erne

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The Word of the Day for October 15 is:=20

erne   \ERN\   noun
         : eagle; especially : a long-winged sea eagle (_Haliaetus albic=
illa_) with a short white wedge-shaped tail

Example sentence:
          =E2=80=9CThe two men in question were in the vicinity of an er=
ne's nest on Mull in March last year=E2=80=A6.=E2=80=9D (Sinclair Dunnet=
t, _The Scotsman_, February 5, 2000)
=20

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 histo=
ry, and you will alight on an Old English lexicon wherein these birds ha=
d basically the same names as they have now. Their names were spelled a =
little differently back then: "earn," "crawe," "finc," "wrenna," "ule," =
and "spearwa." All those avian names are also birds of a feather in that=
 their ancestors are akin to Old High German words: "arn," "krawa," "fin=
cho," "rentilo," "uwila," and "sparo," respectively.





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