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Liverpool
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==Toponymy== The name comes from the [[Old English]] {{lang|ang|lifer}}, meaning thick or muddy water, and {{lang|ang|pΕl}}, meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as ''Liuerpul''.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Hanks, Patrick|author2=Hodges, Flavia|author3=Mills, David|author4=Room, Adrian|title=The Oxford Names Companion|date=2002|location=Oxford|publisher=The University Press|isbn=978-0198605614|page=1110}}</ref><ref name=DH>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Liverpool|dictionary=The Online Etymology Dictionary|url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=Liverpool|last=Harper|first=Douglas|access-date=15 September 2017|archive-date=10 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110031823/https://www.etymonline.com/word/Liverpool|url-status=live}}</ref> According to the ''Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names'', "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained".<ref>''The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names'', ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. ''Liverpool''.</ref> The place appearing as ''Leyrpole'', in a legal record of 1418, may also refer to Liverpool.<ref>{{cite web|title=Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas|publisher=National Archives|url=http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H5/CP40no629/aCP40no629fronts/IMG_0108.htm|access-date=25 November 2015|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304062225/http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H5/CP40no629/aCP40no629fronts/IMG_0108.htm|url-status=live}} Third entry, the home of John Stanle, the defendant, in a plea of debt.</ref> Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the [[River Mersey|Mersey]].<ref name=scouse>{{cite book|last=Crowley|first=Tony|title=Scouse: A Social and Cultural History|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Liverpool|isbn=9781781389089|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M3N5AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT156|access-date=15 June 2014}}</ref> The adjective "Liverpudlian" was first recorded in 1833.<ref name=DH/> Although the Old English origin of the name Liverpool is beyond dispute, claims are sometimes made that the name Liverpool is of Welsh origin, but these are without foundation. The Welsh name for Liverpool is {{lang|cy|Lerpwl}}, from a former English local form Leerpool. This is a reduction of the form "Leverpool" with the loss of the intervocalic [v] (seen in other English names and words e.g. Daventry (Northamptonshire) > Danetry, never-do-well > ne'er-do-well). In the 19th century, some Welsh publications used the name "{{lang|cy|Lle'r Pwll}}" ("(the) place (of) the pool"), a reinterpretation of {{lang|cy|Lerpwl}}, probably in the belief that "{{lang|cy|Lle'r Pwll}}" was the original form. Another name, which is widely known even today, is {{lang|cy|[[Welsh exonyms|Llynlleifiad]]}}, again a 19th-century coining. "{{lang|cy|Llyn}}" is pool, but "{{lang|cy|lleifiad}}" has no obvious meaning. G. Melville Richards (1910β1973), a pioneer of scientific toponymy in Wales, in "Place Names of North Wales",<ref name="Place-Names of North Wales">{{cite book|chapter=Place-Names of North Wales|first=G. Melville|last=Richards|date=1953|title=A Scientific Survey of Merseyside|pages=242β250|publisher=British Association}}</ref> does not attempt to explain it beyond noting that "{{lang|cy|lleifiad}}" is used as a Welsh equivalent of "Liver". A derivative form of a learned borrowing into Welsh ({{lang|cy|*llaf}}) of Latin {{lang|la|lΔma}} (slough, bog, fen) to give "{{lang|cy|lleifiad}}" is possible, but unproven.
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