5862 



Etymology of 



sheep^ &c. ; but, as soon as they are dead, their flesh receives a Nor- 

 man name, such as heef {hceiit)^ veal (veau), mutton {moutoii). So, 

 too, with our present animal, the fresh pork and the dainty brawn 

 were for the tables of the Norman lords of the soil ; but the Saxon 

 churl was allowed to feast on his own bacon. This word is variously 

 derived. Johnson takes it as though it were baken^ i. e, dried meat. 

 Webster refers it to the German bache, a wild sow. But in a curious 

 old book, printed in 1605, and intituled 'A Restitution of decayed 

 Intelligence in Antiquities,' we find the following explanation of this 

 term : But whereas swyne's flesh is now called by the name of bacon, 

 it grew only at the first unto such as were fatted with Bucon, or 

 Beech-mast." 



We can trace the word hoff, in some modification or other, through 

 all the cognate languages, and it is, as has been already remarked, 

 imitative of a pig's grunt, — a sound which may be fairly represented 

 as " ugh." In Welsh hog is hwc ; in Persian and Zend it is chuk, a 

 form which reappears in the old English chuck, and is still retained 

 in the name of the American woodchuck. In French this form gives 

 ns coclion. The Greek word Ig is an intermediate form, and supplies 

 us with the link which binds together the apparently dissimilar words 

 hog Siud sow ; for our words and its plural swine are manifestly 

 the same as the German saic ; Latin, sus ; Greek, crvg. This last is 

 usually derived by lexicographers from a-£vo), to rush, in allusion to the 

 fierceness of the wild boar ; but, when we remember how commonly 

 the aspirate in Greek is merged into a sibilant, we can hardly help 

 considering Ig and crvg to be only different forms of the same word. 

 This view, too, is confirmed by the call to pigs which we can hear in 

 any farm-yard, " Sus ! Sus ! Sus ! " And this is a good example of 

 an Etymology which is undoubtedly sound, although, at the first 

 glimpse of it, it seems to be the very contrary. 



Boar is the Anglo-Saxon bar ; Dutch, beer. It forms the last syl- 

 lable of the German eber and Latin aper, and appears again in the 

 Latin verres and Sanscrit varaha. All these words spring from a 

 kindred root, which is always connected with the idea of roughness. 

 We find it in the Latin harba and in our own beard and ^>nstle, and 

 the word boar no doubt refers to the bristly back of the animal. 



Deer affords us an instance of a word which was originally used in 

 a very wide sense, but has been gradually restricted to one particular 

 animal. The Anglo-Saxon deor, German ihier, are the same as the 

 Greek fiiif , a name of wild animals in general ; but the stag, as the 

 noblest of the beasts of chase, has monopolized the title of the beast, 



