| 释义 |
melsh, melch, a. Now dial.|mɛlʃ|
Also 4 melsch, 5 melissche.
[Perh. repr. OE. męlsc, mylsc, *mielisc mellow (in melsc æppla, mellow apples), ?cogn. w. Goth. (ga)malwjan to crush. The OE. word seems to have been confused with milisc honeyed, cogn. w. Goth. miliþ honey. Cf. mulsh.]
Mellow, soft, tender. Of weather: Mild and ‘soft’.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. cxvi. (1495) 679 In grounde that is melch and sondy [MS. Bodl. E. Mus. melissche, L. in terra leni sabulosa]. 1737J. Broadhead in N. & Q. 8th Ser. (1895) VII. 405/1 Very fine melch weather. 1874E. Waugh Chimney Corner (1879) 113 Nice melch mak o' a mornin'.
Comb.1647Trapp Comm. Tit. i. 13 A metaphor from Chyrurgeons, who must not be melch-hearted, saith Celsus, but pare away the dead flesh. 1782E. N. Blower Geo. Bateman II. 111 ‘Dad’, (said the glassman..pulling out his pocket-handkerchief) ‘I didn't used to be so melch-hearted.’
Hence † melshhead, -hood, ripeness.
a1325Prose Psalter cxviii. [cxix.] 147 Ich com forþe in melshede [v.r. melschhode, Vulg. præveni in maturitate]. |