Talk:outfangthief

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Not in English, no. --Connel MacKenzie 15:51, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Not in modern English anyway. Google Books has a few dozen references, mostly back to Elizabethan times and before. (Wouldn't that be Middle English??)

• The Collected Historical Works of Sir Francis Palgrve.
• Lectures on Scotch Legal Antiquities / Edmonston and Douglas / 1872.

Marked as archaic
--Dmol 16:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The only books.google.com references I saw indicated it was not English, archaic or otherwise. Are you seeing something different? --Connel MacKenzie 16:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello. According to this page, the Oxford Companion to British History has an entry for outfangthief (and for infangthief as well): "Examples of [legal terms] include infangthief and outfangthief (early medieval jurisdictions)". FWIW, see also page 3 of Jurisdiction as Property: Franchise Jurisdiction from Henry III to James I. — Xavier, 21:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Admin note: I thought we spelled out somewhere that {{archaic}} is for words 50-99 years since last used, {{obsolete}} is for words 100 or older since being used seriously. Is that still acceptable for everyone? If not, shouldn't it go to WT:VOTE? --Connel MacKenzie 05:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

So, shouldn't this be listed as ==Middle English== instead then? --Connel MacKenzie 12:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

A little more: My (American) local library's online OED access lists only two hits for outfangthief - neither one from a dictionary; instead, both are from "The Oxford Companion to British History" which describes the term as having become obsolete sometime in the 13th century. Sorry again, that I can't use the direct citation method they provide, without disclosing the city I am now residing in. --Connel MacKenzie 22:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Changed label to "Middle English". --Connel MacKenzie 06:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Probably best known in modern times from the parody history textbook "1066 And All That" by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, in a spoof epic (?) poem about King Canute:

When Cnut Cyng the Witan wold enfeoff

Of infangthief and outfangthief

Wonderlich were they enwraged

And wordwar waged

Sware Cnut great scot and lot

Swinge wold ich this illbegoten lot.

(enfeoff: put in possession of land in exchange for a pledge of service, in feudal society) NickS 16:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for deletion - kept

Kept. See archived discussion of October 2008. 07:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)