gramarye

gramarye · noun¹

1. Old French · derived fromgramarie
2. Middle English · inherited fromgramarie
3. English todaygramarye

Inherited from Middle English gramarie, from Old French gramarie, a variant of gramaire; thus a doublet of glamour, glamoury, grammar, and grimoire. The word was revived by Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).

Gramarye · proper noun²

Adopted by English author T. H. White as a name for Britain in his book The Once and Future King (1958; based on shorter works published between 1938 and 1941), in allusion to the line “Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye” from the Rudyard Kipling poem “Puck’s Song” (1906). The final stanza of the poem, italicized below, appears as an epigraph in White’s book. Kipling was using the word gramarye in the sense “magic”, but White jocularly reinterpreted it as a place-name. Trackway and Camp and City lost, Salt Marsh where now is corn; Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, And so was England born! She is not any common Earth, Water or wood or air, But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye, Where you and I will fare.

Words from the same roots

First known use, by meaning

• from 1930s The island of Britain.