Friday, November 01, 2024
Brat
Jack Malvern, "'Brat' is Collins's word of the year," The Times (November 1, 2024):
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"Brat" has its origins in the 15th century, when Chaucer used it to mean a cloak of coarse cloth, and by the early 16th century it came to refer to an unwanted child.Eric Thomson sent me the link. He comments:
Chaucer's 15th century amounted to fewer than 300 days.Oxford English Dictionary s.v. brat, n.1:
Brat, or brat n.1 at least, appears in a triple gloss in the 10th century Lindisfarne Gospels (Matthew 5:40 et ei qui vult tecum iudicio contendere et tunicam tuam tollere remitte ei et pallium = And if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him), so its history in English is five centuries earlier.
