YCLEPED

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 5 December 2011

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

YCLEPED  (adj.)

Definition(s):

1. (adj.) called; named
2. (v.) a past tense form of the verb clepe (to call by name)

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: YCLEPT
• Related Forms: CLEPE (v. CLEPED or CLEPT or YCLEPT or YCLEPED, CLEPING, CLEPES)

Epilogue:
In Old English, verbs were sometimes prefixed with ge-, a form that became altered to i- or more commonly y- in Middle English.  The prefix seems to have had the effect of intensifying the meaning, especially in past participles, similar to the way the a- prefix operates in modern dialectal expressions such as “I ain’t a-tired.”  Thus, you can find many examples of words such as yblent, ybound, yclad, ydight, ypent, and ywrought in the writings of authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Spenser.  These forms were already on the verge of obsolescence by the time of Shakespeare, though he did use both YCLAD (“clad; clothed”) and YCLEPT / YCLEPED in his works — the only two such y- prefix archaisms that still survive in most modern dictionaries, often with a usage note such as “obsolete except in archaic or humorous writings.”   

Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,
Her words yclad with wisdom’s majesty,
Makes me from wond’ring fall to weeping joys,
Such is the fullness of my heart’s content.
~ Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2

Shakespeare also used oddities such as yravished and yslaked, but these forms are completely ygoe (“gone”) from our modern language.


Theme:
This week we’ll satisfy your yearning for words starting with the letter Y

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =