Talk:lich

Pronunciation

The pronunciation given is correct for definition 1, but not for 2. For the fantasy and role-playing term, the pronunciation typically rhymes with witch (with some pronoucing a distinct "t" and some not). As evidence of this, see [1] vs [2]. Clearly the "es" ending is more widely used. -Harmil 01:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've heard "lick" as well, but I think it's safe to just call it a mistake. It's easy to hyper-foreignize pronunciations when dealing with fantasy and role-playing games, and it's especially easy to make this particular mistake because this rhyme is usually spelled -itch (with rich as one obvious exception). —Soap— 16:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

There may be also some interference from lichen, which unexpectedly also has two pronunciations. —Soap— 19:15, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

RFD archive

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

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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lich

Sense: (obsolete) A body. [9th-15th c.]

Doesn’t that make it Middle English? — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 19:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, depends when it disappears, 1470 is our arbitrary cutoff, isn't it? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

A number of editors have variously proposed changing the cutoff to 1470, 1473 or 1476, and I don't think we have a majority in favour of 1500, but: 1500 is our cutoff until there is majority support for a specific other date, because 1500 is the cutoff the ISO uses in defining {{en}} vs {{enm}}, and as Prosfilaes said in the BP discussion, "changing from that" so that our use of {{enm}} no longer matches the ISO's should be "an overt act".

I favour making the "(any) body" sense ==Middle English== and/or an ===Etymology===. - -sche (discuss) 20:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think ISO has much of a business in defining what English is, but I do agree that if we change our own definition we should agree on it. —CodeCat 20:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, let's see if we can't find any usages of the word (or its unassilibated variant like/lyke) after 15th c. I am pretty certain it is still a dialectal word, and also featured prminantly in several compounds (e.g. lichbird, lichgate, lichwake, etc) Leasnam (talk) 20:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that 1470 was the cutoff (Wikipedia). Leasnam (talk) 20:36, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

A list of distinct languages implicitly defines its contents; the mere presence of Middle English (enm) on the ISO 639-2 list defines English (en/eng) as not including Middle English. The -1500 part just offers a clear definition for what enm means.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:08, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I see another issue: what evidence do we have that the "body" referred to in the first sense isn't limited to a dead body? The compounds seem to all use the "corpse" sense. I notice that both senses are dated from the 9th century, and the 15th century end date of one sense corresponds to having no end date mentioned- so they don't contradict each other. I do note, however, that the dates were added to both senses at the same time by Widsith, who also converted an original cross-reference to "like" into the current/rfded first entry. If they do boil down to the same sense, than one of them should be deleted Chuck Entz (talk) 21:38, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

PS: 1500 is the cutoff WT:AEN uses (WT:AENM doesn't mention a date). - -sche (discuss) 21:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

• I added a cite from Piers Plowman, which is where I primarily know it from. Is it "Middle English" (I hate that term)? Yes, mostly, but there has already been community consensus to include ME evidence for words which have survived into modern English, which this obviously has (though not this sense). Ƿidsiþ 06:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

deleted and readded as Middle English, change as you see fit. -- Liliana • 15:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC)