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origins of the word "ass"
Guest
1
2014/12/16 - 3:01am

My young son asked me this question, but I can't deliver an answer, except to make broad guesses. Does anyone know for sure?

Guest
3
2014/12/16 - 9:18am

Since the above etymology indicates that ass in the sense of buttocks comes from arse, here is the etymology of arse:
arse

Who said it comes from ears?

deaconB
744 Posts
(Offline)
4
2014/12/16 - 9:45pm

Glenn said

Who said it comes from ears?

Random House did, for ass(2) (meaning butt, asshole, or sex actl)

before 1000; var of arse, with loss of r before s, as in passel, cuss, etc.; Middle English ars, er (e) s, Old English ærs, ears; cognate with Old Frisian ers, Dutch aars, Old Norse, Middle Low German, Old Saxon, Old High German ars (German Arsch), Greek órrhos, Armenian or?kh, Hittite arras; akin to Greek our??, Old Irish err tail
 
In high school chemistry, they teach that a reacts with b to form c and d.  In college, we learn that it's not a one-way street; that while a and B form c and D for the most part, there is also c and d forming a and b.  One of my chem engineering profs profs said, if entropy increases with time, then time is only linear for large populations, and individual molecules may go backwards in time.  Interesting take.
 
But I think the same is true in language.  We're always seeing "back-formation".  If a guy is as dumb as an ass, we call him an ass, except asses aere *considerably* smarter than horses.  And we call him an ass because he's as dumb as a women too stupid to do anything except llie on her back.  And we call her moneytmaker an ass, whether or not she's sitting on a beast of burden.  All kinds of back-formation going on, all the time.
Guest
5
2014/12/17 - 10:27am

I don't have the Random House, but I would double check if they are referring to the Old English word for ass, which happens to be spelled ears or if they are providing a Modern English translation of some Old English word which somehow meant ears.

Sometimes there are subtle differences in punctuation or font that make big differences in how you understand the etymology as noted in a dictionary.

I strongly suspect ears in this etymology is the spelling of an Old English word for ass and has nothing to do with modern ears.

EmmettRedd
859 Posts
(Offline)
6
2014/12/17 - 11:47am

The OxED has:

Forms: OE–ME assa, ME–17 asse, ME– ass (ME as, ME has, ME a nasse). Pl. ME– asses: OE assan, ME assen, ME asse (south.).(Show Less)

Etymology: Old English assa m. has no exact analogue in the cognate languages. Old English had also ?sol, apparently for ?sel, ?sil, the common Germanic form, = Old Saxon and Old High German esil (modern German esel, Dutch ezel), Gothic asilus, like the Celtic and Slavic names (Old Irish asal, Lithuanian asilas, Old Slavonic osl < *osilu-) evidently < Latin asinus. From the Celtic was the Old Northumbrian asal, assal, assald, the only form in Lindisf. Gospels (occurs 10 times). Of the latter, assa was perhaps a diminutive, formed like the diminutive proper names Ceadda, Ælla, Offa, etc., which at length displaced the earlier ?sol. Assa had also feminine assen, on the type of fyxen, wylfen, ælfen, which did not survive into Middle English, where he-asse, she-asse, occur already in Wyclif. Jack ass, Jenny-ass are modern familiar appellations.
The reputed Old English feminine asse seems to be an error founded on assan folan in which ass is no more feminine than are lion, tiger, in lion's whelp, tiger's cub. The Old Norse asna (feminine), asni masculine appear to be independent late adaptations of Latin asina, asinus, not actually connected with the Old English The Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic can hardly have been independent adoptions of the Latin: the Slavic was apparently taken through Germanic: was the latter through Celtic? The Ass had no original Aryan name: Latin asinus, Greek ???? (? = ?????), were probably of Semitic origin: compare Hebrew ?th?n, she-ass.
Obs. in polite use.

1. a. The fundament, buttocks, posteriors, or rump of an animal.

c1000 Ælfric Gloss. in Wright 44/2 Nates, ears-lyre.

1377 Langland Piers Plowman B. v. 175 Baleised on þe bare ers [v.r. ars], and no breche bitwene.

?a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. vii. liv. 407 Emoroydes beþ five veynes þat strecch out attiþ þe ers.

1480 Caxton Chron. Eng. ccxxvi. 233 They lete hange fox tailles..to hele and hyde her arses.

1547 A. Borde Breuiary of Helthe i. f. xviii, The 25. Capytle doth shewe of a mannes ars.

1663 S. Butler Hudibras: First Pt. i. iii. 236 Then mounted both upon their Horses, But with their faces to the Arses.

1704 Swift Full Acct. Battel between Bks. in Tale of Tub 244 Do you think I have nothing else to do..but to Mend and Repair after your Arse? [i.e. behind you, in your rear.]

There appears to be no connection to the modern English ears.

Added in edit (to complete the story), here is what the OxED has for ear:

Forms: OE–ME éare, ME–15 ere, (ME ire, ME ?here, er, erre, ME heer, here, nere, 15 heare) ME–15 eere, yere, ME eire, 15–16 eare, 15– ear. pl. ears; also OE–ME earan, OE earo, earu, ME earen, ME eeren, eren, ( heren, hern, ern).(Show Less)

Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English éare weak neuter = Old Frisian âre, Old Saxon ôre, ôra (Middle Dutch ?re, oore, Dutch oor), Old High German ôra (Middle High German ôre, modern German ohr), Old Norse eyra (Swedish öra, Danish öre), Gothic ausô < Germanic *(?auson-), au?zon-, cognate with Latin auris ( < *ausis), Greek ???, Lithuanian ausis, Old Slavonic ucho, Old Irish ó, of same meaning.(Show Less)

I. The organ of hearing in men and animals. Anatomists distinguish (1) The external ear, consisting of the pinna (the portion which projects outside the head) and the meatus or passage leading thence to (2) the middle ear, or tympanum, a cavity in the substance of the temporal bone, separated from the external meatus by a membrane called the membrana tympani; (3) the internal ear, or labyrinth, which is a complex cavity hollowed out of the bone. In popular language ear is often used for the external ear or the pinna alone.
1. a. The external ear.

OE Riddle 86 3 Wiht..hæfde an eage ond earan twa.

a1400 (?a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 18836 His hare..Bi his eres skailand sumdele.

c1405 (?c1387–95) Chaucer Canterbury Tales Prol. (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 558 Reede as the bristles of a sowes eerys.

1483 Cath. Angl. 252/2 A Nere, auris.

1556 in J. G. Nichols Chron. Grey Friars (1852) 79 Vij gentylmen of Kent sett on the pyllery..and one of eche of ther erys cut of.

1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 43 Hir eares might well glow, For all the towne talkt of hir.

1661 R. Lovell ???????????????? Isagoge sig. B, The eares..are divided..in the hart, and pilous in the rat.

1746 in W. Thompson Royal Navy-men's Advocate (1757) 34 They would not have let their Ears appear quite so long, had they suspected, etc.

c1750 J. Newton Jrnl. (1836) 64 Some of them said that their ears burned on their heads to hear me speak to such a man.

1842 Tennyson Miller's Daughter in Poems (new ed.) I. 110, I would be the jewel That trembles at her ear.

Robert
553 Posts
(Offline)
7
2014/12/17 - 11:00pm

So there is an ancient word,  'ears,'   but it meant 'ass,'  not 'ear,'   so far as according to Random House Dictionary.

There is also the ancient word 'ear' (plural 'ears') that meant  "organ of hearing,"  but there is no evidence that it is somehow also the source of 'ass.'

Guest
8
2014/12/18 - 8:14am

It looks as if at the time when ears was the OE word for ass, that the OE word for ear / ears was spelled differently, with an -e on the end in the singular: eare. The plural back then for the weak declension was earan (the same declension from which we get our modern "irregular" plurals in -n: ox / oxen; brother / brethren (specialized). The plural children is a weirder example because of the -r- that gets inserted, but the -en plural is also in play and evident in children

So rest assured that those who spoke Old English could unambiguously distinguish their ass from their ears or, I should say, their (OE) ears from their (OE) earan.

Which point brings to mind the brilliant quip from the UPI Style Guide (1977, p.29):
burro, burrow A burro is an ass. A burrow is a hole in the ground. As a journalist you are expected to know the difference.

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