maalin (mal in)

A dialectal form of merlin. lieve the M to be derived (see 4), is as follows: IMG:content-0012.png:[ocr errors] Hieroglyphic. Hieratic. Phenic i an. M IMG:content-0013.png:[blocks in formation] M represents a labial nasal sound, the corresponding nasal to band p, as n to d and t, and ng to gand k. That is to say, in its production the lips are pre ed together, or form a mute closure, as in pand b, and the vocal chords are set in sonant vibration, as in b; but the pa age from the pharynx into the nose is open, so that the tone rings in the nasal as well as in the oral cavity, and this gives the peculiar quality which we term nasal. (See nasal.) Since the nose is incapable of complete closure (except by tre ord i. external means, as the fingers), the sound thus produced is resonant and continuable, and hence m and n are narily reckoned as semivocal, or liquid, or the like. But m does not win, like n, an actual vowel value in English syllabication; though in vulgar pronunciation words like elm, spasm, etc., are sometimes resolved into el - um, spaz um, etc. The sound m, especially as initial, is a very stable element in Indo-European language-history: compare mean1, mind, Latin mens, Greek μένος, Sanskrit / man; or mother, oldest traceable form matar (compared with the altered father, brother, oldest pätar, bhrātar ). M has no varieties of pronunciation, and is silent only in a few foreign words, as mnemonic; it is doubled under the same circumstances as the consonants in general, as in dimmer, dimming, dimmed, etc., from dim. [Shetland.] ma'am (mäm), n. [Also mam , vulgarly marm , mum ; contr. of madam .] A common colloquial contraction of madam , used especially in answers, after yes and no , or interrogatively, when one expects or has not distinctly heard a question. ma'am-school (mäm'sköl), n. A school kept by a woman; a dame-school. [New Eng.] I found a girl some eighteen years old keeping a ma'am school for about twenty scholars. S. G. Good rich, Recollections of a Lifetime, iv.