English Word Histories

In our modern English language, the names we have given the creatures that share our planet at first seem ad-hoc, whimsical and downright bizarre. Why is that bulbous water dweller called a hippopotamus? And a giraffe? Where did the word "dog" come from? What about baboon, caribou or butterfly? And what really is a croak, a moo, a neigh or a bark? Some of these words are new arrivals to the English language and others are ancient utterances formed on farms and wild landscapes hundreds of years ago. It turns out that a wide variety of bygone languages have contributed greatly to our modern animal vocabulary, including Old English, Old French, Greek and Latin, as well as the much older Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European tongues. Celtic, Old Norse and indigenous North American words have also played important roles.

Our modern animal words are often simple records of empirical observation, but they're also chock-full of false connections, mistaken identities, erroneous second-hand accounts, religious symbolism, physical attributions, fear of the unknown and fantastic imaginations. Geese were once thought to have hatched from barnacles. Swifts were considered footless. Tortoises were beasts from the underworld and mammoths burrowed in subterranean tunnels. Cheetahs used to be leopards and giraffes were once called camels. The Greeks called the ostrich "camel sparrow." Intellectuals once proclaimed that leopards and lions could mate and produce baby mules. Yet however these ideas might baffle and perplex us, their stories, in all their fantastical unrealities, have nonetheless formed the words that we utter today.

English Word Histories: Animals & Insects is a reference of over 300 creature names and general vocabulary used by modern English speakers everyday. It is organized alphabetically in chapters of land animals, wildlife of the water, flying organisms, insects and arachnids, as well as general English vocabulary related to the critters, beasts and bugs of our world.