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▪ I. † ˈmartlet1 Obs.
Also 5 mertlete.
[Altered form of martret. Cf. MDu. martel, var. of marter marten; also med.L. martalus marten (once in Du Cange from a document written in Germany).]
A marten; also, the fur of the marten.
1440in Peacock Eng. Ch. Furniture (1866) 182 A vestment of white fustiane with black mertletes. 1693Ray Syn. Quadr. 200 Martes aliis Foyna, a Martin or Martlet. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp., Martes, the Martin, or Martlet..the name of a creature of the weasel kind. 1802Sibbald Chron. Scot. Poetry IV. Gloss., Martlet, more commonly Mertrick, a kind of large weesel, which bears a rich fur.
▪ II. martlet2|ˈmɑːtlɪt|
Also 6 mart(e)lette, 7 martilet, 8 mart(e)lett.
[a. F. martelet, app. an altered form of martinet (see martinet2), perh. assimilated to roitelet wren.]
1. The swift, Cypselus apus, formerly often confused with the swallow and the house-martin, to which some of the examples refer.
1538Elyot Dict., Apedes, a byrde whose fete be so lytle, that they seeme to haue none. I suppose they be martlettes. 1575Turberv. Faulconrie 134 Yong sparrowes martelettes and other small byrdes. 1596Shakes. Merch. V. ii. ix. 28 Which..like the Martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall. 1666Dryden Ann. Mirab. cx, First the martlet meets it in the sky. 1678[see martinet1 1]. 1771Smollett Humph. Cl. 8 June, The sweet twitter of the martlet at my window. 1773[see martin1 1]. 1821Blackw. Mag. X. 443 I'll stay here till the woodcock comes, and the martlet takes her wing. 1854S. Dobell Balder xxiii. 109 When airy martlet, sipping of the pool, Touches it to a ripple that stirs not The lilies.
2. Her. An imaginary bird without feet, borne as a charge. Used as a mark of cadency for a fourth son.
In French heraldry the corresponding bird (described as having neither feet nor beak) is called merlette (OF. merlete, meslete; AF. heraldry had merelot, merlot, with differing dim. suffix). This word is app. a dim. of merle blackbird; according to Littré it has the sense ‘female blackbird’, but only the heraldic sense appears in Hatz.-Darm. It seems possible that the heraldic bird may originally have been intended for a ‘little blackbird’, represented without feet by accident or caprice, or with symbolical intention, and that the English heralds of the 16th c. or earlier identified the bird so depicted with the ‘martlet’ or swift, which has short legs, whence its mod. specific name apus = Gr. ἄπους footless. It is noteworthy that the ‘martlets’ (so called in the 16th c.) in the pretended arms of Edward the Confessor were at an early period portrayed with feet. The anglicized form of merlete, marlet, does not occur in heraldic use, but appears in several 16th c. instances with the sense of martlet, i.e. a swift or a martin. According to English heraldic writers, the use of the footless bird as a mark of cadency for younger sons was meant to symbolize their position as having no footing in the ancestral lands.
a1550in Baring-Gould & Twigge's West. Armory (1898) 5 Bodleigh: Arg: 5 martlets 3, 2, on a cheife sab: 3 coronets or. 1610J. Guillim Heraldry iii. xvii. (1611) 163 He beareth Azure, a Bend Argent, Cottized Or, betweene six Martlets of the same... The Martlet or Martinet (saith Bekenhawb) hath legges so exceeding short, that they can by no meanes goe. 1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. i. xv. 48 The fourth Brother gives a Martilet for the difference of his Armes. 1664Butler Hud. ii. iii. 417 The strangest long-wing'd Hawk that flies, That, like a Bird of Paradise, Or Herauld's Martlet has no legs. 1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Martlet, the Term in Heraldry for a Pidgeon, with its Feet erased or torn off; 'tis also the Difference, or mark of Distinction in an Escutcheon for the fourth Brother or Family. 1880G. T. Clark in Encycl. Brit. XI. 690/2 The imputed arms of the Confessor, ‘gules, a cross patonce between 5 martlets or’. |