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From: "Keith" <>
Subject: RE: [OLDWORDS] "mort" 1600 Wales
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 16:33:34 +0100


Hi Bob,

Take your pick from the OED

MORT

[1]
.. a girl or woman, often with a qualifying word.

quotes - 1592 ''It happened, within these few yeeres, about Hampshire
there wandered a walking mort, that
went about the countrey selling of tape.'
1851 ' After some altercation with the 'mot' of the
'ken' (mistress of the lodging house)
1969 'Look at them two mots, Fergus.Dan pointed at
two mini-skirted girls.'

[2]
.. a harlot or loose woman.

quotes - 1567 Their harlots, whiche they terme Mortes and Doxes'

The word can also mean - 'the note sounded on the horn at the death of
a deer','a dead stag','the skin of a
sheep or lamb that has died a natural death','a dead
body', 'a wax candle',' a salmon in its third year',
'lard or pig's grease' and the obvious - 'dead'.

Then again, as the manuscript was written in Wales it may be that the
Welsh language has other senses.

regards


Keith Feeney


Visit the Leeds local history site...

http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/leodis-leeds/index.html

... or leave a message on the bulletin board

http://venus.beseen.com/boardroom/a/35447/

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Bowen [mailto:]
Sent: 19 April 2000 14:59
To:
Subject: [OLDWORDS] "mort" 1600 Wales


Does the word "mort" have any English meaning other than "dead". In a
handwritten 1601 Welsh manuscript documenting family pedigrees, the
word
"mort" appears next to the names of two individuals in a list of 17
siblings. This suggests that the individuals were dead at the time of
writing, possibly dying in infancy. Based on many other documents
however,
these two individuals were born in the 1580's but one emmigrated to
America
in 1640 and lived for many years after that. There is evidence that
the
other married in 1603, after the manuscript with the word "mort" was
written. Did the word "mort" have any other meanings in Wales around
1600,
such as "disowned" or "illegitimate" or "leasing property"?

Bob Bowen
Institutional Research
475-2841

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