Spot the Frippet: rundle.

Some words conjure up the warm scent of orchids wafting through the mysterious canyons of the rain forest... 

...and the word rundle doesn't.

It's a plain, workaday sort of a word, is rundle, and, very pleasingly, it means two common and familiar things.

Here's one sort of a rundle:


photo by Hyena. 

and here's another:


photo by USDA

Yes, a rundle can either be a wheel, especially the wheel of a wheelbarrow (isn't it great to have a special word for that?) or it can be a rung of a ladder.

The magical thing about knowing the word rundle is that it allows us to regard ourselves as marginally more practical and competent than before...

...well, it does until we have to do something useful, anyway.

Spot the Frippet: rundle. People seem to have ladders all over their houses at the moment, on which they hang towels or balance books. Yes, it's slightly odd behaviour, but at least it makes spotting this frippet easy. The word rundle arrived in the 1300s as a variant of roundel, from the Old French rondel, a little circle.