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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: May 2000
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This has been bothering me for over a year. I found a reference to this word from this source: http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict. Definition three (listed below) has a supposed quote from Kipling, although I have searched all online references of Kipling's works and cannot find the source. Has anyone ever seen another reference to this word? Does anyone know what it means? I am assuming it is some sort of animal, but searches through biological and mythological dictionaries have come up empty.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :
Mill \Mill\, v. i.
1. To undergo hulling, as maize.
2. To move in a circle, as cattle upon a plain.
The deer and the pig and the nilghar were milling round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles radius. --Kipling.
3. To swim suddenly in a new direction; -- said of whales.
4. To take part in a mill; to box. [Cant]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
it's a typo; the nilghai is some sort of antelope -- here's the corrected citation, from The Second Jungle Book: The deer and the pig and the nilghai were milling round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles radius, while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round its edge. http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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tsu
OK I'm impressed - how on earth did you know that (or is just something that everyone knows and I've just never realised).
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
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Depends upon how much of a Kipling fan you are, I suppose. This quote is, if I remember rightly, from 'Letting in the Jungle', where Mowgli sings his Song against Men of how the 'karela, the bitter karela' will cover their homes.
For what it's worth, karela is what we, in the UK at least, call courgettes. I couldn't stand the stuff when I lived in Inida, and I can't stand it here! Along with aubergines (egg-plant, brinjal, or baingan if you're using the Hindi), it is my least favourite vegetable.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
The Shorter Oxford gives it as 'nilgai' [earlier 'nylghau'] from Sanskrit nila (blue) + gavi (cow). A large Indian antelope, the male of which is blue-grey with white markings and short horns, the female tawny and without horns.
Cheers
Paulb
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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>how on earth did you know that must have been some sort of genetic memory.... I certainly didn't read *that much Kipling as a lad, but when I saw the citation I thought it didn't look quite right, so I started from a 'nilgh' search -- correct spelling in hand made finding the confirming citation easy. (It turns out that Kipling used the word more than once; maybe that's why it stuck.) BTW, got any hunches as you approach the century mark? 8-) http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Shanks
The US for courgette is the italian "zuccini"
as you mention, aubergine is "eggplant"
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old hand
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old hand
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Thanks for that. Will scrupulously avoid zuccini if ever I see it on a menu!
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315 |
The correct spelling is
zucchine (or, rare, zucchini).
Ciao dalla terra delle zucchine
Emanuela
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
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Ciao Emanuela
Ok I'll correct my posting to:
zucchini - Italian (zucchine or, rare, zucchini)
(very good with goat's cheese!)
Jo :)
Good to see we're getting so international!
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