mormal

English

Alternative forms

• morimal, mortmal

Etymology

French mort-mal (“a deadly evil”).

Noun

mormal (plural mormals)

1. (obsolete) A bad sore; a gangrene or cancer.
   • 2007, Aldous Huxley, “A Country Walk”, in Jerome Meckier, Bernfried Nugel, editors, Aldous Huxley Annual: A Journal of Twentieth-Century Thought and Beyond, volume 7, Lit Verlag, →ISBN, page 37:

     They built their cathedrals, carved their Gothic philosophy into a million intricacies, sang their love-songs, rang their bells, danced and laughed in spite of all the buboes and mormals, the agues and mortal sweats, in spite of stink and worm-eaten flesh and all the inconceivable cruelties of unconquered nature.

   • 2013, Harvey Beach, Blood and Land, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 23:

     The blood feud was old and a mormal between our Families. It undermined cooperation that has since proved very profitable.

   • 2018, Thomas Elyot, “The Image of Governance”, in David R. Carlson, editor, The Image of Governance & Other Dialogues of Counsel (1533-1541), Modern Humanities Research Association, →ISBN, page 205:

     […] who, like good surgeons, shall not forbear, with corrosive and sharp medicines, to draw out the festered and stinking cores of old mormals and inveterate sores of the weal public, engendered by the long custom in vice.

References

• “mormal”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Marmol

Middle English

Noun

mormal (plural mormals)

1. bad sore; gangrene or cancer
   • 14th C., Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "General Prologue", lines 387-388:

     But greet harm was it, as it thoughte me, / That on his shyne a mormal hadde he.

     But very ill it was, it seemed to me, / That on his shin a deadly sore had he.