chichevache (and bicorne)
Nov. 17th, 2023 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordchichevache (CHEESH-vahsh) - n., a legendary cow of enormous size, whose food was patient and obedient wives.
which gets paired in French folklore with another critter, so a bonus word:
bicorne or bicorn or bycorne (BAI-kohrn) - n., a legendary creature that's part panther, part cow, with a human-like face, whose food was either a) patient and devoted husbands or b) adulterous husbands.
Sources disagree on the a or b, but all sources agree that because of the relative abundance of their preferred food, the bicorne is plump and well-fed while the chichevache is lean and starving:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
(Since this picture is Dutch, the chichevache on the left is labeled Scherminckel and the bicorne on the right is labeled Bigorne.) Personally I prefer option b, but I'm a modern guy, not a medieval Frenchman. The first was first used in English by Chaucer in the Clerk's Tale, adapted from Middle French chichifache, literally lean + face, by altering face to cow, vache. Bicorne entered English a little later, possibly by John Lydgate, who wrote a ballad on the paired creatures.
And that wraps up a week of C-suite words -- back next week with the usual assortment, which will be a short week due to the Stateside holidays.
---L.
which gets paired in French folklore with another critter, so a bonus word:
bicorne or bicorn or bycorne (BAI-kohrn) - n., a legendary creature that's part panther, part cow, with a human-like face, whose food was either a) patient and devoted husbands or b) adulterous husbands.
Sources disagree on the a or b, but all sources agree that because of the relative abundance of their preferred food, the bicorne is plump and well-fed while the chichevache is lean and starving:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
(Since this picture is Dutch, the chichevache on the left is labeled Scherminckel and the bicorne on the right is labeled Bigorne.) Personally I prefer option b, but I'm a modern guy, not a medieval Frenchman. The first was first used in English by Chaucer in the Clerk's Tale, adapted from Middle French chichifache, literally lean + face, by altering face to cow, vache. Bicorne entered English a little later, possibly by John Lydgate, who wrote a ballad on the paired creatures.
And that wraps up a week of C-suite words -- back next week with the usual assortment, which will be a short week due to the Stateside holidays.
---L.
