[Ads-l] ADS-L Digest - 15 Feb 2018 to 16 Feb 2018 (#2018-46)

[Shawnee Moon]

> Subject: Bald eagle etymology
> 
> I noticed on Wikipedia that the entry for the bald eagle (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_eagle) has these sentences:
> 
>> Bald eagles are not actually bald; the name derives from an older meaning
> of the word, "white headed".
> 
> and later
> 
>> The bald eagle placed in the genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles) which gets
> both its common and specific scientific names from the distinctive
> appearance of the adult's head. Bald in the English name is derived from
> the word piebald, and refers to the white head and tail feathers and their
> contrast with the darker body.[18]
> 
> Reference 18 is "Dudley, Karen (1998). Bald Eagles. Raintree Steck-Vaughn
> Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 0-8172-4571-5."
> 
> Searching on Google books, this idea goes back to at least the 1930s:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=WbErAQAAMAAJ&dq=piebald
> 
> But this seems questionable to me. One of the first references to the bald
> eagle is: "The Second is the Bald Eagle, for the Body and part of the Neck
> being of a dark brown, the upper part of the Neck and Head is covered with
> a white sort of Down, whereby it looks very bald, whence it is so named."
> 
> Published 1693
> http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/17/206/978.extract
> 
> Apparently written 1688 https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbcb.27239/?sp=1
> 
> Any thoughts on this?
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date:    Fri, 16 Feb 2018 11:14:52 -0500
> From:    Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: Bald eagle etymology
> 
> You've no doubt observed that OED lists no "earlier" sense of
> "white-headed," though the lengthy etymological note serves to confuse this
> particular issue. "Bald" comes to mean, figuratively, having a big white
> spot that looks as though it were bald.  But that's a secondary usage.
> 
> As for "piebald," until somebody comes up with a 17th C. ex. of "piebald
> eagle," I'd ignore it as too clever by half.
> 
> JL
> 
> 
> 
>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 10:57 AM, Ken Hirsch <kenhirsch at ftml.net> wrote:
>> 
>> I noticed on Wikipedia that the entry for the bald eagle (
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_eagle) has these sentences:
>> 
>>> Bald eagles are not actually bald; the name derives from an older meaning
>> of the word, "white headed".
>> 
>> and later
>> 
>>> The bald eagle placed in the genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles) which gets
>> both its common and specific scientific names from the distinctive
>> appearance of the adult's head. Bald in the English name is derived from
>> the word piebald, and refers to the white head and tail feathers and their
>> contrast with the darker body.[18]
>> 
>> Reference 18 is "Dudley, Karen (1998). Bald Eagles. Raintree Steck-Vaughn
>> Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 0-8172-4571-5."
>> 
>> Searching on Google books, this idea goes back to at least the 1930s:
>> https://books.google.com/books?id=WbErAQAAMAAJ&dq=piebald
>> 
>> But this seems questionable to me. One of the first references to the bald
>> eagle is: "The Second is the Bald Eagle, for the Body and part of the Neck
>> being of a dark brown, the upper part of the Neck and Head is covered with
>> a white sort of Down, whereby it looks very bald, whence it is so named."
>> 
>> Published 1693
>> http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/17/206/978.extract
>> 
>> Apparently written 1688 https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbcb.27239/?sp=1
>> 
>> Any thoughts on this?
> ————
Origin
Middle English: probably from a base meaning ‘white patch,’ whence the archaic sense ‘marked or streaked with white.’

bald (adj.)

c. 1300, ballede, "wanting hair in some part where it naturally grows," of uncertain origin. Perhaps with Middle English -ede adjectival suffix, from Celtic bal "white patch, blaze" especially on the head of a horse or other animal (from PIE root *bhel-(1) "to shine, flash, gleam"). But Middle English Dictionary says probably formed on the root of ball (n.1) and compares Old Danish bældet.

Compare, from the same root, Sanskrit bhalam "brightness, forehead," Greek phalos "white," Latin fulcia "coot" (so called for the white patch on its head), Albanian bale "forehead." But connection with ball (n.1), on notion of "smooth, round" also has been suggested, and if not formed from it it was early associated with it. Sometimes figurative: "meager" (14c.), "without ornament" (16c.), "open, undisguised" (19c.). Of automobile tires with worn treads, by 1930. Bald eagle first attested 1680s; so called for its white head.


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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org