Sunday Word: Inglenook

[sallymn]

inglenook [ing-guhl-nook]

noun:
1 a nook or corner beside an open fireplace
2 a bench, especially either of two facing benches, placed in a nook or corner beside a fireplace

(click to enlarge)

Examples:

Wingback chairs are set in front of the fireplace inglenook outlined in heavy half-timbering and textured bricks. (Janet Eastman, Oregon families celebrate the holidays at home with well-loved traditions, Oregon Live, December 2019)

Stained-glass windows presenting pastoral scenes flank the Jacobian-style gas fireplace. An inglenook, or lounge area around a fireplace, offers storage space underneath the bench. (Kendra Smith-Parks, Historic Centanni home, once site of lavish Christmas displays, hits the market for $1.1 million, Nola.com, July 2019)

The inglenook, topped with a ribbed indoor/outdoor chenille cushion, is the daughter’s favorite spot to curl up with her laptop. (Marni Elyse Katz, Home design ideas: A comfy sofa and cozy nook make for an inviting front parlor, Boston Globe, March 2021)

Priscilla, who would have had to cross the room to reach the kitchen door, lost her head, wildly plunged the chocolate cake under a cushion on the inglenook sofa, and dashed upstairs. (L M Montgomery, Anne of the Island)

Origin:

'fireplace,' c. 1500, from Scottish, usually said to be from Gaelic aingeal 'fire, light' ('but there are difficulties' [OED]), a word of uncertain origin. The vogue for Scottish poetry in late 18c. introduced ingleside 'fireside' (1747) and ingle-nook, inglenook 'corner by the fire' (1773) to literary English.(Online Etymology Dictionary)

Almost more than any other, this delightful word for a chimney corner evokes quiet contemplation in a comfortable seat by a warm fire after a hard day, in the company of friends and a pint that's been created by a brewer with a conscience.

Here's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in The Valley of Fear, evoking the scene: 'Finally he lit his pipe, and sitting in the inglenook of the old village inn he talked slowly and at random about his case, rather as one who thinks aloud than as one who makes a considered statement'.

Prosaically, an inglenook is just a seat in the nook, or corner, near the fire, or ingle. We hardly ever encounter the latter word nowadays except in dialect usage or when accompanied by its other half.

Various etymologists have had a stab at a source for ingle. The most common explanation is that it comes either from the Scots Gaelic or Irish aingeal; in the former, it means a light or fire, in the latter a live ember. These associations are too powerful for alternative explanations to stand much chance of success, though some dictionaries hazard an origin in the Latin igniculus, a diminutive of ignis, fire. (World Wide Words)