VERBIAGE

While plowing through a pile of words, I came upon yet another odd word ending in -age and thought I ought to put a few of them in a little corral where I can admire them a bit. Several words refer to old English customs of taxation, servitude, or privilege, and presumably reflected the dominant role of Norman French. Borrowings from French continued for centuries.

• bocage - a decorative motif of foliage.
• brocage - a pimp's wages.
• brockage - an imperfectly minted coin.
• burgage - tenure of real property in return for yearly rent.
• buoyage - a fee for the use of a buoy for mooring a boat.
• cabotage - the trade or shipping along the coast.
• carnage
• chummage - the quartering of persons together in the same room; the fee a new prisoner must pay to old ones;
• cordage
• cullage - the material removed during culling; bruised apples, lame sheep, moldy cheese;
• doomage - a legal penalty for neglect;
• dunnage - the baggage and personal effects that Mr Hornblower carries onto his new ship;
• eatage - the right to use grassland for pasturage.
• faldage - the right of the lord of a manor to require tenants to pasture their sheep on the lord's fields (so that the fields would be properly manured), a fold being provided for them. In later years, this was also the name of a payment made for a waiver of this right.
• fallage - the felling of trees;
• forage
• fouage - a tax on "fire", that is, on chimneys or hearths. At least it was easy for the tax collector to spot and count the number of chimneys in a village and assess the owners. Edward the Black Prince levied an ill-advised fouage of his subjects to pay off debts from one of his daring and pointless ravages across France.
• freinage - slowdowns, interference, or sabotage by workers.
• griffinage - illegible handwriting.
• harbergage - lodging or entertainment.
• hidage - a tax paid to the king for every hide of land. A hide was an old area measurement.
• homage - with a root in the word "homme" for "man, homage originally referred to the duty of one who holds land under the feudal system of presenting himself to his liege lord. This man to man presentation was meant to formally acknowledge the positions of the subject and lord. When the kings of England held feudal territory in France, they had to go from time to time, in person, to France to pay homage to the French king.
• langrage - a kind of shot consisting of a canister of irregular pieces of iron, used to wreck sails and rigging.
• lovage - a European apiaceous herb, last seen headlining the play "Lettice and Lovage". The Middle English name was loveache which in turn was derived from the Latin ligusticum which apparently merely meant "Ligurian".
• maritage - the right of a feudal lord to dispose in marriage of the heiress, minor heir or widow of a vassal, or the payment made for a waiver of this right.
• manurage - cultivation of land.
• metage - the official measurement of an object's contents or weight.
• moulage - the making of molds for criminal investigations.
• murage - a tax levied to pay for building or repairing the walls of a fortified city.
• pannage - the right to pasture hogs in the common forest during the time when acorns are falling;
• pavage - a tax levied to pay for the paving of highways.
• peage or pedage - a toll for the right of passage.
• pelage - an animal's fur coat.
• pewage - an annual rent paid to a church for the use of a pew.
• pontage - a toll paid on bridges for their upkeep and repair.
• potage - soup.
• prisage - the right of the English king to take two tuns of wine from any ship importing 20 tuns or more.
• pucelage - virginity.
• ramage - the boughs of a tree.
• rampage
• remuage - the process of regularly turning wine bottles in storage so that the sediment collects at the cork end.
• rivage - a bank, shore or coast.
• rummage
• scutage - a tax paid by the holder of a knight's fee in lieu of military service;
• silage - any green crop harvested, compressed, fermented and stored for fodder.
• smallage - a wild celery.
• socage - the holding of land by agricultural service, and not requiring military service; the first year of a hawk.
• sockage - liquid manure.
• spillage
• staffage - the decorative accessories in a picture.
• sullage
• tillage
• tronage is a medieval toll, paid by the compulsory weighing of coarse goods on the public trone.
• trucage is the forgery of works of art.
• ullage is the amount by which a cask of wine is not full; from the old English "eullage/oillage", to fill a cask, from the old French "ouil" for "eye", meaning the bunghole.
• village

Not ready for prime time:

        acreage
        adage
        advantage
        alienage
        ambage
        amperage
        anchorage
        apinage
        appanage
        appendage
        arbitrage
        arrearage
        assemblage
        assuage
        average
        badinage
        baggage
        bandage
        baronage
        barrage
        beverage
        blockage
        bondage
        borage
        bricolage
        burrage
        carriage
        coinage
        cubage
        damage
        dressage
        frottage
        garage
        garbage
        luggage
        marriage
        menage
        mileage
        pillage
        ravage
        salvage
        savage
        seepage
        tonnage
        triage
        verbiage
        vicinage - the vicinity
        voltage
        windage
      

Impostors:

        Carthage
        image
        menage
      

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