Expressions with Animal Origins but No Animal Words

"Agriculture," "Congregation," "Segregation" and OthersMany ordinary arts expressions hit animal-related origins but include no actualised birdlike words. Here are whatever examples that begin with the honor a.

A, a
The arts honor A/a goes backwards finished the Roman and Hellenic alphabets to a Afrasian source, much as aleph, the prototypal honor of the Canaanitic alphabet. The Canaanitic finding for the letter, aleph, was a var. of eleph ("ox"), and the clew for the honor was originally bacilliform as a hieroglyph of an ox's head. The ox was doubtless designated for this determine because an long message of eleph was "leader," the ox existence a "leader" because it walked aweigh of the charge it pulled. Likewise, the prototypal honor of the ABC "led" the another letters.

abet
The arts verb to abet, message "to provoke or assist," comes from Old realty abeter, a compounding of a- ("to, toward") and beter ("to bait," literally "to intend to bite, to chivvy with dogs"). The Old realty articulate is supported on a Germanic form, belike Old Norse beita ("to intend to bite, to chivvy with dogs").

acre, agrarian, agriculture, agronomy
All of these text originated in the ancient gregarious of cattle. The Indo-European stem ag- ("to intend cattle") yielded agro- ("place to which kine are driven," thus "pasture"). Agro- followed at small threesome assorted paths into Modern English.

It entered the Germanic languages and became, in Old English, aecer, which had the primeval meanings of "field, pasture, tilled land." Eventually the articulate denoted a defined manoeuvre of realty and matured into Middle and Modern arts acre.

Agro- also entered Latin, where it became ager ("field"), thus agrarius ("pertaining to land") and agricultura ("cultivation of land"), which yet became respectively Modern arts rural and agriculture.

Another line of agro- led into Hellenic agros ("land"), which yielded agronomos ("administering of land"), the maker (through French) of Modern arts agronomy.