merlioun

Middle English

Alternative forms

amerlyon, emerlion, emerlyoun, marlyon, merilioun, merleyn, merliȝon, merlion, merlone, merlyn, merlyon, merlyone, merlyoun

Etymology

From earlier *emerlioun, emerlyoun, borrowed from Old French esmerillon, diminutive of esmeril, from Frankish *smiril, from Proto-Germanic *smirilaz.

The borrowing of monosyllabic Old French /ʎun/ as disyllabic /liˈuːn/ and the tendency for it to reduce to /lin/ rather than /ljun/ is probably to avoid the creation of a cluster /rlj/, though influence from lioun (“lion”) is also possible.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /(ɛ)ˌmɛrliˈuːn/, /(ɛ)ˈmɛrljun/, /ˈmɛrlin/

Noun

merlioun

merlin (the falcon Falco columbarius)

Descendants

English: merlin, marlin, marlion, marlyon, merline, merlion, merlon
Scots: maalin (Shetland)
→ Dutch: merlijn

References

“merliǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.