My wife was remarking on our cat Pushkin's excessive fondness for dairy products when I realized I didn't know the etymology of the word dairy. Not being one to accept such a state of affairs, I dashed off to consult the OED, and discovered that just as a nunnery is a place where nuns live, a dairy (originally deierie) is (or was) a place where deys work. And what is a dey, you ask? Why, it's "A woman having charge of a dairy and things pertaining to it; in early use, also, with the more general sense, female servant, maid-servant." The etymology is as follows:
[OE. dæȝe, corresp. to ON. deigja, maid, female servant, house-keeper (whence Sw. deja dairy-maid):—OTeut. *daigjôn, from ablaut-stem of the vb. (in Gothic) deigan, daig, dig-un, digan-, to knead; whence Goth. daigs, OE. dáȝ, dáh, dough.So dough is 'that which is kneaded,' a dey was originally the woman who kneads it (whence 'female servant' and then specifically 'woman who works in a dairy'), and a lady was a loaf-kneader. Isn't that interesting?
The primitive meaning ‘kneader’, ‘maker of bread’, appears in OE. in the first quotation; in ON. and in early ME. we find the wider sense of ‘female servant’, ‘woman employed in a house or farm’. Cf. also ON. bú-deigja (bú, house, household) and mod. Norw. bu-deia, sæter-deia, agtar-deia. The same word, or a cognate derivative of the same root, is understood to form the second element in OE. hlæfdíȝe, hlæfdiȝe now LADY. See also DAIRY.]
A few citations for dey (which is apparently still used in the Caithness region of Scotland):
c1386 CHAUCER Nun's Pr. T. 26 She was as it were a maner deye.
16.. in Maidment Sc. Pasquils (1868) II. 262 An old dey or dairy maid at Douglas Castle.
1721 RAMSAY To Gay xvii, Dance with kiltit dees, O'er mossy plains.
c1820 Lizie Lindsay in Child Ballads VIII. (1892) 524/1 My father he is an old shepherd, My mither she is an old dey.
So fairy is where the fey are?
Posted by: Kári Tulinius at November 29, 2007 03:14 PMThis is just the sort of thing that makes us love etymology!
As a further development, in NZ a corner shop is called a "dairy". Here in Australia it's called a "milk bar". (I suppose this would be a "convenience store" in the US?)
Posted by: nomis at November 29, 2007 05:46 PMSo "deja vu" means "Look at that dairy maid"?
I suppose this would be a "convenience store" in the US?
In New England, that's traditionally called a "spa," and there are still some around that haven't been replaced by 7-11's with that in their name.
Posted by: MMcM at November 29, 2007 07:38 PMWell, you know the etymon of 'lord', right?
Posted by: Conrad at November 29, 2007 08:58 PMKari: Yes, indeed. Fairy, or rather Faerie, is indeed the land of the fays, and that is the oldest meaning of "fairy" in English.
Posted by: John Cowan at November 29, 2007 10:23 PMKari: Yes, indeed. Fairy, or rather Faerie, is the land of the fays, and that is the oldest meaning of "fairy" in English.
Posted by: John Cowan at November 29, 2007 10:23 PMnomis, a convenience store is not the same thing as what I would call a corner store. The former is a separate building, typified by 7-11 (there's the charmingly named Harford Convenient Store near where I grew up in Baltimore). A corner store actually makes up the corner of a block of rowhouses, and as far as I know there are no corporate chains of them (thank goodness). I guess in New York the same thing might be called a bodega.
Posted by: Meesher at November 30, 2007 01:43 AMI like the connection between "dough" and "dairy"; in a further bit of wackiness, the Turkish (wait, or Afghan?) drink "dough" is itself a dairy product!
Posted by: Jeremy Osner at November 30, 2007 09:05 AMFascinating, and not least for the fact that there's no reference to milk in the etymology. It seems a dairy was originally a bakehouse. I wonder how the cheese got in there.
Posted by: chris y at November 30, 2007 09:38 AMTurkish (wait, or Afghan?) drink "dough"
I think of it as typically Persian: دوغ, but I don't know for sure where it originated. Cf. Sanskrit दुग्ध dugdha 'milk'.
Posted by: MMcM at November 30, 2007 11:07 AMI love etymology so much. Someone give the origin of 'lord', please? I've lost my OED access since I graduated and though I do remember studying that one in my PIE class it's been too long....
Apropos of the 'corner shop' name conversation, here in Quebec they are universally referred to as 'depanneur' or 'dep' by Anglophones and Francophones alike. Depanneur comes from the root 'panne' which means broken or busted, to 'depanne' means to patch up or fix something, so a 'depanneur' is a purveyor of things to help you patch up a situation at the last minute. Like when you run out of milk first thing in the morning before work.
Posted by: ella at November 30, 2007 12:29 PMI suppose دوغ must be the item served to me by an Afghan using the approximate pronunciation "dakh": a salty, yogurt-based drink flavored with black pepper and bits of cucumber. Her children advised me that the word was a near-homophone for excrement, and to pronounce it carefully.
Posted by: SnowLeopard at November 30, 2007 01:17 PMIf I remember correctly, "lord" comes from Old English hlaef-weard "loaf-guard" - the lord guards the loaves that the lady has been kneading.
The original meaning of "panne" appears to refer to a lack of wind on the sea, hence to the powerless condition of a sailboat when there is no wind. In everyday speech "une panne" is a temporary loss of power or function, as in "une panne d'électricité" = a power outage, or "être en panne" = to have (temporarily) stopped working (as applied to a car or machine).
In France "un dépanneur" would be a man who comes to the rescue and fixes the problem, but the feminine form "une dépanneuse" is a tow truck, that comes to rescue your car when it is stranded and tow it to a garage.
In the modern world "être en panne de ..." usually refers to one's temporary shortage of some everyday commodity such as bread, milk, etc. which can be relieved with a quick trip to the nearest store (hence the meaning of "dépanneur" in Québec), or, in the case of money, to the nearest friend whose wallet is fuller.
Posted by: marie-lucie at November 30, 2007 02:20 PMWikipedia on دوغ. It's often carbonated, too, making it kinda like fizzy ਲਸ੍ਸੀ or yoghurty カルピス.
Pokorny on *dhē(i)- 'suck' (AHD) — whence fēmina — and *dheiĝh- 'knead' (AHD).
Posted by: MMcM at November 30, 2007 02:29 PM"It seems a dairy was originally a bakehouse. I wonder how the cheese got in there."
Leave a jug of milk in a warm bakehouse and you'll find out ...
LH, I'm glad to see I'm not the only saddo that suddenly rushes to the etymological dictionary in the middle of a conversation with my wife ...
Posted by: Terry Collmann at November 30, 2007 02:31 PMAnd to bring the girls full circle, dough underlies "spotted dick", suet pudding with raisins in it that make spots in the dough.
Posted by: Jim at November 30, 2007 05:47 PM"Cf. also ON. bú-deigja (bú, house, household)"
Which is clearly the basis for "bodega"...
Posted by: David L. at December 1, 2007 09:54 AM"dough underlies "spotted dick"
Custard usually underlies spotted dick when I have it.
Or treacle.
And there's a word with a great etymology - ultimately from the same root that gave us "feral".
Posted by: Terry Collmann at December 1, 2007 10:33 AMI'm not certain whether you're joking, David L., but I have to confess that that's what I wanted to think too. However, having been taught by present company not to trust such a notion I checked and learned that "bodega" comes from Spanish, and before that from the Latin "apotheca".
I just love the idea of "bodega" coming from Old Norse, though. Won't anyone stand and defend this notion?
Posted by: Songdog at December 1, 2007 07:38 PMFéerie... fée...
Posted by: David Marjanović at December 1, 2007 07:57 PM"bodega" comes from Spanish, and before that from the Latin "apotheca".
Just like French boutique.
Posted by: MMcM at December 1, 2007 10:16 PMActually the Latin word is from Greek, but you are right about Spanish and French.
Posted by: marie-lucie at December 2, 2007 01:08 AMYes, etymologically a bodega is run by an apothecary.
Posted by: language hat at December 2, 2007 07:50 AMThere have been occasions in New York when I've wondered whether that were the case.
Posted by: Songdog at December 2, 2007 08:03 AM> I'm not certain whether you're joking, David L.
So much for subtlety, I guess I'll have to give in and use those smileys next time...
Posted by: David L. at December 2, 2007 07:51 PM