This blog is for everyone who uses words.

The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Friday 29 June 2018

Word To Use Today Though Heaven Only Knows How: merchet.

Merchet is such a lovely neat sort of a word.

It's an amount of money paid by a tenant to his landlord to gain permission for the tenant's daughter to marry.

File:Aglauros̢۪s Vision of the Bridal Chamber of Herse, from the Story of Mercury and Herse MET DT222918.jpg
tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Merchets haven't been paid in England (or, I hope anywhere else) for many centuries.

Sadly, this must make merchet a contender for the most useless word in the dictionary.

And it's such a lovely little word, too.

Word To Use Today Though Heaven Only Knows How: merchet. This word appeared in the 1200s from Anglo French. In those days it meant, literally, market.


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