Facewear #3
Facial hair is an admittedly odd thing, as are the
etymologies of the words we use to refer to facial hair.
The Latin word for beard, barba, is also the root
for barber,
& though it seems logical that the clean-shaven Romans would have labeled
those bearded, pillaging tribes barbaric because of their beards, I
can find no evidence. Sources connect barbarianism with foreignness,
rudeness, strangeness & a lack of culture, but to my surprise, the beards
of the attacking Goths, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Huns & Picts never enter the
discussion.
The word mustache heralds from the French
word of the same spelling & meaning. It entered English during the 1400s
after making its way to French via Greek and Doric (moustakion & mystax
respectively), all coming from mastax, meaning jaws, mouth, or that with which one chews. Having worn one for
years, I can attest that, no matter what the Doric & Greek say, the mustache
is not a very good chewing tool, but if allowed to grow long enough it can
function like a whale’s baleen.
The noun goatee came to English in 1844 &
was derived from the adjective goaty, meaning like a goat. Goatee is a direct comparison to the
hairs on the chin of a goat.
The word sideburns was born of the
unfortunate shaving decision of General Ambrose Burnsides, and appeared in
English in 1887. Sideburns were called burnsides during & directly
after the Civil War & mysteriously switched themselves around into sideburns
twenty-some years later.
The bristles on a man’s unshaven face were referred to as stubble
in English as early as 1600, but the term stubble had previously been used in
English to refer to stumps of grain stalks left in the ground after reaping. The
word came from the French word estuble. Its great grandmother was a
Latin word meaning stick or trunk.
Recently, the word scruff is being applied to facial
hair. In the late 1700s scruff referred to the nape of the
neck & came from Dutch, North Frisian & Norse terms referring the withers
of a horse. Those terms seem to have their source in the Old Norse word skopt,
which comes back around, oddly landing closer to today’s meaning, as skopt
meant the hair of the head.
Any thoughts on facial hair etymologies? Please leave a
comment.
Another fascinating post, Charlie. I'm going to copy the part about goatee to my son Joshua's friend, Dana. He named his known-around-world goat, Goatee!
ReplyDeleteHi Jean Ann,
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you. Goatee is a fine choice of goat moniker. May life continue to be good to you (& your goats, though they carry names other than Goatee).