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Middle-English Word of the Day - February 26, 2008

Cetewale (n.) - zedoary, a root resembling ginger.

Ther spryngen herbes grete and smale,
The lycorys and the cetewale,
And many a clowe-gylofre;
And notemuge to putte in ale

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

Pronunciation: /sEtEwAl@/

Key
/s/ s in hiss
/E/ e in met
/t/ t in tie
/w/ w in we, away
/A/ a in father
/l/ l in lily
/@/ a in sofa

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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