Foliage

[Dr. Goodword]

• foliage •

Pronunciation: fo-lee-ij • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: 1. Leafage, a cluster or aggregation of leaves. 2. A representation of leafage as decoration.

Notes: Today's word is often mispronounced [foil-ij] or [fo-lij]. Actually, the latter is widely accepted but the former is not. Foliageous means "containing a representation of foliage". If we remove the -age and add the same suffix, we get foliaceous "like a leaf; having leaves, leafy". Going back to the root, we find foliar "pertaining in any way to a leaf."

In Play: What we call "magnolias" here up north are known as "tulip trees" down south. Down south we can say things like this: "Magnolia trees are monumental with their glossy evergreen foliage and large, fragrant blossoms every summer." Otherwise, we can say things like this anywhere in the English-speaking world: "Hermione knew that her love for Ben Venuti would change like the woodland foliage in winter."

Word History: Middle English (ME) foilage was borrowed from Old French foillage, the noun from foille "leaf". (The mispronunciation mentioned above may have originated at this point.) However, the current English spelling and pronunciation fell under the spell of Latin folium "leaf" somewhere along the way from ME. Latin inherited its word from PIE bhel-/bhol- "leaf, bloom" which, with metathesis, also arose in Latin as flos, floris "flower, blossom", Irish bláth "flower", Welsh blodyn "flower", Albanian fletë "leaf", English bloom and blossom, Dutch bloem "flower", and German Blume "flower". Without metathesis we find Gujarati, Bangla, Punjabi, and Hindi phula "flower".

[wordlady1]

They say foilage in Vermont.
Mary Kaye, West Palm Beach, FL

[David Myer]

Another interesting one. Wordlady1 suggests it is called foilage in certain parts of USA (perhaps in ignorance - users' ignorance, not Wordlady1's!) But thinking about old French feuille, a leaf - and foil - and I wonder whether foilage is truer to history. Certainly a thousand years or so. But then remembering that folium is a leaf in Latin, perhaps the original ‘mistake’ may be a thousand or more years old. Love it.

I have never heard it pronounced foilage. But yes, given the etymology, there may be an argument.

[Dr. Goodword]

Until I found the history, I always believed it was simple liquid metathesis with the L and I changing places. Now, I'm not sure.

[bnjtokyo]

Debbymoge provides one clear example of liquid metathesis and one arguable example. The pet bugbears of
realtor --> relator is a clear example caught in the wild of a liquid and a vowel trading places.
nuclear (nuk le ar) --> nuculear is not such an obvious example but if the pronunciation were to become "nukeylar" where the vowel following the l jumps in front of the l and then assimilates the back feature of the k it now follows we would have "nu cue lar" as cited by Debbymoge.