Hello,

This week’s blog is a day late as I was away for the weekend, staying in a tiny castle, pictured below. It’s a gate lodge in Cork at Anne’s Grove, restored by the Irish Landmark Trust, and was the perfect spot to relax with Mr Wordfoolery. As it was built in the 1800s, it never came under attack or needed defensive crenelations, but it has them all the same. Couldn’t be a castle without them, in my opinion.

Crenelations are the square notches on a castle’s battlements (or the uppy-downy bits as I called them when younger). They are designed to allow archers and other defenders to target attackers.

To crenelate arrived in English in the 1800s as a verb but of course castles had crenelations long before that time. It can also be spelled with a double L. An earlier word for the same thing was carnel (in the early 1300s) which came from Old French crenelé. The carnel was a small notch which ultimately came from crena in Latin.

Crena is also related to the word cranny (a small opening or crevice) but you never hear a castle described as having defensive crannies. Perhaps if your defenders were older ladies you could have defensive grannies. I would never go up against those fearsome women.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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