I thought this was interesting:

The Word of the Day for March 14 is:

eyas \EYE-uss\ (noun)
: an unfledged bird; specifically : a nestling hawk

Example sentence:
The falconer carefully took an eyas from the nest to raise in
captivity.

Did you know?
"Eyas" is a funny-sounding word that actually exists because of a
mistake. In the 15th century, Middle English speakers made an incorrect
assumption about the word "neias," which comes from the Middle French
"niais" ("fresh from the nest"). "A neias" sounded like "an eias" to their
ears, so the word lost that initial "n," eventually becoming "eyas." (There
are other words in English that were created in this same fashion; for
example, "an apron" used to be "a napron.") The change in spelling may have
been suggested by other Middle English words like "ey" ("egg") and "eyry,"
which was a spelling of "aerie," the hawk's nest where an eyas would be
found. The preferred plural of "eyas" is "eyases," but plurals such as
"eyasses," "eyass," and even simply "eyas" have turned up occasionally.

from m-w.com

================
Cliff Drake
Seattle, WA
cliffdrake at qwest.net