Middle-English Word of the Day - March 20, 2008
Poyntil (n.) - a stylus to write with.
His felawe hadde a staf tipped with horn,
A peyre of tables al of yvory,
And a poyntel polysshed fetisly,
And wrooth the names alwey, as he stood,
Of alle folk that yaf hym any good,
Ascaunces that he wolde for hem preye.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)
Pronunciation: /pOItIl/
Key
/p/ p in pepper
/OI/ oy in boy
/n/ n in no
/t/ t in tie
/I/ i in bit
/l/ l in lily
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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