different between marrow vs merrow

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English mary, marow, marwe, marow?, from Old English mearg, from Proto-Germanic *mazg?, *mazgaz, from Proto-Indo-European *mosg?os. Compare West Frisian moarch, Dutch merg, German Mark, Swedish märg, Icelandic mergur, and also Russian ???? (mozg, “brain”), Persian ???? (ma?z, “brain”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?mæ???/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?mæ?o?/, /?me?o?/, /?m??o?/
• Rhymes: -ær??

Noun

marrow (countable and uncountable, plural marrows)

1. (uncountable) The substance inside bones which produces blood cells.

   • Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

3. (countable) A kind of vegetable like a large courgette/zucchini or squash.
   • 1847, Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, "Steam-Boat Voyage to Barbados", Bentley's Miscellany, Vol XXII, London: Richard Bentley, p.37:

     The finest European vegetables, cabbages, cauliflowers, potatoes, vegetable marrow, were lying in the market-hall, awaiting purchasers.

4. The pith of certain plants.
5. The essence; the best part.
   • 1573, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry

     I cannot commend , with theefe of his marrow, for feare of ill end

6. The inner meaning or purpose.
7. (medicine, colloquial) Bone marrow biopsy.

8. (obsolete) Semen.
   • 1601–1608, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, act ii, scene 3

     Parolles: He wears his honour in a box, unseen / That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home, / Spending his manly marrow in her arms / Of Mars’s fiery steed.

Synonyms

• (the essence; the best part): crux, gist; See also Thesaurus:gist

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Etymology 2

From Old Norse margr.

Alternative forms

• marra

Noun

marrow (plural marrows)

1. (Tyneside, informal) A friend, pal, buddy, mate.

   Cheers marrow!

2. (Scotland or archaic) One of a pair; a match; a companion; an intimate associate.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     The moon’s my constant Mistresse
     & the lowlie owle my morrowe.
     The flaming Drake and y? Nightcrowe make
     mee musicke to my sorrowe.

Derived terms

• half-marrow

References

• A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, ?ISBN
• Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
• A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896, [1]

English

Etymology 1

Hiberno-English, from Irish murúch (“mermaid”).

Noun

merrow (plural merrows)

1. A merman or mermaid in Scottish and Irish Gaelic folklore.

Etymology 2

Verb

merrow (third-person singular simple present merrows, present participle merrowing, simple past and past participle merrowed)

1. (sewing) To overlock.

Further reading

• Welch, Robert (2000). "sídh". The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature

Anagrams

• Mowrer, wormer