limerick

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈlɪm(ə)ɹɪk/^[1]

Etymology

Named after Limerick, a county and city in Ireland,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but the connection is obscure.^[5][2] The OED and Random House report a custom at parties of extemporizing nonsense verses, each followed by the refrain “Will you come up to Limerick?”,^[7][6][2] but Barnhart and Etymonline say there is no early evidence for it.^[4][5] Another theory links it to a group of 18th-century poets in Limerick.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A humorous five-line nonsense verse (1896).^[7][3][4][5] The OED's first record is in a letter of Aubrey Beardsley.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The form is older than its name: the first limericks appeared in books of 1820 and 1821,^[2] and Edward Lear popularized it in a collection of 1846.^[2][5] Modern limericks usually depend on a pun or turn of wit and are often bawdy.^[5][2][1]

Timeline

• 1820–21 – the first limericks in print.^[2]
• 1846 – popularized by Edward Lear.^[2]
• 1896 – the name limerick.^[7][3][4][5]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A light, humorous, nonsensical or bawdy verse of five chiefly anapaestic lines, rhyming aabba.

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press