According to "The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary", the suffix "-cop" actually just means "spider" in Old English and is a divergent form related to "cob", as in the compound word "cobweb" - literally "spider web" - which dates as far back as 1300.
Tolkien also uses "attercop" in his poem "Errantry" in the lovely alliterative lines,
The Oxford English Dictionary defines yepsen as, "The two hands placed together so as to form a bowl-shaped cavity; as much as can be held in this," and notes that is obscure and possibly dialectical. It is linked with gowpen, and the earliest cited usage is circa 1325.
The original post is, I believe, a direct quote from Ammon Shea's book, "Reading the OED", which includes this delightful word!
Comments by violet_sphinx
violet_sphinx commented on the word attercop
According to "The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary", the suffix "-cop" actually just means "spider" in Old English and is a divergent form related to "cob", as in the compound word "cobweb" - literally "spider web" - which dates as far back as 1300.
Tolkien also uses "attercop" in his poem "Errantry" in the lovely alliterative lines,
"...tarried for a little while
in little isles, and plundered them;
and webs of all the attercops
he shattered them and sundered them."
January 16, 2011
violet_sphinx commented on the word yepsen
The Oxford English Dictionary defines yepsen as, "The two hands placed together so as to form a bowl-shaped cavity; as much as can be held in this," and notes that is obscure and possibly dialectical. It is linked with gowpen, and the earliest cited usage is circa 1325.
The original post is, I believe, a direct quote from Ammon Shea's book, "Reading the OED", which includes this delightful word!
January 16, 2011