7.30.2007

Manse

I was reading a bio of Gordon Brown and saw that he lived in a manse when he was growing up.

Of course, since I'm not a Brit nor fully knowledgeable of every word in the English language, I had to look that word up, which is "from the late 15th century" and comes from the "medieval Latin mansus 'unit of land'. A manse is "a house provided for a church minister" or "a large, stately house." Since Brown's dad was a minister, then the first definition refers to his "manse."

Anyway, it's a new word I learned, one which I'll probably never use.

2 comments:

Lilly said...

"one which I'll probably never use" -- Same here :-)
Though I still enjoy learning new words. Even if I can only remember them for like 8 hours!

Margaret Larkin said...

I bet there are people who keep a kind of word "museum"--hey, that's a good idea--an online word museum.