-muend / ˈwɛɔrθ-mynd)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 4 T.

4 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

hrēogan, v: to get rough (of weather). (HRAY-oh-gahn / ˈhreːɔ-gan)
Image: The Huth Apocalypse; Old French, late 13th century; British Library, Add MS 38118, f. 22v.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript illustration of a hooded man holding his arms up in front of him facing a tall horned devil with wings on its rear and a smaller two-winged dragon; blood pours down from a storm cloud overhead.

**Alliterative/Endless Knot** @AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 4 T.

4 T.

Alliterative/Endless Knot @AllEndlessKnot@toot.community

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HABEAS CORPUS/PROHIBIT/MIDRIFF #wotd #HabeasCorpus #prohibit #midriff

Two random things about conservatives: they can’t define habeas corpus and they often want to prohibit bare midriffs, and strangely that’s etymologically appropriate. Habeas corpus, the legal principal that a detained person must be brought before a court to make sure their detention is lawful, is a Latin phrase that literally means “(you should) have the person”. Habeas, the 2nd person singular present subjunctive form of the verb habere “to have”, can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ghabh- “to give or receive”, which is also the source of English give (but surprisingly not have). When combined with the prefix pro- “away, forth” Latin habere becomes prohibere “to hold back, restrain, hinder, prevent”, with the past participle prohibitus that came into English in the 15th c. as prohibit. Latin corpus meaning “body” comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *kwrep- “body, form, appearance” (which as a verbal root probably had the meaning “to appear”), and this root also came into the Germanic languages as the Proto-Germanic root *hrefiz- which became Old English hrif “belly”, a word which only survives today in the compound word midriff.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 5 T.

5 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

sārig, adj: feeling grief, sorry, sorrowful, sad; expressing grief, mournful, sad, bitter. (SA-rih / ˈsaː-rɪj)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 6 T.

6 T.

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

turf, f.n: turf, sod, piece of earth with grass on it; the grassy surface of the earth. (TURF / ˈtʌrf)
Image: Luttrell Psalter; England (Lincolnshire), c. 1320-1340; British Library, Add MS 42130, f. 176v.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript illustration of a grassy knoll with dogs chasing rabbits out of their holes; on top of the knoll two rabbits face one another, forelegs outstretched.

**TrèsFluke** @darrenmorin@mstdn.ca · 6 T.

6 T.

TrèsFluke @darrenmorin@mstdn.ca

#WOTD is Limn

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/limn

www.merriam-webster.comDefinition of LIMNDefinition of 'limn' by Merriam-Webster

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 24. Mai

24. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

irfe, n.n: inherited property, property that passes to an heir. (IR-vuh / ˈɪr-və)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**TrèsFluke** @darrenmorin@mstdn.ca · 23. Mai

23. Mai

TrèsFluke @darrenmorin@mstdn.ca

Word of the day is "Bastion".

"The bar was considered a bastion in the gathering of bastards."
#WOTD
https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/bastion-2025-05-23

www.merriam-webster.comWord of the Day: BastionBastion today usually refers to a metaphorical fortress, a place where an idea, ethos, philosophy, culture, etc. is in some way protected and able to endure. But its oldest meaning concerned literal

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 23. Mai

23. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

snaca, m/f.n: snake, reptile, perhaps even a scorpion. (SNAH-ka / ˈsna-ka)
Image: Boa in the Aberdeen Bestiary; England, c. 1200; Aberdeen University Library, MS 24, f. 69r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript illustration of a two-legged, two-winged dragon-like creature with a very long neck and even longer tail, coiled around in circles.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 22. Mai

22. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

murcnung, f.n: complaint, murmuring. (MURK-nung / ˈmʌrk-nʌŋ)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 21. Mai

21. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

ge-nēalǣcing, f.n: an approach. (yeh-NAY-ah-LATCH-ing / jɛ-ˈneːa-ˌlæː-tʃɪŋ)
Image: The Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg; France (Paris), mid 14th century; The Met Cloisters Collection 69.86, f. 13r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript marginalia of a man walking through leafless trees, approaching a goat-snail hybrid resting by a fire.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 20. Mai

20. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

ge-þungen, v/participle: grown, thriven, advanced (morally, mentally, etc.), excellent, pious, noble, perfect. (yeh-THUNG-gen / jɛ-ˈθʌŋ-gɛn)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Alliterative/Endless Knot** @AllEndlessKnot@toot.community · 19. Mai

19. Mai

Alliterative/Endless Knot @AllEndlessKnot@toot.community

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is GRIFT/GRUB/CRAWL #wotd #grift #grub #crawl

It’s grifting for a leader to accept an expensive gift from a foreign government, grubbing and crawling for your own benefit while compromising your own country, and etymologically that makes sense. The word grift, which started out as US underworld slang in the early 20th c., is probably a corruption of earlier graft in the sense of “corruption” (first attested in the 19th c.), which itself either comes from graft in the sense of “digging”, via the notion of “working” as in the British slang phrase graft one’s occupation, or graft in the horticultural sense of “inserting the shoot of one plant into the stock of another”, from the notion of an “insertion” and therefore “something extra, on the side”. The “digging” word graft is either an alteration of the word grave in the “digging” sense from the Old English verb grafan “to dig” and noun græf “ditch, cave, grave”, ultimately traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ghrebh- “to dig, bury, scratch”, which also lies behind the word grub via the unattested Old English form grybban “to dig”.

The alternative option graft in the horticultural sense, with the Middle English form graff, was borrowed from Old French graife “grafting knife, carving tool; stylus, pen”, from Latin graphium “stylus”, ultimately from Greek grapheion “stylus”, from the verb graphein “to write”, ultimately traceable back to the PIE root *gerhb- “to scratch, carve”, which is probably the root that lies behind the Germanic root *krab- which gave rise to Old Norse krafla “to crawl”, which was borrowed into English as crawl.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 19. Mai

19. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

land-brǣce, m.n: breaking up of land; the first ploughing (of unbroken or fallow land). (LAWND-BRATCH-uh / ˈland-ˌbræː-tʃə)
Image: Metrical Calendar of Hampson; S England, mid 11th century; British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1, f. 3r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Medieval manuscript illustration of a man leading a team of four oxen who pull a plough which is steered by another man; a third man scatters seeds on the ploughed earth.

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 18. Mai

18. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

heofon-cund, adj: heavenly, celestial. (HEH-oh-von-KUND / ˈhɛɔ-vɔn-ˌkʌnd)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

**Old English Wordhord** @OEWordhord@mastodon.social · 15. Mai

15. Mai

Old English Wordhord @OEWordhord@mastodon.social

lāð-getēona, m.n: evil-doer. (LAWTH-yeh-TAY-on-ah / ˈlaːθ-jɛ-ˌteːɔ-na)
Image: First Temptation of Christ in a Psalter; England (Oxford), c. 1200-1225; British Library, Arundel MS 157, f. 5v.
#OldEnglish #WOTD