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icumen

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An archaic Early Middle English past participle meaning "come" or "arrived," famous from the historic lyric "Sumer is icumen in."

Detailed Definition
This is a Middle English verb form meaning "has come" or "has arrived." In the poem, "Sumer is icumen in" announces that summer has come, using an older grammatical form that modern readers may not recognize at first glance.
Example
Example in poetry:
The Middle English lyric “Sumer is icumen in” means “Summer has come in”; “Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu” preserves medieval spelling and sound; “Winter is icumen in” is a traditional parallel phrase meaning winter has arrived; In a modern poem, “spring is icumen” can deliberately echo archaic diction and seasonal song
Additional Notes
The form "icumen" in the opening line is Middle English and not standard modern English, so readers may need to look it up.; Found in the poem, Sumer is icumen in by W. de Wycombe
Also Known As
come arrive appear emerge
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