Word of the Day
for Thursday,
June 20, 2013
Hamlet \HAM-lit\, noun:
1. a small village.
2. British. a village without a church of its own, belonging to the parish of another village or town.
2. British. a village without a church of its own, belonging to the parish of another village or town.
The world was indeed
excluded; the sides of the valley shut in the small hamlet
and fenced it from the keen and biting winds of the north and east.
-- John Carne, Tales of the West, 1828
-- John Carne, Tales of the West, 1828
Soon appeared
glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet
of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of
church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the
breeze...
-- Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, 1872
-- Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, 1872
The term hamlet
entered English in the 1300s, long before Shakespeare wrote about the Prince of
Denmark, from the Old French ham
meaning "villiage."
Thanks to: www.dictionary.com
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