Friday 19 August 2016

Dictionary addenda

Two plant names in forms not given in the dictionaries came up during conversation at the café yesterday:

  • la corps-nu (f) = Jersey lily (Amaryllis belladonna)
  • du glièrru = ivy

Corps-nu (evidently feminine, with some doubt as to how to spell it: should there be an e on the end?) is an alternative to the more generally used belles-toutes-nues. Same idea: that the flowers and leaves appear separately.

Ivy has a number of variations. The Dictionnaire gives dgèrrue, hierru, lierru, hierrue, but gives as mainland Norman cognates éru, gliéru, glleru (Trésor de la langue normande gives eru, glléru, hière, lierru, lléru, lyéru, yéru)

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