haggle

[prettygoodword]

haggle (HAG-uhl) - v., to cut roughly or clumsily; to bargain, as over the price of something.


I can't recall seeing that first sense, so possibly mark that as either rare or regional/dialect, but I include it as part of the history: this is the frequentive of hack -- or rather of Middle English hacken via its variant haggen. The metaphoric bargaining sense didn't develop until Elizabethan times, with the idea of hacking at a price. Huh!

---L.

Comments

[ranunculus]

I don't remember seeing the first sense either, but that might have been because I glossed over it.

[prettygoodword]

Entirely possible.

[med_cat]

Fascinating etymology, thanks :)