• fellmonger •
Pronunciation: fel-mahn-gêr • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. Pelt trader, dealer in fells, animal skins. 2. Someone who prepares pelts, removes hair from hides and tans them in order to make leather.
Notes: Today's Good Word has jumped the tracks, as pointed out in the recent discussion in the Agora. Mongers are supposed to be dealers and traders, not producers, but this noun has gone awry. This noun may be used as a verb meaning to trade in or process fells. A place where fells are sold or processed is a fellmongery.
In Play: Today's word should be restricted to uses like this: "Rodney is the fellmonger who sells more pelts than all the other salespeople at the fellmonger's shop." Its idiomatic sense might appear in expressions like this: "He can also separate the wool from a sheepskin faster than any of the other fellmongers."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a compound made up of fell "pelt" + monger. Fell is the German word for "pelt", cousin of Dutch vel "skin, sheet", and Icelandic feldur "coat, skin". It descended from PIE pel- "cover, skin, hide", which went on to become Sanskrit patala "cover, membrane", Greek pelma "shoe sole", Latin pellis "pelt", Russian pelena "shroud, veil", Czech plena "diaper", and Slovene pleva "chaff". The English word pelt was borrowed from Old French pelete "skin, hide". (Thanks to David Myer for raising the issue about today's Good Word in the Agora in the discussion linked above.)
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