Sillyhow

Sil´ly`how

A caul. See Caul, n., 3.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.

References in periodicals archive ?

Muldoon recalls that he "began" by reading Donne and Herbert ("Times"), and names Donne in the opening of "Sillyhow Stride," from Horse Latitudes (having gained enough of his own capital?).

"Unapproved Road": poetic roadblocks and animal traffic in Paul Muldoon

If "Cauliflowers," a poem very much of the Troubles, evoked both the caul of birth and the severed head, in these recent poems the caul or "sillyhow" tells us that the new state of emergency is at once in the delivery room and the emergency ward, the walled city and the camp.

Nomen est omen: the Latin name for "'buzzard," cathartes aura, ends "Sillyhow Stride," evoking both the ends of classical tragedy and the sickbed catheter.

In "Sillyhow Stride," whether in citing Donne or letting his own nomen est omen ("doon") echo in such phrases as to "don a black hat ...