5864 



Etymology of 



which it is applied, the Anglo-Saxon fealewe being akin to the Latin 

 helvus, gilvus, and to our own yellow. It is most curious to trace this 

 word through the almost endless ramifications of its root, which, as I 

 believe, may be ultimately carried back to the Anglo-Saxon gyU a^id 

 to heoly a name of the sun in some old Teutonic dialects. These 

 affinities are most admirably worked out by Mr. Talbot in his * English 

 Etymologies,' but, as is too often the case, his observations are most 

 painfully in need of some connecting thread. 



Roebuck presents us with an ample scope for speculation as to 

 whether the first syllable of its name be the Celtic roe, red (as the roe 

 of fish is named from its colour), or whether it be not the Anglo-Saxon 

 rcege, raage (for hrcBge), signifying a goat, and akin to the Greek 

 Tpuyo;. Possibly it may partake of both relationships : certainly its 

 scientific name, Cervus capreolus, inclines us to be in favour of the 

 latter etymology. In French chevre is a goat, but chevrette is a doe; 

 chevreuil is a roebuck, but chevrotine is deer-shot. This confusion 

 has partly arisen from a certain resemblance between cerf (Latin, 

 a stag, and chevre (LidXin, caper)', and the gradual progress 

 of form from animals of the goat tribe to those of the deer has in all 

 probability tended still further to complicate this etymology. 



Were I to endeavour to trace the various and most dissimilar modi- 

 fications of the root which appears in our word goat, I should infal- 

 libly, though, as I believe, unreasonably, be accused of romance by 

 the general reader. It is the Anglo-Saxon, (/te/, ^a/ ; but in German 

 the t becomes s, and the word appears as gets, and also in the still 

 harder form gems. It is the Gothic gaitei, gailsa, and this latter form 

 reminds us of the Sanscrit adsha, which, be it remembered, was pro- 

 nounced with a strong guttural g before the first vowel. Through 

 various other forms we trace it to the Hebrew gaz, which is referred 

 by Gesenius to the root gdzaz, to be strong. We must, therefore, re- 

 ject Junius's guess, that it is derived from %a<T», hair, as well as 

 Wachter's more reasonable conjecture that it comes from the Saxon 

 gytsean, to be lustful. Kid — the Turkish getsi and Hebrew gedi — 

 belongs also to the same family as goat. 



It may not be out of place to notice here some of our own words 

 wdiich are derived from the names of the goat. To caper is precisely 

 the same word as the Latin for a goat ; and hence, too, comes caprice, 

 i. e. a whim as sudden and unlooked for as are the bounds and vagaries 

 of a kid. Who, again, would have thought that there could be any 

 connexion between the name of the London " cab " and that of our 

 animal ? But it is quite certain that cab is an abbreviation of the 



