156 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



as, knap-weed, knop-weed, knob-weed, horse-knops, hard- 

 head, hard-irons, horse-knot, and matfellon ; and to these 

 may be added others, as, bottle-weed, bull-weed, churl's- 

 head, and logger-head. Many of these names clearly at 

 once refer to the hard, knob-like heads of the flowers, 

 knap and knop being evidently corruptions, provincialisms, 

 and old English equivalents for the word knob in fact, 

 knop may be found in this sense in the Bible. Hard- 

 head arrives by another road at the same ^significance. 

 The words horse-knops and horse-knot carry in their 

 second syllables a meaning we are already familiar with, 

 and the first half of the words is an illustration of the 

 use of animal names to express various depreciatory quali- 

 fications. Thus the use of the prefix dog almost always 

 implies worthlessness, and that of horse frequently carries 

 with it a sense of coarseness, as horse-mushroom, horse- 

 radish, horse-thyme, and horse-mint; other examples may 

 readily be found. 



