Sunday 3 August 2003

We were just eating Sunday lunch when a wasp came over with the intent of partaking of my meal. "Avaunt." I said, flapping at it half-heartedly, prompting the question of what "avaunt" means from my Dad. I said it was the kind of thing you might say to a recreant knight, or fowle daemon, if you should meet either. So the he asked me what "recreant" meant. I don't really know. But I thought it'd be fun to guess c.f. miscreant. I expect the "creant" part is old past tense for "created", so a recreant is one who has been uncreated. In the sense of a knight, I suppose that would be a shamed knight, or one whose behaviour marked him out as false. Our survey said: a fair enough match for a guess on the meaning, completely out on the etymology.