![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordteapoy (TEE-poi) - n., a small three-legged table or stand; a small table incorporating a tea caddy, used for serving tea.
The first sense is the original, at first spelled tepoy, but a small table on which you might place your teacup that has a TEE sound in it sounds like it ought to be spelled teapoy, and so it changed. All the pictures I've found of tea-related teapoys have had had four legs (or a central pillar with four feet), thus divorcing the item from its etymological root. Dates to the 1820, taken from Hindi & Urdu tipāī, tripod/trivet, adapted (by swapping in the ti- combining form of Sanskrit tīn, three) from Classical Persian sih-pāy, tripod, literally three-foot, from PIE roots trei-, three + ped-, foot.
And now I really want a fresh mug of tea.
---L.
The first sense is the original, at first spelled tepoy, but a small table on which you might place your teacup that has a TEE sound in it sounds like it ought to be spelled teapoy, and so it changed. All the pictures I've found of tea-related teapoys have had had four legs (or a central pillar with four feet), thus divorcing the item from its etymological root. Dates to the 1820, taken from Hindi & Urdu tipāī, tripod/trivet, adapted (by swapping in the ti- combining form of Sanskrit tīn, three) from Classical Persian sih-pāy, tripod, literally three-foot, from PIE roots trei-, three + ped-, foot.
And now I really want a fresh mug of tea.
---L.
