OF BRITISH PLANTS. 141 



/, the snapdragon, snap having formerly had the 

 meaning of the Gr. oro/uoy, a little mouth, 



Antirrhinum majus, L. 



MADDER, in old MSS. madyr, from the plural of L. Ger. 

 made, a worm, and called in an Anglo-Saxon MS. of the 

 thirteenth century vermiculum. See Mayer and Wright, 

 p. 139, Made is the same word as the Go. and AS. ma^a, 

 whence mad, used by Tusser for a maggot, and moth, which 

 properly means the worm " that fretteth the garment," 

 and not its winged imago, a word related to Go. matjan, eat, 

 L. mandere, its root mad. The name was applied to the 

 plant now called so from confusion with another red dye, 

 that was the product of worms, viz., the cocci ilicis, which 

 infest the Quercus coccifera, L., and which were called in 

 the middle ages vermiculi, whence Fr. vermeil and vermilion, 

 a term now transferred to a mineral colour. 



Rubia tinctorum, W. 

 ,, FIELD-, Sherardia arvensis, L. 



MADNEP, the mead-nape, or -parsnep, or as it was once 

 spelt, pas-nep, the cowparsnep. From Gerarde's assertion 

 that "if a phrenetiche or melancholic man's head be anointed 

 with oyle wherein the leaves and roots have been sodden, 

 it helpeth him very much," it would seem as though pas-nep 

 was misunderstood as It. pazzo-napo, mad turnep, and mead 

 conformably changed to mad. 



Heracleum Sphondylium, L. 



MAD-WORT, Du. meed, madder, for which its root was 

 used, Asperugo procurnbens, L. 



MAGHET, maid, an adopted Flemish word, Go. magaps^ 

 O.H.G. magad, Fris. mageth, A.S. mceffS, Fl. maghet, as in 

 the hymn beginning 



" 0, moeder ende maghet, reine vrouwe ! " 



Willems, No. 114. 

 Lat. fios virgineus, Gr. irapQeviov, a name given to many 



