Lettowe

Lettowe

1. Alternative form of Lettow.

• Lettow

Borrowed from Middle Low German Lettouwen (compare Middle High German Lettowen, Littowen), from Old East Slavic Литъва (Litŭva) or its etymon Old Lithuanian Lietuva.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɛtɔu̯(ə)/

Lettowe

1. Lithuania (a country in northeastern Europe)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “Here Bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunt́burẏ”, in The Tales of Caunt́bury (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published [c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 2, verso:

     fful ofte tẏme / he hadde the boꝛd bıgonne / Abouen alle nacıouns ın Pruce / In lettow / hadde he reẏſed / and ın Ruce / No crısten man / so ofte of hıs degree

     Plenty of times he headed the Table [of Honour] / above every nation in Prussia; / in Lithuania and Russia, he'd campaigned more often than any other Christian man of his station.

   • c. 1400, Morte Arthure (the Alliterative Morte Arthure), lines 602-605; republished as Edmund Brock, editor, Morte Arthure, or The Death of Arthur (EETS Original Series; 8), London: Oxford University Press, 1937, page 19:

     Be that the Grekes were graythede, a fulle gret nombyre, / the myghtyeste of Macedone, with men of þa marches; / Pulle and Pruyslande presses with oþer, / The legemen of Lettow with legyons ynewe […]

     By then the Greeks were gathered in a very great number: / the mightiest of Macedonia, with men from those margins; / Apulia and Prussia push with another [force], / the liegemen of Lithuania with many legions […]

   • c. 1410–1420 [c. 1355-1357], Þe buke of John Maundeuill (Mandeville's Travels, Egerton MS. 1982), translation of Le Livre des merveilles du monde (in Middle French); republished as George F. Warner, editor, The buke of John Maundeuill being the travels of Sir John Mandeville, knight, 1322-1356, Westminster: Roxburghe Club, 1889, page 65:

     Bot I hafe bene in oþer landes þat marchez þeron, as þe land of Russy and Nyfland and þe kingdom of Crakow and Lettow and in þe kingdom of Graften and many oþer placez.

     But I've been in other countries that are next to it, like the lands of Russia and Livonia, the kingdom of Krakow and Lithuania^[sic], the kingdom of Graften, and many other places.

     The reference to the "kingdom of Krakow and Lithuania" is either an error or a later interpolation since the kingdoms did not enter into a personal union until 1386, while the identity of the "kingdom of Graften" is unclear.^[1]

• English: Lettow, Lettowe, Littowe (obsolete)