Makerfield

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A former parliamentary constituency and market town in the Wigan area of Greater Manchester, England, known for its mining heritage
2. The name of a historic English constituency and town located near Wigan in the northwest of England, once centred on coal mining
3. A place name referring to a town and former electoral division in Greater Manchester, England, traditionally associated with the local coalfield

Etymology: Makerfield is a place name, the name of a area of Greater Manchester in north-west England, and its name is older than almost any English word you will meet. The Northumbrian monk Bede, writing around 730, recorded it as "Maserfelth", which most scholars take to be a scribal slip for an Old English form "Macerfelth". The first half comes from a Brittonic word, the language spoken across northern Britain before the Anglo-Saxons arrived, that meant "a wall". That word was itself borrowed from Latin "maceria", a term for a stone enclosure or garden wall, a sign that Roman-period building lay behind the name. The second half is plain Old English "feld", meaning an open field or stretch of cleared land. So the whole name describes a field by a wall, with the Brittonic and English elements sitting side by side. The English-speaking settlers adopted the Brittonic element and tacked on their own word, a common pattern in northern place names where earlier British names survived into the English period.