Item 5 - Letter from W. W. Skeat to W. Aldis Wright

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Discusses the origin of the word ‘motley’.

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Transcript

July 7. 1876.

Dear Sir—

I understand from Prof. Cowell that you are on the look out for origin of the word motley.

I think it is worth while to notice mottelet, mattelé in Cotgrave, & also mattes, cards. Brachet gives Fr. motte, a clod: etym. unknown. But cf. A.S. mot, a mote, a particle; Eng. smut, once smot, as in Chaucer’s besmotered; Welsh ysmot, a patch {1}, a spot. I have no doubt that the word means spotted or speckly, tho’ I cannot trace its history correctly. You will remember that it occurs in Chaucer’s Prologue, l. 273. Mottled = spotted.

Yours
W W Skeat

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{1} Underlined twice.