FUR
Wild Word Friday!
If you lived thousands of years ago, your choice of clothing materials would have been pretty much limited to animal skins, especially if you lived where winters loomed fierce and cold.
A few groups of people wore birdskins (the Aleuts of ancient Alaska, for example), but before anybody figured out how to weave, clothes were usually made out of skins, furred or scraped or with the fur or wool plucked off and pounded into felt. That was it.
As I study ancient forms of languages, I’ve noticed something quite universal. Noun-things were often named according to use. Thus in the Lakota language, trees were called “standing wood.” How did they use trees? As wood, of course.
Our modern English word for animal pelts – FUR – came to us in the same way. The earliest antecedent for the English word FUR – the Middle English word furren – was borrowed from Middle French, fourrer, which meant to line a garment. That word in turn was borrowed from an ancient Germanic word, fuerre – sheath. Note that both of these words refer to clothing, not animals. We still keep that ancient lineage in our modern word, FURrier, a person who constructs garments made out of FUR.
Look at that beautiful face on our photo. Aren’t you glad that some bright person invented weaving?
What’s your favorite fabric? Are you a cotton, wool, silk, rayon or polyester person? Maybe you’re like me and enjoy a variety.
Blessings!
Sue
(Photograph from Wikipedia. Some information from The Merriam Webster New Book of Word Histories.)