haggis

pronunciation

How to pronounce haggis in British English: UK [ˈhægɪs] word uk audio image

How to pronounce haggis in American English: US ['hæɡɪs] word us audio image

Noun:

made of sheep's or calf's viscera minced with oatmeal and suet and onions and boiled in the animal's stomach

Word Origin

haggis: haggis: [15] Improbable as it may seem, the leading candidate for the source of the word haggis is Old French agace ‘magpie’. Corroborative evidence for this, circumstantial but powerful, is the word pie, which also originally meant ‘magpie’ (modern English magpie comes from it) but was apparently applied to a ‘baked pastry case with a filling’ from the notion that the collection of edible odds and ends a pie contained was similar to the collection of trinkets assembled by the acquisitive magpie.On this view, the miscellaneous assortment of sheep’s entrails and other ingredients in a haggis represents the magpie’s hoard. An alternative possibility, however, is that the word comes from the northern Middle English verb haggen ‘chop’, a borrowing from Old Norse related ultimately to English hew.

haggis (n.): dish of chopped entrails, c. 1400, now chiefly Scottish, but it was common throughout England to c. 1700, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French hacheiz "minced meat," from agace "magpie," on analogy of the odds and ends the bird collects. The other theory [Klein, Watkins, Middle English Dictionary] traces it to Old English haggen "to chop," or directly from Old Norse höggva "to hew, cut, strike, smite" (see hack (v.1)).

3. Online , haggis came across an appearance that davis had made on cnn , in may , 2008 .

4. 14 The record is held either by alan pettigrew , who hurled a 1 pound 8 ounce haggis more than 180 feet , or lorne coltart , whose 1 pound 4 ounce haggis traveled 214 feet 9 inches .

5. In his resignation letter , haggis explained to davis that , for the first time , he had explored outside perspectives on scientology .