Liripipe

Portrait of a Young Man (Tymotheos) by Jan van Eyck, 1432. The liripipe is draped forward at left (subject's right).

A liripipe (/ˈlɪrɪˌpaɪp/; also liripoop, liripipion, liripion) is a part of clothing, the tail of a hood or cloak, or a long-tailed hood. The modern-day liripipe appears on the hoods of academic dress.

Description

With long-tailed hoods it includes in particular a chaperon or gugel, or the peak of a shoe. A graffito on the church wall of Swannington Church in Norfolk depicts a "late medieval woman wearing a long, laced gown and hood with a long liripipe ornament."[1]

In modern times, liripipe mostly refers to the tail of the cowl of an academic hood, seen at graduation ceremonies.

Origins

The word is believed to originate from the Medieval Latin term liripipium, which is of unsure origin. Webster's Dictionary suggests it is a corruption of cleri ephippium ("clergy's tippet"), but this is uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary, attributing the hypothesis to Gilles Ménage, calls it a "ludicrous guess".[2]

Perhaps due to its academic association, the word has the obsolete sense of "part or lesson committed to memory", as in the expressions "to know one's liripipe" and "to teach someone his liripipe".[2]

Other uses

The variant spelling liripoop has also the obsolete meaning of "silly person",[2] most probably because it is an inherently funny word, cf. "Nincompoop".

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey, The Guardian, March 29, 2014, article by Matt Champion
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "ˈliripipe, ˈliripoop". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.: "No plausible etymology has been found [...] Ménage's ludicrous guess, that liripipium is a corruption of cleri ephippium, is repeated seriously in recent Eng. dicts."
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