The Origin of the Term “Bating” in Falconry

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jenny Rome calling from Portland, Oregon.

Hey, Jenny, how are you doing?

I’m good. How are you guys?

Fantastic. Welcome to the show.

Well, I’m calling today because my daughter is a licensed falconer.

And when she was going through the process of becoming, going through her apprenticeship,

A lot of falconers talk about words and phrases that are really falconry terms that are used in everyday English.

And so there’s a whole bunch of them.

But one of the fun ones is waiting with bated breath.

So I wanted to ask, I’m pretty sure this comes from falconry.

I wanted to know kind of like when it came into the language and a little bit of history around it.

So, Jenny, you’re talking about the word bated as in to wait for something with bated breath.

You’re full of anticipation and you’re so excited about this that you’re literally holding your breath and waiting for this thing to happen.

And that bait is spelled B-A-T-E or B-A-T-E-D, baited.

And it means to stop completely.

But then there’s a different bait that actually comes from the same root.

And that’s the one that you’re talking about in falconry, right, Jenny?

That’s the one if baiting in falconry means to beat the wings impatiently and then flutter away from the perch.

And this kind of bait goes back to that same Latin root, but it means something different.

What’s really cool is that this falconry term, bait, meaning to beat the wings impatiently, gives us another English phrase.

Any idea what that might be?

I have no idea.

I only learned this a couple of years ago, but it’s related to bat as in bat one’s eyes.

Bat is a variant of that bait.

And so if you’re batting your eyes, you’re fluttering your eyelids kind of like a hawk fluttering its wings.

Yeah.

So there are two different baits in English.

They both go back to this ancient Latin root, but one is in falconry and then one is in words like a bait meaning to completely stop something.

Or to bait your breath, which you only hear in the term baited breath.

So, waiting with baited breath is not from falconry, but is related to the falconry bait,

Where a bird is trying to fly away from the perch or the falconer’s fist.

Well, they’re very, very distant relatives.

Very distant. We’re talking many centuries, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Their children, their grandchildren, great-grandchildren are the same parents.

There you go. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah.

In the nautical world, Jenny, they have an acronym CANU.

It means conspiracy to attribute nautical etymologies to everything.

So I’ve made up one for the falconry world.

It’s COFFEE.

Conspiracy to originate fishy falconry etymologies to everything.

I love that.

But the reason the nautical world and the falconry world both have this long history of words that actually do come from their fields and exist in the standard language is because they’re

So entrenched with the cultures that speak English.

You know, it’s centuries, millennia.

What is it, 5,000 years of falconry or more?

It’s a long time.

It’s definitely left its imprint on the language,

But not necessarily in the ways that people might tell you.

Interesting.

Yeah.

That is very cool.

Thank you so much.

I love listening to your show.

You guys keep me company all the time.

Do we?

Jenny, we know that falconry is rich with lots of terms and language.

You are welcome to call us some more later.

Great.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Jen.

Take care.

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