pinc (c.1230)

Browse the Dictionary

    Loading...

Search Results

Your search results will appear here.

pinc (c.1230)

[ gdw]

[ FEW: 22.i,17b non; Gdf: ; GdfC: ; TL: ; DEAF:  pinc; DMF: ; TLF: ; OED: ; MED: ; DMLBS: ]
 
M.E. (?)

The editor of this text suggests a link with English pink n.4: ‘a decorative hole or eyelet punched in a garment’. The FEW rejects this hypothesis, mainly on the basis of chronology, and interprets the word as a nonce-word by the author, rhyming with cinc and alliterating with point, so as to produce a reinforced negation. The term remains a mystery and is not treated in Baldinger’s Etymologien or Möhren’s Le renforcement affectif de la négation.

s.

ne point ne pinc
1neither jot nor tittle, nothing at all
( c.1230; MS: 1275-85 )  Entre la terre e la lune amunt Quinze mile liues bones sunt Ové sis cenz e vint e cinc, Si ke n’i falt ne point ne pinc  2006
This is an AND2 Phase 4 (N-O/U-P-Q) entry. © 2013-17 The Anglo-Norman Dictionary. All rights reserved. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom.
pinc