Erik Naggum  <erik@naggum.no> wrote:
+---------------
| * Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org>
| | Probably because some people can't sepll, and sometimes mispellings
| | can enter the language through authoritative authors that use
| | different spellings...
| 
|   But if you look up these words, you find that "villein" is benign and
|   "villain" is malign.  When the benign intent is intended, dictionaries
|   redirect from "villain" to "villein".  There is no redirect back from
|   "villein" to "villain", as often happens with close spellings, such as
|   with "therefore" and "therefor".
+---------------

Actually, Merriam-Webster's online <URL:http://www.m-w.com/mw/netdict.htm>
*does* cross-reference the two words in both directions, albeit still
giving only benign meanings (e.g., free villager of certain feudal ranks)
to the "villein" form...


-Rob

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