58 



SPAVIN. 



The Derivation of our word spavin is involved in some doubt. 

 Blundeville, whose definition of it is perfectly unequivocal, calls 

 it " the spauen," and informs us that the Italian name for it is spau- 

 ano OY spauanagno* . In Spanish it is called esparavan\ . Of our 

 own lexicographers, one derives it from the Greek (j'Kua^a, or from 

 the Latin spasmus % ; — the catch-up of the spavined limb in 

 action being regarded, it would seem, as spasmodic : — another from 

 the old French word espavent\, the modern French name for 

 spavin being eparvin ; while a third derives it either from the 

 French adjective tpars, or from the Latin one sparsus^y so called 

 from the spavined horse being supposed to go with a straddling 

 gait. 



Shakspeare has introduced the word into two of his dramatic 

 pieces. His fantastic description of the nag upon which "the 

 mad Petruchio" was seen coming to claim his bride, will never be 

 forgotten : — 



" His horse hipped with an old mothy saddle, 



the stirrups of no kindred : besides, possessed with the glanders, and like to 

 mose in the chine ; troubled with the lampas, infected with the fashions, 

 full of windgaUs, sped with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the 

 fives, stark-spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots ; swayed in the 

 back, and shoulder-shotten." 



Again, in his play of Henry VIII, the bard has used the word 

 in his caricature account of the gait some English gallants had 

 acquired by their travel in France : — 



" One would take it, 

 That never saw them pace before, the spavin 

 And springhalt reigned among 'em." 



* The four chiefest Offices belonging to Horsemanship, &c. &c. By Master 

 Blundeville. 1608. 



t Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana. Madrid, 1732. 



j Skinner and Lemon. 



II Johnson, Todd, and Richardson. 



§ Thomson's Etymon of English Words. Edinl. 1825. 



