different between larch vs lurch

English

Etymology

From early modern German Larche, Lärche, from Middle High German larche, from Old High German larihha, early borrowing from Latin larix, itself possibly of Gaulish origin. In the first century AD, Vitruvius wrote that the tree was given the Latin name "larigna" when the Romans discovered it at the town of Larignum.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?l??t?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?l??t?/
• Rhymes: -??(r)t?

Noun

larch (plural larches)

1. (countable) A coniferous tree, of genus Larix, having deciduous leaves, in fascicles.
   • 1665, John Rea, Flora, London: J.G. Marriott, Book III, Chapter 20, pp. 235-236,^[1]

     The Larch-tree, with us, groweth slowly, and to be found in few places; it hath a rugged bark, and boughts that branch in good order, with divers small yellowish bunched eminences, set thereon at several distances, from whence tufts of many small, long, and narrow smooth leaves do yearly come forth; it beareth among the green leaves many beautiful flowers, which are of a fine crimson colour […]

   • 1716, Nicholas Rowe (translator), The Ninth Book of Lucan in John Dryden, Miscellany Poems, London: Jacob Tonson, Volume 6, p. 67,^[2]

     The Gummy Larch-Tree, and the Thapsos there,

     Wound-wort and Maiden-weed, perfume the Air.

   • 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha, Book 7,^[3]

     Thus the Birch Canoe was builded / In the valley, by the river, / In the bosom of the forest; / And the forest’s life was in it, / All its mystery and its magic, / All the lightness of the birch-tree, / All the toughness of the cedar, / All the larch’s supple sinews;

   • 1924, Radclyffe Hall, The Unlit Lamp, Chapter 5, Part 1,^[4]

     Joan was thinking: ‘She looks like a tree […] it must be the green dress. But her eyes are like water, all greeny and shadowy and deep looking—a tree near a pool, that’s what she’s like, a tall tree. A beech tree? No, that’s too spready—a larch tree, that’s Elizabeth; a larch tree just greening over.'

2. (uncountable) The wood of the larch.
   • 1916, Arthur Ransome, “The Christening in the Village” in Old Peter’s Russian Tales,^[5]

     Old Peter was up early too, harnessing the little yellow horse into the old cart. The cart was of rough wood, without springs, like a big box fixed on long larch poles between two pairs of wheels. The larch poles did instead of springs, bending and creaking, as the cart moved over the forest track.

Synonyms

• (the wood of the larch): larchwood

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• larch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Pronunciation

• (US) enPR: lûrch, IPA^(key): /l?t??/
• Rhymes: -??(r)t?

Etymology 1

Originally a nautical term, possibly from French lacher (“to let go”).

Noun

lurch (plural lurches)

1. A sudden or unsteady movement.

   the lurch of a ship, or of a drunkard

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     Yet I hoped by grouting at the earth below it to be able to dislodge the stone at the side; but while I was considering how best to begin, the candle flickered, the wick gave a sudden lurch to one side, and I was left in darkness.

Translations

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. To make such a sudden, unsteady movement.

Translations

See also

• leave someone in the lurch
• Lurch in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

From Latin lurc?re.

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. (obsolete) To swallow or eat greedily; to devour; hence, to swallow up.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Building

     Too far off from great cities, which may hinder business; too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh everything dear.

Etymology 3

From French lourche (“deceived, embarrassed; also the name of a game”), from Proto-West Germanic *lort (“left; left-handed; crooked; bent; warped; underhanded; deceitful; limping”). Cognate to English lirt.

Noun

lurch (countable and uncountable, plural lurches)

1. An old game played with dice and counters; a variety of the game of tables.
2. A double score in cribbage for the winner when his/her adversary has not yet pegged their 31st hole.
   • August 14, 1784, Horace Walpole, letter to the Hon. H. S. Conway

     Lady Blandford has cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To leave someone in the lurch; to cheat.

   • Never deceive or lurch the sincere communicant.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To rob.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To evade by stooping; to lurk.
4. (transitive) To defeat in the game of cribbage with a lurch (double score as explained under noun entry).

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “lurch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• churl