hackle

hackle¹ cloak, covering

Etymology

The word for the cloak or covering is inherited from Middle English hakel, also hakle,^[2][4][3] inherited from Old English hacele (“cloak, mantle”), also hæcile and hæcla.^[1][4][5][6] It has cognates in Old Saxon hakul (“cloak, chasuble”), Old High German hachul (“cloak, chasuble”), Old Norse hǫkull (“priest's cope”) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌺𐌿𐌻𐍃 (hakuls, “cloak”),^[1][7] and, with a different suffix, in Old Frisian hexil (“cloak”) and Old Norse hekla (“hooded frock”).^[1][7] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *hakulǭ.^[3] The OED sees a Germanic base of uncertain origin with a derivative suffix, and Etymonline also calls the origin uncertain.^[1][8] The OED says that the often suggested link with an Old Church Slavonic word for skin, from the Slavonic base of the word for she-goat, poses formal problems;^[1] Holthausen raised it as a question, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes the word as probably related to Old English hēcen (“kid”).^[7][2] Another proposal is the base of Old Norse haki (“hook”), with reference to the fastening.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cloak or outer garment: in the Old English translation of Orosius, before 899.^[1][4] In the glossaries it translates Latin paludamentum (“a kind of military garment”), and an Old English prose text has bewráh se árleása geréfa his ansýna mid his hacelan, "the impious count covered his face with his cloak".^[5]

Semantic evolution

As a garment the word died out after Middle English, except in the Old English compound mæssehacele (“chasuble”) and its descendant "mass-hackle".^[1][6][5] From before 1450 it was used of any covering or skin, especially a snake's,^[1][4] and in English dialects it went on meaning the natural covering of an animal, its wool or feathers, or a person's clothes: in Yorkshire a stout, healthy-looking man had "a good hackle on his back".^[9] From 1609 it also meant the cone of straw put over a beehive to protect it, with a verb for covering the hive, both in Butler's Feminine Monarchie.^[1][6] This use survived in many English counties from Derbyshire to the Isle of Wight,^[9] and it extended to a straw cover for a wine bottle (1673) and for the top of a rick (1842, in Wiltshire).^[1][5] The OED does not place the bird's neck feather here: see the flax comb, the next word on this page.^[1]

Timeline

• before 899 – a cloak or mantle.^[4][1]
• before 1450 – a covering or skin, especially a snake's.^[1][4]
• 1609 – a conical straw cover for a beehive; verb, to cover a hive with one.^[1]
• 1673 – a straw covering for a wine bottle.^[1]
• 1842 – a straw covering for the top of a rick, in Wiltshire.^[1][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (regional) The natural covering of an animal, as its coat or a bird's plumage.^[2][9][6]
2. (regional) A cone-shaped straw cover for a beehive.^[2][1][9]
3. (obsolete) A cloak, mantle or outer garment.^[1][6][5]

Verb

1. (regional) To cover a beehive with a hackle.^[2][1][6]

hackle² flax comb, neck feather

Etymology

The word for the flax comb is inherited from Middle English hakell,^{[4][2][10][11]} which the OED calls a variant or alteration of heckle, perhaps after hack.^[1][4] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive it instead from the older form of hatchel,^[12][6][13] and Hoad takes that back to an unrecorded Old English word.^[12] For the OED, the form with -e- is itself either from Middle Dutch hekele or Middle Low German hekele, or a variant of hatchel,^[1] and hatchel has cognates in Middle High German hechele and German Hechel, formed from the Germanic base of the verb to hack and a suffix.^[1] Köbler reconstructs Proto-Germanic *hakilō,^[14] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *keg- (“hook, tooth”).^[8]

The dictionaries divide on the bird's neck feather: the OED puts it under the flax comb, as do Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Hoad;^[1][2][12] Weekley thought the feather was named from some resemblance to the comb.^[15] Barnhart and the American Heritage Dictionary derive it instead from Old English hacele, a cloak or covering, the second only as possible,^[4][16] and Chambers says perhaps partly from it.^[17] Etymonline also puts it under the Old English word, but doubts this: it says that the sense might come from the unrelated flax comb, by a supposed likeness of the comb to ruffled feathers, or from an unrecorded word in continental Germanic.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tool for splitting and combing out flax or hemp: about 1485, in an inventory printed in J. T. Fowler's edition of the acts of the church of Saints Peter and Wilfrid.^[1][4] Dictionary.com gives 1400–50 for the Middle English word.^[10] The neck feather is recorded from 1496, in the fishing treatise of the Boke of St Albans,^[1][4][18] though the Shorter Oxford dates it to late Middle English.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Anglers used the feather from the start: the artificial fly called a hackle is recorded from 1676, and feathers for making flies from 1706.^[1] In the 19th century a coloured plume in a military headdress was called a hackle (1816),^[1] such as the red hackle of the Black Watch.^[15] The word then passed from birds to the erectile hairs of other animals: the New Sporting Magazine wrote in 1839 of hounds "with their hackles up".^[1]

The figurative use follows from a cock or dog raising its hackles when angry.^[8][4][19] The OED has it from 1843 ("Smooth your hackles, governor"), and frequently in to make a person's hackles rise and to get a person's hackles up;^[1] Word Origins dates make someone's hackles rise to the mid 19th century,^[19] while Etymonline and Barnhart give 1881, Barnhart for with the hackles up.^[8][4] In early use it could express excitement as well as anger.^[1] In the dialects of Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Devon the word meant temper, as in "to get or set up one's heckle".^[9] To show hackle, to be willing to fight, is recorded from 1847,^[1] and Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes it from Hotten's slang dictionary of 1860.^[20] A cock of the same hackle, a person much like another, is recorded from 1865.^[1]

The verb for combing flax is recorded from 1599 and may come from this noun or be a variant of the verb heckle;^[1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1616 for it, and the Shorter Oxford the late 17th century.^[2][6] In the hair trade the tool (1903) and the verb (1929) were applied to preparing hair for wigs.^[1] The verb "to dress a fly with a hackle" follows in 1835, and hackle up, of a person becoming angry, in 1935.^[1] The flax-combing action also gave the sense of harassing a speaker, now spelled heckle.^[19][1]

Timeline

• c. 1485 – a comb for flax or hemp.^[1][4]
• 1496 – a long feather on the neck of a bird.^[1][4]
• 1599 – verb, to comb flax with a hackle.^[1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1616.^[2]
• 1655 – in regional English, a stickleback (until 1883).^[1]
• 1676 – an artificial fly dressed with a hackle feather.^[1]
• 1816 – a plume on a military headdress.^[1]
• 1835 – verb, to dress a fly with a hackle.^[1]
• 1839 – the erectile hairs of an animal such as a dog.^[1]
• 1843 – hackles as a figure for anger or excitement, as in make a person's hackles rise.^[1] Etymonline dates the extension to 1881.^[8]
• 1847 – to show hackle, to be ready to fight.^[1]
• 1903 – a comb for preparing hair for wigs.^[1]
• 1935 – verb, hackle up, to become angry.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. A comb or board with long steel teeth for dressing flax, hemp or similar fibres; also, a similar tool for preparing hair.^[11][2][1]
2. A long narrow feather on the neck or saddle of a bird, especially the domestic cock: The rooster's hackles shone copper in the sun.^{[11][2][1][16]}
3. hackles (plural): the erectile hairs along the neck and back of an animal, especially a dog, which rise when it is angry or alarmed.^{[2][1][16][21]}
4. make someone's hackles rise, get someone's hackles up: to make someone angry or irritated.^[1][21][16]
5. (angling) A hackle feather used on an artificial fly, or a fly dressed with one.^[11][1][16]
6. A plume of coloured feathers worn on the headdress of some regiments in Britain.^[11][1]

Verb

1. To comb flax or hemp with a hackle.^[11][2][1]
2. (angling) To dress an artificial fly with a hackle.^[2][1][16]
3. hackle up: of a person, to become angry; of an animal, to raise its hackles.^[1]

Word family

• hackler
• hackleback

hackle³ to cut roughly

Etymology tree of hackle³

inherited borrowed derived

English hackney

English hack

English hackle

From the same root · hackle³

English hackneyed ← hackney

English hacker ← hack

Etymology

The word for cutting roughly is formed from English hack + -le,^[1][10] as a frequentative of the verb.^[2][16][6] The OED compares Middle Dutch hackelen (“to notch, to hack into small pieces”), the source of Dutch hakkelen,^[1][10] and haggle.^[1][6] That verb is apparently the reflex of an Old English *haccian, unrecorded as a simple verb.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

To cut roughly, to slash: 1564, in T. Dorman's Proufe of Certeyne Articles in Religion.^[1] Dictionary.com gives 1570–80, and the Shorter Oxford the late 16th century.^[10][6]

Semantic evolution

From 1577 to 1589 it was also intransitive, for cutting with a rough, sawing motion,^[1] which the American Heritage Dictionary still lists.^[16] The OED's last record of the transitive verb is from 1876, and it marks the word obsolete,^[1] but Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the American Heritage Dictionary list it without a label.^[2][16] The adjective hackly, rough or jagged, as of the fracture of a mineral, is recorded from the 1790s.^[1][2][10]

Timeline

• 1564 – to cut roughly, to slash; with off, to remove by hacking.^[1]
• 1577 – intransitive, to cut with a rough, sawing motion (until 1589).^[1]
• 1794 – the adjective hackly.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut or chop roughly; to mangle by hacking: He hackled the rope through with a blunt knife.^[2][16][1]
2. To hack or slash at something.^[16][1]

Word family

• hackly