Haggard hawks and paltry poltroons
Jones, Paul Anthony Francis2013
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What do the following ten words all have in common - haggard, mews, codger, arouse, musket, poltroon, gorge, allure, pounce and turn-tail? All fairly familiar and straightforward words, after a little digging into their histories it turns out that all of them derive from falconry: the adjective haggard described an adult falcon captured from the wild; mews were the enclosures hawks were kept in whilst moulting; codger is thought to come from 'cadger', the member of a hunting party who carried the birds' perches, and so on. This, essentially, is what this book is all about - it collects together hundreds of the most intriguing, surprising and little known histories and etymologies of a whole host of English words.
Main title:
Haggard hawks and paltry poltroons / Paul Anthony Jones.
Author:
Imprint:
London : Constable, 2013.
Collation:
xiv, 274 pages ; 21 cm
Notes:
Includes index.
ISBN:
9781472108067 (hbk)9781472109415 (ebook)
Dewey class:
422
Language:
English
BRN:
1077013