![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordfother (FOTH-uhr) - n., a wagon-load amount of something, a load of any sort; a unit of measure of lead equal to 19.5 hundredweight. v., to cover a leak in a ship with a sail.
Definitions being given in order of appearance. The wagon-load measure could be of anything -- hay, fodder, turf, whatnot. It dates back to Old English and seems to come from a Germanic root meaning a cartload. The lead measure, which is derived from it, was strictly English, so that's the English hundredweight of 112 pounds rather than the American one of 100 pounds, making it 2184 pounds total. The nautical action has a separate derivation, related to German futtern, to cover, to line (something).
---L.
Definitions being given in order of appearance. The wagon-load measure could be of anything -- hay, fodder, turf, whatnot. It dates back to Old English and seems to come from a Germanic root meaning a cartload. The lead measure, which is derived from it, was strictly English, so that's the English hundredweight of 112 pounds rather than the American one of 100 pounds, making it 2184 pounds total. The nautical action has a separate derivation, related to German futtern, to cover, to line (something).
---L.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 06:00 pm (UTC)---L.