Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Tarien


Tarien (v.) - To delay in acting, tarry, procrastinate; be slow to do something; to hinder.


What sholde I tarien al the longe day?
He took the chalk, and shoop it in the wise
Of an ingot, as I shal yow devyse.
I seye, he took out of his owene sleeve
A teyne of silver -- yvele moot he cheeve! --
Which that ne was nat but an ounce of weighte.

- Chaucer, Geoffrey: The Canterbury tales (1387-1394)


The Middle-English Word of the Day is selected from Mayhew and Skeat's
"Concise Dictionary of Middle English."
As found on Greg Lindahl's website
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/concise/concise.html

The example text was found at the Middle English Collection of the University of Virginia Library.
http://etext.virginia.edu/collections/languages/english/mideng.browse.html