estate-agent-speak
February 9th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under
It may sound a little supercilious to say so, but one is seldom, in my experience, lexically trumped by an estate agent. But this week in the Ludlow Advertiser, John Amos & Co of Leominster are offering:
“A Quillet of Woodland extending to 1.70 acres situated at Bryneddin Wood, Chapel Lawn, Bucknell [Salop].”
The shorter OED offers only one definition of a ‘quillet’: A verbal nicety or subtlety.
Either John Amos & Co are deploying a metaphor of such subtlety it’s escaped me, or they’ve unearthed a term so long buried in the culture of the Welsh Marches that it has been lost to the lexicographers.
They certainly didn’t find it in the standard dictionary of estate-agent-speak, which deserves commendation.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Hello Peter
Listening to you at the Leveson Inquiry today, I thought you might be interested to have a look at ...
@Fleur,
I suspect he still has a job because he knows where the bodies are buried. 
Not much to write home about Neville? 
hi peter,great website. i bought your book news of the world and managed to get hold of CAMERA ASSASSIN 2 ...
they finally caught the little toad if he can lie at a small tribunal he certainly can rely on ...
Comment by wonderfulforhisage on 9 February 2009:
Wiktionary defintion:
Etymology
From Latin quidlibet (”what you please”). Cognate of quiddit, quibble.
Noun
Singular
quillet
Plural
quillets
quillet (plural quillets)
1. a small plot of land
2. an oral quibble
Quotations
* 1602 : William Shakespeare, Hamlet , act V scene 1
Where be his quiddities now – his quillets, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?
References
* “quillet” in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
Comment by Peter on 10 February 2009:
Well, thanks for that WFHA. None of my dictionaries give the ‘plot of land’ definiton. I wonder what the derivation is?
Peter
Comment by Frances on 20 June 2009:
Hi,
I was at Chapel Lawn on Tuesday evening and the subject of Bryneddin Wood came up as the local residents are concerned that it’s not being maintained. It comprises several ‘quillets’ some of which have been/are being sold. I was told that a quillet is a section of woodland that was given to local people to own, much as strips for farming were. Have found an explanation of it in a paper produced in 1910 called “A History of Ancient Tenures of Land in North Wales and the Marches” by Palmer and Owen. It appears to be a Medieval word originally and might be local to the Welsh Marches.