chichevache

chichevache - n., a fabulous cow of enormous size whose food was good or patient wives.


Apparently coined (or possibly borrowed) by Chaucer from Old French chiche, lean + vache, cow (on the model of chichifache, thin face) in the Clerk's Tale, in which patient Griselda is praised for being good enough the chichivache could actually eat her, the name indicating this is a rare thing. Um, yeah. Medieval compliments were sometimes as weird as medieval humor.

---L.