My wife and I decided to return to Trollope in our nightly reading and are well into Barchester Towers, which we last read back in 2015. At that time I marked the following sentence with a marginal arrow, apparently intending to post about it; having neglected to do so then, I remedy the omission now: “Her unfortunate affliction precluded her from all hope of levanting with a lover.” Levanting — what a great word! The OED (entry from 1902) says:
1. intransitive. To steal away, ‘bolt’. Now esp. of a betting man or gamester: To abscond.
1797 She found that the sharps would dish me, and levanted without even bidding me farewell.
M. Robinson, Walsingham vol. IV. xc. 284[…]
1848 One day we shall hear of one or other levanting.
W. M. Thackeray, Book of Snobs xxxix. 1521863 The clerk had levanted before his employer returned from America.
M. E. Braddon, Eleanor’s Victory vol. III. xix. 289[…]
1912 F. had carefully studied Anna Karenina, in a sort of ‘How to be happy though livanted’ spirit.
D. H. Lawrence, Letter c5 November (1962) vol. I. 1541912 I am the fellow she livanted with.
D. H. Lawrence, Letter c5 November (1962) vol. I. 1542. † transitive. Only in levant me!, a mild form of imprecation. Obsolete.
1760 Levant me, but he got enough last night to purchase a principality.
S. Foote, Minor i. 31
I note that Lawrence both liked the word and spelled it idiosyncratically; also, I shall have to start saying “Levant me!” The etymology is:
? < Spanish levant-ar to lift (levantar la casa to break up housekeeping, levantar el campo to break up the camp), < levar < Latin levāre to lift.
This sentence in the following paragraph has another savory expression: “She had lived out her heart, such heart as she had ever had, in her early years, at an age when Mr. Slope was thinking of the second book of Euclid and his unpaid bill at the buttery hatch.” OED s.v. buttery hatch (entry revised 2018):
An opening in the wall, or above the half-door, of a buttery at which drinks and other provisions are served.
a1566 At Bake house, Buttrie hatch, Kitchin, and Seller.
R. Edwards, Damon & Pithias (1571) sig. Fjᵛ1598 To the buttery hatch, to Thomas the butler, for a iacke of beare.
Mucedorus sig. B41614 Hee will turne one of his cast Seruitours..from the Buttry-hatch to the Pulpit.
T. Adams, Diuells Banket v. 2071737 At the knock of the buttery-hatch, The rosy-gill’d chaplain comes down.
London Magazine April 211/2[…]
1903 Bouts has represented..his two sons looking in at the buttery hatch.
Burlington Magazine April 206/21999 The flagstoned floor hall has two ‘buttery hatches’.
Western Daily Press (Nexis) 30 October 17
A buttery (as every schoolboy knows) is “A storeroom for provisions, esp. ale and other alcoholic drinks; a pantry, a larder. Now historical and regional; At certain universities, esp. Oxford and Cambridge: a place on university premises where students may buy food, drink, and other provisions; (now) esp. (the name of) a shop, cafe, or bar in a university college.” It comes from butt ‘cask,’ not butter.
The Buttery of Silliman College has been physically relocated and vastly gentrified since my own undergraduate days and nights spent there in the 1980’s (looking at the next day’s assignment in Homeric Greek with one eye while watching MTV with the other, etc.), but apparently The Young People Today still call it the Sillibutt, so we’ve got that, at least. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/10/13/an-ode-to-the-sillibutt/
Sounds like a great place.
Two thoughts:
1. At first I thought ‘levant’ must mean ‘to go off to the Levant with one’s lover’, and that there might be parallel constructions: “they’re Spaining until the end of the month” or “he’s off Greecing with his new girlfriend”, though that might confuse people who thought he was “greasing”.
2. If you ‘levant’ with a woman, are you ‘gal-levanting’?
Spanish proverb: Siéntate en tu lugar y no te harán levantar
Significado: Es preferible permanecer en el sitio que recomiende la prudencia a ser avergonzado y criticado.
source: https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/Ficha.aspx?Par=59543&Lng=0
A lovers’ levant makes me think of an aubade.
Wordplay involving butteries:
butteriest [most buttery]
butteries
butteris [OED: A tool used for trimming the hooves of a horse prior to shoeing]
butters
butter
butte
butt
but
ut [= doh, in music]
u [OED: Up, a quark flavour. Also: “Used to designate functions, esp. wave functions, which change sign on inversion through the origin (cf. odd adj. A.I.5), and atomic states, etc., represented by such functions.”]
The dairy connexion between quark (OED: “a type of soft, unripened cow’s milk cheese of German origin, with a low fat content and smooth texture”) and butter is of course another source of misunderstanding.
“Levant me, Scotty.”
I am always charmed by the apologetic quote-marks the NED puts around slang glosses like ‘bolt’
For the origin of that u for parity-odd wave functions, see here.
Amen to J.W.’s encomium to the Silliman College Buttery. In the ’60s, as I see it in memory, it was situated at the end of a long basement corridor; the menu was basic, and the décor could politely be described as comfortably worn-in. Several years on, the black-and-white TV set grudgingly yielded to color. Of course it was staffed by students. All this made it the perfect place for a late-night snack and break from studying.