`zebra'

[Max W Wheeler]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Jim Rader wrote:

> English dictionaries are very slow to update information.  _The
> Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ (1966) and _The Concise
> Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_ (1986) continue the long
> discredited "Congolese" origin.  By 1993 Oxford finally saw the light
> and plumped for the Romance origin the _New Shorter Oxford_.

I note that Collins English Dictionary (1979) s.v. zebra says [C16: via
Ita;ian from Old Spanish: wild ass, probably from Vulgar Latin
*<eciferus> wild horse, from Latin <equiferus> from <equus> horse +
<ferus> wild] which is no doubt the Romance etymology mentioned before.

<equiferus> is attested in Pliny (2 passages) according to Lewis &
Short, but I've a hunch it's a pretty odd kind of compound. Are [N+A]N
compounds normal in Latin? How secure is this word in Latin? Might we
have some folk etymology here?

Max
___________________________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler <maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975; fax: +44 (0)1273 671320
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