durmast oak

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

[edit]

Superficially a compound of durmast +‎ oak, but the origin of durmast is unclear and possibly a result of scribal error. The first edition Oxford English Dictionary suggests that Thomas Martyn's dictionary for gardeners and botanists (1798) originated the word through misreading dun mast ("light-brown acorn"), an interpretation also suggested by some earlier works going back to at least 1836,[1] although a connection to Welsh derw (oaks) has also been suggested.[2]

Noun

[edit]

durmast oak (countable and uncountable, plural durmast oaks)

  1. A tree, Quercus petraea, the sessile oak.
  2. Wood of the tree.

References

[edit]
  • durmast, n. Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
  • Thomas Martyn, Philip Miller (1798) A companion to the gardener's and botanists' dictionary ... By the late Philip Miller, F. and C. Rivington, →OCLC
  1. ^ John Claudius Loudon, The Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural and Domestic Improvement (1836), page 83: "What is called the durmast oak is merely a variety which produces mast or acorns of a dun colour."
  2. ^ Britten, J., A Dictionary of English Plant-names, for the English Dialect Society, Trübner & Company, (1886), page 357: "'Durmast (quasi dunmast) oak, the acorns being sometimes of a reddish or dun colour.' Phyt. iii. 882, o.s. We should rather suspect some connection with the Celtic derw, an oak, and mast, a name for its fruit.