A strange observation the other day - a disproportionate number of animal names are themselves verbs.

Taxonomy

I’ve divided the examples into “verbs that are merely invoking the perceived qualities of the animal, and so ‘Verbing’ (Weirdly)” vs. “verbs that coincided on the same phonemes, despite differing etymological origins”, as I think the latter are more interesting as coincidences.

A sub-division of the first category is any verb that takes auxillary words, since I think that’s a pretty clear signal of the animal being evoked or described as archetype. And also, sub-sections of all sections for “those thought up by Stephanie”, because she’s awesome.

Yes, in case you were wondering, I am a lot of fun at parties.

Invoking animal as archetype

With Auxillary words

• Weasel ([one’s way] out of sth.)
• Chicken (out)
• Rat (out/on)
• Squirrel (away)

By Stephanie

• Wolf (down)

Without Auxillary Verb

• Badger (allegedly from badger-baiting)
• Dog (I didn’t look it up, but it’s gotta be similarly evoking “persistent hassling”)
• Worm
• Fox (arguably, two related meanings - “to lightly damage” or “to outwit”)
• Ram
• Bull

By Stephanie

• Fish
• Parrot
• Ape (haven’t checked, but I bet some homocentric explorer named them “Apes” because “they imitate men”)
• Flounder (haven’t checked this, but it’s gotta be from the idea of the fish being perceived as swimming awkwardly, right?)
• Peacock

Independent Etymological Origins

(Most of these are simply guessed - unless otherwise indicated, I haven’t actually verified the verb’s etymological roots)

To be clear, by mentioning this as independent, I’m not implying that the animal and the verb share no etymological antecedents - rather, that the verb is not “downstream of the animal”. That is - I’m not claiming that we say “to X” to intentionally evoke “to act in a manner similar to the animal named X¹”

• Grouse
• Slug
• Fly
• “Be[e]” (kidding!)
• Cow
  • ref - “to cow” is probably from Old Norse “kúga”, whereas the name of the animal comes via Middle English <- Old English <- Proto-West Germanic <- Proto-Germanic <- PIE. Not surprising that the name of a domesticated animal goes back so long virtually unchanged!)
  • Also TIL that “cow” is a doublet of “beef” as they both trace back to the same PIE root.
  • Whence also my opportunity to share a fun (my favourite?) etymological fact, that cow-meat is named “beef” because, in Norman England (i.e. post French invasion), the French nobles ate the “boeuf” but the Saxon-speaking peasants tended the “cows”).
• Bear
  • ref - the verb “to carry” traces back pretty cleanly throughh PIE with no alteration in meaning; whereas, as we all know, the current name for the big deadlyfurry animals is from the PIE for “brown”
• Swallow (haven’t checked, but maybe linked?)
• Crow (ditto)
• Hawk
• Skate
  • ref - surprising one, this. I had assumed the animal had been discovered and named for its perceived swift and effortless motion, but no; apparently the verb is from “a stilt” in Old Northern French, whereas the fish’s meaning is unchanged throughout its etymology².

By Stephanie

• Duck
• Bat
• Goose
• Seal (I bet this has something to do with Seal Fat being used for sealing things?)
  • OK, no, I had to go look it up - the animal’s name is from PIE meaning “to pull” (huh!?), whereas the sense of “to close securely” comes from wax seals on envelopes, which in turn comes from Latin “signum” meaning “a sign”
• Carp
• Perch

• Short-Thoughts