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.
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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