gizzard
(ˈgɪzəd)
Forms: α. 4, 6 giser, 5 gyser, -our, -owr, 6–7 gysar, (7 gesier, gizier, gizzar). β. 6 guisard, guysard, 6–7 gysard(e, 7–8 gizard, 8 ghizzard, 7, 9 dial. gisard, 7– gizzard. See also gizzern.
[a. OF. giser, gezier, juisier, jugier, also guiser, gizzard, mod.F. gésier, commonly explained as:—popular Latin *gicerium = L. gigeria neut. pl., the cooked entrails of a fowl.
The final d of the β-forms is parallel to that of 16th c. garnerd for garner, and the vulgar scholard for scholar. The pronunciation with (g) seems to come from the unexplained OF. form guiser (Godefr. Compl.).]
1. The second or muscular stomach of birds in which the food is ground, after being mixed with gastric juice in the proventriculus or first stomach.
| α [c 1374: see 3.] c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. i. 9 Take fayre garbagys of chykonys, as þe hed, þe fete, þe lyuerys, an þe gysowrys. c 1450 Ibid. ii. 72 Chikenes hedes, ffete, lyvers, And gysers. 1533 Elyot Cast. Helthe (1541) 10 a, The innermost skine of a hennes gysar. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 295 They haue within their throat another kind of gizzar besides their craw. Ibid. II. 625 In the gesiers of cocks there be found certaine stones, called..Alectoriæ. |
| β 1565 Cooper Thesaurus, Alectoria..a stone in the mawe or gysarde of a cocke. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iii. (1586) 145 The Guysard of the Storke. 1620 Venner Via Recta iii. 68 The Gysard or Maw of Fowles. 1621 B. Jonson Masque Gypsies Wks. (1692) 623 To these, an overgrowne Justice of Peace, With a Clerk like a Gizzard thrust under each Arm. 1789 G. White Selborne (1853) 348 The gizzard was thick and strong. 1836–9 Todd Cycl. Anat. II. 11/2 The gizzard is of much smaller dimensions than the crop. 1872 Mivart Elem. Anat. xi. 444 Another complication of stomach is produced by an enormous increase of the muscular coat of the pylorus. A stomach so thickened is called a gizzard, and is found in most birds. |
| fig. 1647 Ward Simp. Cobler 26, I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle,..the epitome of Nothing. |
b. The stomach of the gillaroo trout.
| 1776 Pennant Zool. III. 262 The trouts of certain lakes of Ireland..are remarkable for the great thickness of their stomachs, which from some slight resemblance to the organs of digestion in birds, have been called gizzards. 1780 A. Young Tour Irel. I. 351 The Gillaroo trout with gizards. |
c. Ent. The proventriculus or first stomach of certain insects.
| 1826 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xlviii. IV. 434 As to their anatomy, the Orthoptera have a ventricle or gizzard. 1868 Carpenter Microsc. §521 The muscular Gizzard..is often lined by several rows of strong Horny Teeth, for the reduction of the food... These are particularly developed among the Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Locusts. |
d. Zool. The thickened muscular stomach found in certain molluscs.
| 1841 T. R. Jones Anim. Kingd. 122 In Brachionus urceolaris..the gizzard..exhibits through its transparent coats the peculiar dental organs placed within it. 1850 G. Johnston Conchol. 311 The muscular gizzard of the latter [Aplysia] is studded with numerous sharp pyramidal knobs of a semi-cartilaginous consistence. 1851–6 Woodward Mollusca 182 Bullidæ..Gizzard armed with calcarious plates. |
2. Jocularly attributed to persons,
esp. in phrases,
to fret one's gizzard: to worry oneself.
to stick in one's gizzard: to remain as something unpleasant or distasteful, to be disagreeable or unpalatable to one.
| 1668 Pepys Diary 17 June, I find my wife hath something in her gizzard that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up. 1672 R. Wild Declar. Lib. Consc. 11 There was some grumbling of the Gizard. 1679 Vind. Sir T. Player 1/2 'Tis the Matter, not the Manner that sticks in our Unworthy Respondents Gizzard. 1692 R. L'Estrange Fables cccxlix. 305 Satisfaction and Restitution lie so Cursedly hard upon the Gizzards of our Publicans, that [etc.]. 1738 Swift Pol. Conversat. i. 93 Don't let that stick in your Gizzard. 1755 Johnson s.v., 2. It is proverbially used for apprehension or conception of mind: as, he frets his gizzard, he harrasses his imagination. c 1765 T. Flloyd Tartarian T. (1785) 47/1, I was going home, grumbling in the gizzard. 1828 Craven Gloss. s.v., ‘To grumble in the gizzard’, to complain and be dissatisfied. 1833 R. H. Froude Rem. (1838) I. 322 That odious Protestantism sticks in people's gizzard. 1871 B. Taylor Faust (1875) II. ii. iii. 134 That little one, she warms my gizzard. 1879 K. S. Macquoid Berksh. Lady 153 Pick a quarrel and..run him through the gizzard. |
¶ 3. Used (after F.
juisier: see Littré
s.v. gésier) to translate L.
jecur, liver.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iii. metr. xii. 84 (Camb. MS.) The fowel that hihte voltor that etith the stomak or the gyser of ticius. |
4. attrib. and
Comb., as
gizzard hue;
gizzard-fallen a.,
-fish,
-shad (see
quots.);
gizzard-trout = gillaroo.
| 1765 Treat. Dom. Pigeons 37 Another disease to which they [Pigeons] are subject is *gizzard-fallen, that is, the gizzard falls down to the vent. |
| 1883 Simmonds Dict. Usef. Anim., *Gizzard fish, a name for the white fish (Coregonus albus), belonging to the salmon family. |
| a 1845 Hood Irish Schoolm. viii, A pair of shaggy brows O'erhang as many eyes of *gizzard hue. |
| 1889 Farmer Americanisms, *Gizzard-shad, the Carolinan name for the Ale-wife. |
| 1773 Phil. Trans. LXIV. 119 The Gillaroo or *Gizzard trout. 1837 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. II. 187 Gizzard-trout. |