They were called hæferblæte in Old English; the word "bittern" came to English from Old French butor, itself from Gallo-roman butitaurus, a portmanteau of Latin būtiō and taurus.
The book is written in Old French and its authors change handwriting and tone various times.
Its motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense (Old French), "Shamed be whoever thinks poorly of it", which is also the motto of the Order of the Garter.
Middle English dromond and Old French dromont are derived from the dromon, and described any particularly large medieval ship.
His biographies, such as those of the kings of France, are characterised by short, dense chapters packed with detail including a potentially bewildering array of names and the citation of recorded conversations, sometimes in Old French with translations, but showing an evident sympathy for the subject, a desire to make a complete picture of his life and thought, and some sly humour.
While he too wrote in vernacular French (rather than Latin), he is known for championing the use of Old French in prose and poetry and was against replacing it with a more "manufactured" orthography.
Some were archaic words: jór "steed", some loanwords: sinjór "lord" (from Latin senior, probably via Old French seignor).
The most commonly cited explanation is a derivation from the Northern French dialect word hoguinané, or variants such as hoginane, hoginono and hoguinettes, those being derived from 16th century Old French aguillanneuf meaning either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift, or New Year's Eve itself.
In his account Il Milione, dictated seven years later to a scribe writing in Old French, the name Jianning-fu is romanised Quenlinfu.
Lacuzon (O. Fr. la cuzon, "disturbance"), the name given to the Franc-Comtois leader Claude Prost (June 17, 1607 - December 21, 1681).
Landale is a name derived from the Old French word launde, which means "forest glade".
The Song of Roland, an 11th-century Old French epic poem, may have served as the inspiration for the name "California" The poem refers to the defeat suffered August 15, 778, in the retreat of Charlemagne's army at the hands of the Muslim army in Battle of Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees.
The word raisin dates back to Middle English and is a loanword from Old French; in French, raisin means "grape", while a dried grape is referred to as a raisin sec, or "dry grape".
The Old French variations seisir, saisir, are from Low Latin sacire, generally referred to the same source as Gothic satjan, Old English settan, to put in place, set.
The word "Sperris" is believed to have been derived from the identical Cornish word "sperris", which means hobgoblin, ghost, or sprite, whereas the word "Quoit" is believed to derive from the Old French word "coite", and means "a large flat stone atop a cromlech", or tomb.
In the Late Medieval and Early Modern period, Germany and Germans were known as Almany and Almains in English, via Old French alemaigne, alemans derived from the name of the Alamanni and Alemannia.
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The Middle English Dictionary, with some noted uncertainty, proposes that akimbo might be related to Old French chane or kane "pot" or "jug" respectively, combined with Middle English boue, "bow".
The word buskin, only recorded in English since 1503 meaning "half boot", is of unknown origin, perhaps from Old French brousequin (in modern French brodequin) or directly from its Middle Dutch model brosekin "small leather boot".
In the following century Marie de France tells a fable very similar to the Renart version in Old French verse.
In 1750, Ray had bought the Chaumont castle (named from the Old French for "bald hill", and built in two periods around 1500), in the Loire Valley of France.
Denying their true comedic nature, Edmond Faral called them Latin fabliaux, after the later Old French fabliaux, and Ian Thompson labelled them Latin comic tales.
originates with an Old French term herlequin, hellequin, first attested in the 11th century, by the chronist Orderic Vitalis, who recounts that he was pursued by a troop of demons when wandering on the coast of Normandy at night.
The word jaca has an unusual history, from Old Spanish haca, itself from Old French haque, which in turn is ultimately derived from the English place-name Hackney, a place famous for its horses.
Montjoie (Old French Munjoie) is the historical battle cry supposedly used under Charlemagne and later in the medieval kingdom of France, where it was at some point, presumably in the 12th century (Louis the Fat), extended to Montjoie Saint Denis, in reference to the Oriflamme battle standard which was originally kept in the Abbey of St. Denis.
"Vaugirard" came from an old French noun-and-genitive construction "val Girard" = "valley of Girard" (Latin vallis Girardi), after an Abbé Girard, who owned the land over which the road passes.
The English and Medieval Latin word sabellum comes from the Old French sable or saible.
The word soldier entered modern English in the 14th century from the equivalent Middle English word soudeour, from Anglo-French soudeer or soudeour, meaning mercenary, from soudee, meaning shilling's worth or wage, from sou or soud, shilling.
The book is ornamented with quotations from poems in many languages, including Classical and Medieval Latin, Middle English, and Old French.
The word viscount, known to be used in English since 1387, comes from Old French visconte (modern French: vicomte), itself from Medieval Latin vicecomitem, accusative of vicecomes, from Late Latin vice- "deputy" + Latin comes (originally "companion"; later Roman imperial courtier or trusted appointee, ultimately count).