Cheesemaking

The fourth entry is la présure, and the two languages have named the same spoonful after two different pictures. Présure comes from the popular Latin prensura, an altered prehensura, from prehendere, to seize, to take hold of. The picture is a hand closing, and French keeps it in plain sight in the sentence beside the entry: la présure fait prendre le lait, the milk takes. That verb prendre is the same prehendere worn smooth, and the cheesemaker uses it all day — le lait a pris, ça n’a pas pris, une prise lente — so the noun and the verb explain each other without a dictionary. « Rennet » was built on nothing of the kind. It belongs to the old verb « to run », which in earlier English also meant to curdle, to run together into something solid, and the dialect form « runnet » still shows the join. So French sees a grip and English sees a flow that sets; only the French word hands the reader the verb that goes with it.