[Mid] Middle-English Word of the Day - January 18, 2008

Swithe (adv.) - very, greatly, much, quickly.

Breid he mid switheren hond; a sweord muchel & /swithe/ strong.
al that he ther-mid hitte; al hit a-dun healde.
Neora tha bearn nea swa strong; thah he hefde /brunie/ on.
yif he hine mid sweorde at-ran; nea ras he neuer-mare.

- Layamon, fl.1200: Brut (MS Cotton Caligula) (1205)

Pronunciation: /swiT@/

Key
/s/ s in hiss
/w/ w in we, away
/i/ i in machine
/T/ th in myth or thin
/@/ 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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Received on Fri Jan 18 05:46:36 2008