simper and fleer and fleering and flageolet and flacon and fleche and transept and nave and fleishig

My list of words for these 22 pages consists only of 19 terms. Some of them I will note only in passing, such as fley, the Scottish word for frighten, or flauta, a corn tortilla, or formee, a cross in which the arms are narrow at the center and expanding towards the ends, or fleishig, a yiddish term for "meaty," which does not appear in the OED or Century but is in our dictionary. Even though I knew how to spell many of the remaining 15, I simply wanted to pause on them and see where my quest to understand them led me. Here is what I found.

1. A flacon is a defined by the Collegiate as a "small ornamental bottle with a tight cap." But do you get any image in your mind from this definition? I got a sort of Ralph Lauren perfume bottle picture when I read the definition. But I knew that someone could make the definition clearer, and so I went to the Century and OED, hoping at least to find a picture. I didn't find one, but the Century gave me a bit of a lifeline to go further. It said, "an old form of bottle having a screwtop, especially a pilgrim's bottle." Then, before seeking for pictures on the Net, I went to the OED. The OED defines a pilgrim's bottle (or pilgrim-bottle) as a "flat bottle with a ring on each side of the neck for insertion of cords by which it may be hung and carried." Now we are getting somewhere. So, I found a picture of such a thing on the Net. It is almost like a medallion one might hang around the neck, held by a string through two holes near the top, however, and with a cap that can be screwed off or loosened. Since pilgrims were people who were on the road, the bottle would contain their source of refreshment along the way. Then the OED says that its definition = COSTREL, which is where I next went. Derived from the medieval Latin poculum vinarium, a costrel is a "vessel for holding and carrying wine or other liquid...suspended from the waist (whence the antiquarian designation 'pilgrim's bottle').." I now have a very clear picture of it in my mind; I just don't know whether it primarily hung around the neck or the waist. Hm. Maybe it depended on the size. I guess, however, it doesn't ultimately matter, but it makes one think...

2. Let's move on to flageolet. The Collegiate has two separate entries for this word, one being a "small fipple flute" (say THAT five times quickly) and one being "a green kidney bean used in French cuisine." I decided to search for a picture of the former, and I found one in the Century. It was a long, thin instrument into which one blew air. It consisted of a mouthpiece and a tube with six finger-holes, with its range of about two octaves beginning with the G above middle C. As the Century says, "It is the representative of the ancient and medieval flute, its immediate precursor being the recorder." I could get into the evolution of the flute, a very interesting topic, but I think I will pass on it.

3. I was quite taken with the two senses of the word fleche, pronounced FLAASH, found in various dictionaries. The Collegiate gives us one sense: "Spire; a slender spire above the intersection of the nave and transepts of a church." The nave and the transepts meet at the base of the chancel (altar), and so the spire flies heavenward from the roof above the center of the church. But the second definition, not in the Collegiate, arrested me. The word fleche is derived from the French word for "arrow," and means, in military science, "a small redan [a redan, not in the Collegiate, is a simple form of field-work, having two faces which form a salient angle. Redan comes from the Latin "re" and "dent"--tooth--, and means a double notching or jagging] with faces 25 to 30 yards long." It forms a "salient angle," which means that the angle formed between the two arms of the fleche is less than 180 degrees. Now we are ready for the rest of the Century definition. Such a fleche is usually constructed at the foot of a glacis, and forms a salient angle pointing outward from the position taken. A glacis (derived from the French word for "freeze" or "slide"), in case you didn't know, is a "bank sloping down from a castle which acts as a defense against invaders." Now our picture is complete, but we had the pleasure of learning about five other words in our journey. THAT is the best kind of word-journey.

4. Let's end this page on the word fleer. It is both a verb and a noun and means "to laugh or grimace; sneer" or "a word or look of derision or mockery." So, a fleer is a combination of a laugh, or grimace or sneer or mocking glance. Shakespeare was fond of the word. In Othello he could say, "Marke the Fleeres, the Gybes and notable Scornes/ That dwell in every Region of his face." Or, using the participial form, from Casca's words to Cassius in Julius Caesar, "You speak to Casca, and to such a man/ that is no fleering tell-tale." Because the verb fleer can have the sense of "make a wry face or grin" or "laugh in an unbecoming manner" or "smile flatteringly or fawningly" or "jeer" or "ridicule or deride," Shakespeare's word is open to interpreation, even though a legitimate reading of it is "not a tattling suck-up." For some reason Casca's self-description reminded me of John Bunyan's description of Civility and his "simpering looks" (sly or coy smiling) in Pilgrim's Progress. I would be interested in seeing the facial difference between a fleer and a simper. Any volunteers to show me?

Well, that's enough for one day. We still have about 10 other words to note on these pages.

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