Subject: Eyas the word
Date: Mar 15 10:57:44 2001
From: L. Friend - lcf at u.washington.edu


Three great words for scrabble! (eyas, eyases and aerie)

Laura Friend
Newcastle, WA
lcf at u.washington.edu

On Wed, 14 Mar 2001, Cliff Drake wrote:

> 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
>
>