I have just learned a splendid word. OED (entry revised 2011):
ɴᴏᴜɴ
1. More fully †rouncival pease, rouncival pea. A large variety of garden or field pea. Also (in plural): peas of this variety. Now chiefly historical.1570 Set (as as [sic] a deintie) thy runcyfall pease.
T. Tusser, Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandry (new edition) f. 15
[…]
1622 The Rouncefall, great Beanes, and early ripening Peason.
M. Drayton, 2nd Part Poly-olbion xx. 12
[…]
1997 Dubbed rouncivals, the sweet-tasting green peas had become all the rage by the 17th century.
San Diego Union-Tribune (Nexis) 16 December h19
2005 It’s a special fork, not a spoon at all. Used..for eating so-called rouncival peas.
J. Miller, Murder’s out of Tune 21
That “not a spoon at all” made me think of Lear’s “runcible spoon”; OED s.v. runcible:
Origin uncertain. Perhaps an entirely arbitrary formation, or perhaps an arbitrary alteration of rouncival adj. or rouncival n.
At any rate, here are the rest of the definitions for rouncival:
2. † A heavy fall, a crash. Obsolete. rare.
1582 Then the tre deepe minced… Al leingth with rounsefal, from stock vntruncked, yt harssheth.
R. Stanyhurst, translation of Virgil, First Foure Bookes Æneis ii. 393. † A form of alliterative verse. Obsolete. rare.
1584 For flyting, or Inuectiues, vse this kynde of verse following, callit Rouncefallis or Tumbling verse.
King James VI & I, Essayes of Prentise in Poesie sig. Miiij4. A large, boisterous, or masculine woman. Cf. rouncy n.³ rare after 17th cent.
1596 It was so fulsome a fat Bonarobe and terrible Rounceuall.
T. Nashe, Haue with you to Saffron-Walden sig. F2ᵛ
[…]
2002 She was a big girl, a rouncival, Desroches called her.
D. Toole, Appetite for Murder v. 505. † A monster. Obsolete. rare.
1641 So for a curious glover straite he calls To flea the rownsifall, and stuffs his hyde.
A. Scott, Journ. in Misc. Scottish Hist. Society (1904) 2786. † A wart. Obsolete. rare.
1655 Cicero, (that wrote in Prose) So call’d, from Rouncival on’s Nose.
in J. Mennes & J. Smith, Musarum Deliciæ 12ᴀᴅᴊᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ
Gigantic, huge; robust. Obsolete. rare.1582 Then runs from mountayns and woods thee rownseual helswarme Of Cyclopan lurdens.
R. Stanyhurst, translation of Virgil, First Foure Bookes Æneis iii. 63
1602 Dost roare? th’ast a good rounciuall voice to cry Lanthorne & Candle-light.
T. Dekker, Satiro-mastix sig. I2ᵛ
1668 Crassitude, gross, deep, incrassate, rouncival.
Bishop J. Wilkins, Essay Real Character ii. i. 33
We’ve definitely got to bring back the adjective: “rownseual helswarme”! “a good rounciuall voice”! “gross, deep, incrassate, rouncival”! (That last quote is from Wilkins’ An Essay towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, which we discussed back in 2009.) And here’s the etymology:
In sense A.1 < the name of the former Augustinian chapel and hospital of St Mary of Rouncival (also spelt St Mary of Rounceval, etc.) at Charing Cross in London, in whose garden the variety of pea was first cultivated in the late 15th cent. (See further J. Harvey Mediaeval Gardens (1981) 121, and compare quot. 1674 at sense A.1.) The foundation of St Mary of Rouncival in London is first recorded in a document of 1236. It was founded as a daughter house of the Augustinian abbey at Roncesvalles in the Spanish part of Navarre, which is situated just beyond the French–Spanish border (Spanish Roncesvalles, Anglo-Norman Roncevaus, Rouncevaus, Middle French, French Roncevaux, Old Occitan Ronsasvals).
Although it is not certain that senses A.2 to A.6 and the use as adjective show the same word, these senses probably ultimately reflect figurative uses of the place name to denote something huge or monstrous, probably with allusion to the legend of Roland (see Roland n.), in which the pass near Roncesvalles was the site of the ambush in which Roland and his retainers were killed.
Notes
The name of the Navarrese village and abbey is attested in English as Rounceval, Rouncival, etc. from at least the late 14th cent., e.g. in quot. c1387–95 at pardoner n.¹, which refers to an Augustinian friar belonging to this abbey.
In senses A.2 and A.3 (the latter apparently showing an extended use of the former) apparently associated with rounce v.¹ and fall n.²With sense A.4 perhaps compare later rouncy n.³, and perhaps also early modern German runtzefal, runtzefall female genitals (16th cent.; perhaps < German †Runze wrinkle (see frounce n.¹) + a second element of uncertain origin, perhaps Fall fall n.², with reference to the wrinkled appearance of the labia and punning allusion to the name of Roncesvalles).
The form rouncifold probably shows excrescent ‑d (however, perhaps compare fold n.³).
The form roundsefal apparently shows association with round adj.
The form rounsiful perhaps shows association with full adj.
The mention of rounce v.¹ (“To behave in an agitated, boisterous, or noisy manner”) links up with Xerîb’s mention earlier today of the OED’s Word of the Day: rounce robble hobble. And I like the careful differentiation of “probably,” “apparently,” and “perhaps” in the last three sentences. Thanks, Monica!
Surely some sound-meaning association here, which is always hard to pin down. Puts me in mind of rumbullion and rumbustion of that era, later shortened to rum (the alcohol).
I’m looking for ways to use both that and “rounce robble hobble”.
One cannot but be impressed and/or bewildered by the notion that 16th-century Germans felt motivated to work in a “punning allusion to the name of Roncesvalles” when devising new sexual slang.
I blame this guy. He had a finger in every rouncival pie.
In Russian it is usually ронсевальское ущелье. Derived from щель “cleft”, у-щель-е would make a good name for vulva. If (?) in German “Roncesvalles” too was frequently used with some other word with this meaning…
cf Waterloo>loo?
One cannot but be impressed and/or bewildered… 16th-century Germans felt motivated… new sexual slang.
it only takes one loudmouth! i mean, i think “santorum” probably has the meaning dan savage gave it for a lot of people too young to remember the senator’s career.
(and if it lasts, the steep downward curve of digital data survival means that it’d take a damn good 22nd-century philologist to work out where it came from – i can just picture the scholarly debates about its latin etymology and presumed origins among catholic monks!)
For those who like pictures…
https://www.facebook.com/GrandiloquentWords/posts/runcible-run-suh-buhln1-a-spoonlike-utensil-with-three-short-tines-like-a-forkla/3092210854127187/
Note: ingurgitate
That “not a spoon at all” made me think of Lear’s “runcible spoon” — that was indeed the context of the cited quotation.
Contra the character in Miller’s novel, Wikipedia runcible does not know how the Lear name later got attached to the preexisting type of fork, or suggest the fork was ever used to eat peas of whatever size.
Wiktionary rounceval etymology is from Webster 1913 “From the gigantic bones shown at Roncesvalles, and alleged to be those of old heroes.”
bewildered by the notion that 16th-century Germans felt motivated to work in a “punning allusion to the name of Roncesvalles” when devising new sexual slang
The valley of brambles (ronces) where Roland blows his horn so hard his brains come out…
Or OG buggers.
Anyway, Rick “Santorum” Santorum is nicely antiparallel to Dick “Dick” Cheney.
The “gigantic bones” story is still in Merriam-Webster today, as well as AHD s.v. runcible spoon. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable attributes it to “Mandeville”, as does a footnote in an 1883 edition of an English Charlemagne romance:
But wait, I can’t find this quote in Mandeville’s Travels, and besides, the voyage in that book doesn’t go anywhere near the Pyrenees! Turns out, these sources are misquoting an 1872 edition of Nares’ Glossary, which says it’s something that “the translator of the Spanish Mandevill says in the margin”. OK, this is not Mandeville’s Travels, it’s a totally different book titled, presumably in allusion, The Spanish Mandevile of miracles, or the garden of curious flowers, translated from a Spanish work by Antonio de Torquemada. Via EEBO, this book discusses tales of giants and their bones, including:
OK, that’s evidence that there was some folklore going on about giants in Roncesvalles. No thanks for the misdirect, Brewer.
Perhaps I should issue a disclaimer that I am AFAIK no kin of the Rev. Ebenezer* Cobham Brewer, and disclaim any sort of inherited blood guilt for any lexicographic inaccuracies on his part. Except in the context of a sufficiently exalted theology that holds that none of us common descendants of Adam and Eve should really claim to be entirely innocent of the sins of any of our remotest cousins.
*I think Dickens ended up permanently skunking “Ebenezer” as a name to give boys in English-speaking societies, but I recently stumbled into the fascinating (to me) factoid that the Yale College class of 1759 had only about 50 members, but three of them were named Ebenezer.
It needs mentioning that Lear testified to wearing a runcible hat as well.
Read all about runcible in WP, including a photo of The Runcible Spoon, a pub in Rye.
There is also a restaurant in Bloomington, IN called the Runcible Spoon, or simply the Spoon. Regular diners are called Spoonies.
@Rodger C: The Runcible Spoon was in dire shape when I first moved to Bloomington about twenty years ago. It was perceived as a kind of ailing community landmark. There were efforts, but I don’t know if it really ever recovered.
I eat at the Spoon with a friend once a month. It’s not what it used to be–no one knows how to make a proper omelet– but it gets on.