A small question

[smokingboot]

Lat night I dreamed I was reading L.M.Montgomery's novel of an imaginative redhead, Anne of Green Gables. In it, the spirit of the author(?) or someone like that wanted to give me a word, some kind of verb or synonym. Under the typeset words of a gap between paragraphs, I wrote in careful letters of my own,uncharacteristically legible and childlike;
'[insert word I can't recall] = imitate.'
Under this I also wrote, '[same word] = bear' I thought that this wasn't the animal Ursus but the concept of bearing fruit or burdens.

But the word itself I can't recall. Can anyone think of a word that means both bear and imitate?

Dreams like this drive me nuts.

Comments

[spiraltower.livejournal.com]

"Take on", maybe?

[theo]

assume?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thanks, this one's definitely a contender.

Thank you!

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

It's definitely something like that, though I got the impression from the dream that I was looking for a single word.

[half-orc.livejournal.com]

It's a bit Freudian but...

Reproduce?

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

*LOL* It is a bit Freudian, but it does raise an interesting connection for me.

I loved Anne of Green Gables, and identified in a heartfelt way with her childhood/adolescent issues, but I fell away from her when she married, had kids and became ordinary.

Admittedly, I didn't read those later books, I tried but they just didn't interest me, so perhaps she did something amazing I don't know about. In the book series Anne has six children and is very much the heart of her home/community but...she's just another breeder. Reproduction is all she does really. I expected more from the red haired girl with so many dreams.

So thanks for that thoughtful connection. I'll think on it.

[cat-that-walks.livejournal.com]

Get a crossword dictionary.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I didn't know such tomes existed! Thanks, I'll look out for one...

[cat-that-walks.livejournal.com]

Try the bargain bookshops, they used to be in there for a pound or two.

[croak108.livejournal.com]

Knoweyng what dreams are like, it c0uld be responsibilityh. And `Imitate, bear (14)` c0uld easyh:ly be a clue in an Evening Standard coffee-time CW puzzle.