patteran
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Romani patrin (“leaf”), perhaps specifically from an inflected form like Vlax Romani pateryánsa.
Noun edit
patteran (plural patterans)
- Any of several coded signs left along a road or on a non-Roma house by one Rom to another. The most common ones consist of crossed sprigs (usually of different trees or shrubs) indicating, for example, a direction travelled.
- 1890, Rudyard Kipling, The Gipsy Trail, Boston: Alfred Bartlett, published 1909, verse 8:
- Follow the Romany Patteran / Sheer to the Austral Light, / Where the besom of God is the wild South wind, / Sweeping the sea-floors white.
- 2006, Cormac McCarthy, The Road:
- They began to come upon from time to time small cairns of rock by the roadside. They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterans.
Synonyms edit
- See also Thesaurus:indication
References edit
- Follow the Romany Patteran by Virginia Teitge, The English Journal: Vol. 29, No. 3 (March, 1940), pp. 206-211.
- Along the Gypsy Trails in the Mountains; Sign of the "Patteran" by Which the Amateur Seeks a Camping Place for a Secure Night's Rest — Joy of the care-free Life in the Summer., The New York Times: August 11, 1912, pX2.