Medieval Cookery - Middle-English Word of the Day

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

Cherl (n.) - peasant.

Oure hooste gan to swere as he were wood;
Harrow! quod he, by nayles and by blood!
This was a fals cherl and a fals justise.
As shameful deeth as herte may devyse
Come to thise juges and hire advocatz!

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

Pronunciation: /tSErl/

Key
/tS/ ch in chin
/E/ e in met
/r/ r in red
/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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