Etymology of the word Mare. 5937 



descend to consider themselves juveniles either in years or know- 

 ledge. 



J. G. 



On the Derivation of the English ivord " Mare^^ as explained by the 

 Rev. P. H. Newnham, By Thomas Thompson, Esq. 



I HAVE been much pleased with the Rev. Mr. Newnham's remarks 

 on the etymology of names of animals ; but in one instance he seems 

 to me to have run into the realms of fancy, both in deriving the word 

 mare^ a female horse, from the Celtic march^ which he says means a 

 war-horse (it in fact simply means a stallion), and in the reflections he 

 indulges in, arising from what 1 conceive to be his false derivation of 

 the word mare^ under the remarks he makes on the horse. 



The truth seems to me to be that our Saxon ancestors had an infe- 

 rior breed of horses before the Normans came amongst us with their 

 better breed. Hers was the Saxon name of the animal; moere is the 

 female's Saxon name ; colt the name of the offspring, both male and 

 female, the former being distinguished as a hors colt, as it still is 

 amongst our American cousins. When the Normans came and made 

 serfs of our Saxon ancestors, the latter, who tended the horses, 

 retained their own terms relating to them ; but the Normans, the 

 gentry of that day, used their own terms, which have descended, for 

 the most part, to the upper classes of the present time. Their clieval 

 gave the name cavalry to their horse soldiers : those who kept and 

 rode horses were chevaliers ; but in the instance of the name of the 

 animal the Saxon grooms and horse-feeders seem to have come off 

 conquerors, and cheval succumbed to horse, which we still use. The 

 better breed of Norman horses had probably the same pains bestowed 

 on their pedigrees as our modern race-horses have. In that superior 

 breed the male was, as at present, called by the Norman term sire 

 (the father), the female by the term darn or dame (the lady). Colt 

 seems to have then been applied to the male offspring only, dropping 

 the compound word horse-colt ; and to the female offspring the Nor- 

 man wordj^lly {Jille, a daughter) was applied. The dam, when thus 

 become a mother, was called by the Norman word mere (a mother), 

 now spelt mare, agreeably to the English sound of the French mere. 

 This may also have been occasioned by the great similarity of the 

 Saxon appellation ;?26)^r^, also signifying a female horse; and it is 

 XVI. 31 



