"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Foulroyce

 
Occasionally I seek help with a word on this blog. Foulroyce is just such a word.

I came across it in the letters of John Clare (Feb 7th 1825:- "I always admire the kindling freshness that the bark of the different sorts of trees & underwood assume in the forest – the foulroyce twigs kindle into a vivid colour at their tops as red as woodpigeons claws..."

I assume foulroyce was a dialect name for a particular plant. The study of such names was at one time of great interest to me but I never came across the name foulroyce. Has anyone any idea which plant it might be? (Or, if my assumption is incorrect, an idea what the word might mean?)
 
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5 comments:

  1. DawnTreader1 February 2010 at 16:15

    Link for you:
    http://books.google.se/books?id=ZCnr_d_GwRYC&pg=PA667&dq=foulroyce&cd=4#v=onepage&q=foulroyce&f=false

    "foul rice, foulryce, n., foul-rush, the dogwood, Cornus sanguinea, or spindle-tree, Eounymus europaeus, both used for making musical instruments"

    (No I did not know this. I just can't resist googling.)

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  2. Scriptor Senex1 February 2010 at 16:48

    Brilliant - thank you, Monica. You obviously Google better than I do!!! I wonder how many words - like 'Googling' - we adopt into our language without even thinking about it.

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  3. Scriptor Senex1 February 2010 at 16:52

    Just followed up the link above - there are some great words there. Definitely some material for the future.

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  4. Saz2 February 2010 at 09:45

    l'm afraid all my words today would be foul mouthed.....am having a hissy fit!!!

    great distraction though on the blogland...

    hope you are well JOhn...


    saz x

    ReplyDelete
  5. GB14 February 2010 at 01:44

    Hissy Fit. Either one of the cars or computers - perhaps it was even me - had a hissy fit recently. One for this blog?

    ReplyDelete

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