¹ I should like to thank Professor Robert A. Pratt, of Queens College, for having attracted my attention to this crux Chauceriana.

² I know of no parallel OF imperative formation with tout (like factotum, carryall). Fr. va-tout (where tout is a vocative) is attested as late as the 17th century.

^2a Cf. H. B. Wind, Les mots italiens ... en français 163 ff.

³ The text of the Perceforest from which Godefroy has excerpted two passages containing virevouster is the printed edition of 1528, which is a textual reproduction of a manuscript copy, executed by David Aubert in 1459–60, of the romance which itself was written in the 14th century. G. Paris (Rom. 23.79 ff.) deems Aubert's copy a poor one, containing many ‘rajeunissements’. There is then only a slight chance that virevouster may belong to the original 14th-century linguistic stock of the Perceforest.

⁴ It is not excluded that virevoler is identical with, not parallel to, virevou(s)ter: from a virevaul[t (cf. fn. 5) a *vire-vol-er could have been derived after the loss of the final -t; cf. the English forms gambol < Fr. *gamba(u)der, curtal < OF courtaud. The connection with voler would then be only accidental or secondary (‘folk-etymology‘). But the existence of volvirer, with the order of the two verbs reversed, does not corroborate this supposition.

^4a Cf. also culebuter (< cule! bute!, FEW s.v. cūlus); Anjou trousse-péter (Verrier-Onillon); casse-péter (Flaubert, Correspondence 2.36), casse-briller (ibid. 36).

⁵ From this verb a masculine noun viravòut has been derived in the meaning 'espèce de treuil placé sur l'avant des petite navires pour lever un ancre' (= Eng. 'roller'). This Provençal noun, according to Gamillscheg, was borrowed by French in the 17th century in the form virevault, virevau. Cf. also the dialectal forms Dol virvault 'pulley for the bucket in a well, ferry', Anjou vir-vau ‘zigzag’, etc.; also the derived Fr. feminine virevaude ‘whirlpool in the sea’ (Littré).

A Provençal formation parallel to *vira-volta(re) is tiro-passá ‘to make a somersault’, from tiro-passo ‘somersault’, itself equivalent to two imperatives tiro! passo!. Cf. Ronjat, Gramm. ist. d. parlers prov. 3.482.

⁶ We must not, of course, take too seriously the term ‘anc. fr.‘ (= Old French) used by this amateur etymologist. He meant the 15th- and 16th-century forms known to him from the standard French dictionaries.

⁷ We are not able to decide, of course, whether viritoot reflects the feminine *virevoute or a masculine *virevout, parallel to Prov. viravòut and Swiss Fr. virevout. In the dialect of Poitou we find, along with the usual form virevouster, also vircouetter ‘tourner sur soi-même comme un derviche, ne pas rester en repos’ (Favre) and vireouetter ‘pirouetter’, forms which seem to be alterations of vire-vouter by an admixture of couette (< queue), pirouette,. girouette, etc. It is not impossible to assume that Chaucer's viretote stems directly from such a virecoute (with an assimilation k—t > t—t).

⁸ This meaning is clearly indicated in the Perceforest: Il dresse le bras dextre à tout la lance au poing, puis picque son cheval des esperons, et fait virevoustes enmy la place. The meaning of meritot (a form influenced by Eng. merry) as attested in 1656 by Blount ('a sport used by children by swinging themselves in Bel-ropes, etc.') must have evolved from 'caper'.

⁹ It would be tempting to assume for viritoot the meaning ‘whirlpool’ (attested for Prov. vira-vòuto, Cambray viravol), which could easily have developed to ‘whirlwind’ ('you come as if swept by a whirlwind'); but such an interpretation would not meet the requirement, set forth above, of 'ambiguity'.