Middle-English Word of the Day - December 4, 2007
Lemman (n.) - sweetheart, lover (of both sexes), mistress, concubine.
And vigilies and fastyng dayes -- alle thise late I passe,
And ligge abedde in Lenten and my lemman in myne armes
Til matyns and masse be do, and thanne moste to the Freres;
Come I to Ite, missa est I holde me yserved.
- Langland, William: The vision of Piers Plowman (1377-1379)
Pronunciation: /lEmAn/
Key
/l/ l in lily
/E/ e in met
/m/ m in make
/A/ a in father
/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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