zugunruhe

[prettygoodword]

zugunruhe (tsoo-GOON-roo-uh) - n., the migratory drive in animals, especially birds; restless or behavior in migratory animals at the beginning of the normal migration period.


Especially noticeable in captive migratory birds at the start of a migration period -- they really wanna GO, man, but you're keeping them cooped up -- but also their wild friends get notably restless before they actually take off. From German, coined in 1707 from Zug, move/migration + Unruhe, anxiety/restlessness.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Curious about that "move/migration" metaphor. Zug is from the verb ziehen, a congener of English tow/tug, so it's a literal pull. Modern German Zug = train, originally the engine but now metonymically the whole thing; the contemporary verb for pulling a shirt over one's head remains ziehen.

[prettygoodword]

Huh. That's ... interesting. A quick check finds that both Wikipedia and Wiktionary are pulling that etymology from the same source, one that requires registration to check what it says. I should look for a German dictionary, preferably with an etymology.

[thistleingrey]

I wonder whether the editor(s) just copied something in without being able to verify, then. Checked my memory against duden.de before my prior comment. Here's the entry, which (checking now!) more or less survives in-browser Google Translate.

I like the online Duden because it often has a short etymology near the bottom, Herkunft = origin/provenance (but I knew zug and ziehen are old from reading old texts).

[prettygoodword]

Coo. Thanks.