keythong
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A mythical beast resembling a griffin with no wings, often classified as a male griffin.
Example Sentences
- "The Earl of Ormonde,—a pair of keythongs. (?) * […] * The word is certainly so written, and I have never seen it elsewhere. The figure resembles the Male Griffin, which has no wings, but rays or spikes of gold proceeding from several parts of his body, and sometimes with two long strait horns.—Vide Parker’s Glossary, under Griffin."
- "Ormond. Earl of Ormond. Temp. Edward. IV. A pair of keythongs."
- "English armory knows an animal which it terms the male griffin, which has no wings, but which has gold rays issuing from its body in all directions. [Hugo Gerard] Ströhl terms the badge of the Earls of Ormonde, which from his description are plainly male griffins, keythongs, which he classes with the panther; and probably he is correct in looking upon our male griffin as merely one form of the heraldic panther."
- "Infrequently, a griffin is portrayed without wings; in 15th-century and later heraldry such a beast may be called an ‘alce’ or a ‘keythong.’"
- "Folks gave the beast many names. Griffin, griffon, gryphon, alce, keythong, gryphen, griffen, gryphen, and opinicus…"
- "The more common representation of the griffin is the female griffin, a creature with wings. Male griffins do NOT have wings and are termed “alces” or “keythongs.”"
Etymology
Unclear. From Middle English keythong: attested in one medieval document describing Edward IV’s French Expedition of 1475, which records that the badge of John Butler, 6th Earl of Ormond, featured a "peyr [pair] keythongs". Later writers including Colin Cole (The Coat of Arms 98, 1976) argued this denoted "male griffins" and that these were definitely separate monsters from "griffins" in the medieval period (although both the animals termed male griffins and those termed griffins are depicted with penises in medieval art), while Roger Barnes argues it referred to the two interlinked thongs of an Ormond knot.