(_a_) Except where it is final, _on_ usually remains, whether followed by a dental or not. The tendency towards _ou_, which produced the modern English _amount_, _account_, _abound_, _profound_, _announce_, &c., is here very slightly visible. Once _blounde_ occurs, in rhyme with _monde_, _confonde_, &c., and we have also _rounge_ 2886 (_runge_ 3450) and _sounge_ 5604 (also _ronge_, _songe_), and in ante-tonic syllables _bounté_, _bountevous_, _nouncier_ (also _noncier_), _plunger_ (also _plonger_), _sounger_, and words compounded with _noun_, as _nounsage_, _nouncertein_, &c. On the other hand _seconde_, _faconde_, _monde_, _abonde_, _rebonde_, _responde_, 1201 ff., _monde_ (adj.), _bonde_, _redonde_, 4048 ff., _suronde_, _confonde_, 8199 ff., _monde_, _onde_, _confonde_, 10838 ff., _amonte_, _honte_, _accompte_, _conte_, _surmonte_, _demonte_, 1501 ff. The _-ount_ termination in verbal inflexion, which is common in Bozon, _ount_, _sount_, _fount_, _dirrount_, &c., is not found here except in the Table of Contents. (_b_) When a word ends with the nasal, _-on_ is usually developed into _-oun_. In Gower’s French a large proportion of the words with this ending have both forms (assuming always that the abbreviation _-o̅n̅_ is to be read _-oun_, a point which will be discussed hereafter), but _-oun_ is the more usual, especially perhaps in rhyme. The older Anglo-Norman _-un_ has completely disappeared. Words in _-oun_ and _-on_ rhyme freely with one another, but the tendency is towards uniformity, and at the same time there is apparently no rhyme sequence on the ending _-on_ alone. The words with which we have to deal are, first, that large class of common substantives with terminations from Lat. _-onem_; secondly, a few outlandish proper names, _e.g._ _Salomon_, _Simon_, _Pharaon_, _Pigmalion_, with which we may class occasional verbal inflexions as _lison_, _soion_; and, thirdly, a certain number of other words, chiefly monosyllables, as _bo(u)n_, _doun_, _mo(u)n_, _no(u)n_ (= _non_), _noun_ (= _nom_), _reboun_, _renoun_, _so(u)n_ (pron.), _soun_ (subst.), _to(u)n_, also _respoun_ (imperative). In the first and third class _-oun_ is decidedly preferred, but in the second we regularly find _-on_, and it is chiefly when words of this class occur in the rhyme that variations in the others are found in this position. Thus l. 409 ff. we have the rhymes _noun_, _temptacioun_, _soun_, _resoun_, _baroun_, _garisoun_; 689 ff. _contemplacioun_, _tribulacioun_, _temptacioun_, _collacioun_, _delectacioun_, _elacioun_; so also in 1525 ff., and even when _Salomon_ comes in at ll. 1597 and 1669, all the other rhymes of these stanzas are _-oun_: _presumpcioun_, _respoun_, _resoun_, _noun_, _doun_, &c. At 2401 however we have _maison_, _noun_, _contradiccioun_, _lison_; 2787 _Salomon_, _leçon_, _enchesoun_, _resoun_; 4069 _noun_, _tençon_, _compaignoun_, _feloun_, _Catoun_, _confessioun_; and similarly _façon_ 6108, _religion_ (with _lison_)