Word of the Day

: October 15, 2007

erne

noun ERN

What It Means

: eagle; especially : a long-winged sea eagle (Haliäetus albicilla) with a short white wedge-shaped tail

erne in Context

"The two men in question were in the vicinity of an erne's nest on Mull in March last year. . .." (Sinclair Dunnett, The Scotsman, February 5, 2000)

Did You Know?

What do ernes, crows, finches, wrens, owls, and sparrows have in common (besides feathers and beaks and other avian traits)? Wing your way through one thousand years of ornithological and etymological history, and you will alight on an Old English lexicon wherein these birds had basically the same names as they have now. Their names were spelled a little differently back then: "earn," "crāwe," "finc," "wrenna," "Ūle," and "spearwa." All those avian names are also birds of a feather in that their ancestors are akin to Old High German words: "arn," "krāwa," "fincho," "rentilo," "uwila," and "sparo," respectively.