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greylag or graylag (GRAY-lahg) - n., a large Eurasian gray goose (Anser anser).
Ancestor of most breeds of domestic geese, and one of the first animals to be domesticated, before 1300BCE in Egypt. Note the primary form uses the British spelling grey, because it's not an American birb. The -lag is not, as I wondered, an altered leg -- which is good, as their legs are pink -- but is actually lag: it's one of the last birds to migrate south out of England, lagging behind the others. It's not as old a name as I suspected, either -- I was expecting Old English -- as the oldest record of it is from the early 18th century.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
So that's the end of the week, but I still have two more birbs with fun names, so I'm gonna prorogue the theme for the weekend and resume with the extras on Monday.
---L.
Ancestor of most breeds of domestic geese, and one of the first animals to be domesticated, before 1300BCE in Egypt. Note the primary form uses the British spelling grey, because it's not an American birb. The -lag is not, as I wondered, an altered leg -- which is good, as their legs are pink -- but is actually lag: it's one of the last birds to migrate south out of England, lagging behind the others. It's not as old a name as I suspected, either -- I was expecting Old English -- as the oldest record of it is from the early 18th century.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
So that's the end of the week, but I still have two more birbs with fun names, so I'm gonna prorogue the theme for the weekend and resume with the extras on Monday.
---L.
