Talk:ethel

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Latest comment: 11 years ago by -sche in topic RFV
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RFV[edit]

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

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RFV-sense of the noun "homeland" and the adjective "noble". Those were meanings of this term's Germanic forebear, but are they meanings of the English term? In the process of trying to cite this, I discovered that the word also refers to a kind of tree. - -sche (discuss) 21:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Ethel is listed as both in NED "ancestral land or estate; patrimony; native land", and as an alterantive form of (deprecated template usage) athel (cf. (deprecated template usage) ethelborn).
    • 1882, William Babcock Weeden, The social law of labor:
      The land held in full ownership might be either an ' ethel,' an inherited or otherwise acquired portion of original allotment, or an estate created by legal process out of the'public land.
    • 2010, Liliana Sikorska, Thise Stories Beren Witnesse:
      Heaven is the 'ethel', the homeland.
The second is more likely a mention (explaining a ME passage). I would class the word as {{historical}} in Modern English. Leasnam (talk) 14:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)Reply
Because it's a common name, this term is hard to search for, but I can't find any uses of the term in modern English, historical/obsolete or otherwise. The two citations you give above look like mentions. I've moved the senses into a ==Middle English== section as a result. - -sche (discuss) 01:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)Reply