n. Any of various spoons, especially a three-pronged fork that is curved like a spoon and that has a cutting edge. [From runcible spoon, nonsense term coined by Edward Lear (originally appearing in The Owl and Pussycat (1871) in the lines They dined on mince and slices of quince / which they ate with a runcible spoon, perhaps inspired by rouncival, a kind of large pea, from the name of the Hospital of St. Mary of Rouncival in London (in the garden of which the variety was first grown), from Rouncival, variant of RONCESVALLES (the use of rouncival for the large pea perhaps being influenced by the giant bones purportedly exhibited to pilgrims at Roncesvalles, ostensibly those of legendary heroes who died at Roncesvalles, such as Roland, or those of Sancho VII of Navarre, who is said to have been over seven feet tall).] |
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