▪ I. chough
(tʃʌf)
Forms: 4 choȝe, 4–5 chouȝhe, (s)chowhe, 4–7 choghe, 5 chowȝe, chowe, cowe, kowe, 5–6 choughe, 6 chowgh(e, (7 chugh, choff, chooffe, chaugh), 5– chough.
[ME. choȝe, etc.; not found in OE., which had in same sense the forms c{iacu}o, céo, ciae, chyae (? for cyhae). Cognate with MDu. cauwe, Du. kauw, app. from a WGer. type *kâwa, whence also ONF. cauwe, cave, OF. choë, choue, Walloon chauwe, chowe; also OHG. châha, châ, MLG. kâ; and ON. *ká, *kǫ́, whence Da. kaa, and north. ME. kaa, ka, mod.Sc. kae, occas. ME. co, coo, jackdaw. The relationship of the various types to each other is not clearly made out: Prof. Sievers suggests the existence of an OTeut. type with accent-mutation ˈkæ̂hwâ-—kæ̂ˈwâ-. But whether the early OE. ciae in Erf. Gl., and chyae in Epinal, can be brought under these is doubted. The ME. variant cowe, beside chowe, strongly suggests for these forms adoption from OF.; but the choȝe, chowhe forms cannot be thus explained.]
1. A bird of the crow family; formerly applied somewhat widely to all the smaller chattering species, but especially to the common Jackdaw.
| α [c 1000 ælfric Gram. ix. (Z.) 70 Haec cornix, þeos ceo. ― Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 132/4 Gracculus, vel monedula, ceo.] c 1305 E.E.P. (1862) 76 Blake monekes he seȝ As hit crowen & choȝen were. c 1381 Chaucer Parl. Foules 345 The thefe the Chowgh [v.r. crow(e, chough(e, choghe, chowhe, clough] and eke the iangling py. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) IV. 307 Þe chouȝhe [monedula] answerde nouȝt. 1401 Pol. Poems (1859) II. 40 Chyteryng as chowȝes. 1481 Caxton Myrr. ii. xvi. 101 The chowe whan she fyndeth gold or syluer..hydeth and bereth it away. 1519 W. Horman Vulg. 101 Chowghis and staris flee to gether in a flocke. 1530 Palsgr., Choughe a yong crowe, corneille. 1532–3 Act 24 Hen. VIII, x, Rookes, Crowes, and Choughs, doe yeerely deuoure and consume a wonderful and marueilous great quantity of corne and graine. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 222 b, If the byrdes do pluck their own fethers againe, which they gave before to the chough? 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 21 Russed-pated choughes. 1620 J. Wilkinson Treat. Coroners & Sherifes 118 Crowes, Rookes, Choghes, Pyes, Jeyes, Ringdoves. 1623 Cockeram, A Chough or Iack daw. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 248/1 The Jack Daw, or Daw..in some places is called a Caddesse, or Choff. 1857 Ruskin Pol. Econ. Art 122 The rain floods your warehouse..the choughs build in it. |
| β c 1386 Chaucer Wife's Prol. 232 Shal bere hym on hond the Cow [v.r. cou, kow, kowe] is wood. c 1450 Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 702/3 Hec monedula, a kowe. 1528 Roy Rede Me (Arb.) 80 They canne flatter and lye, Makynge beleve the cowe is wode. 1561 J. Awdelay Frat. Vacab. 14 A pickthanke knaue, that would make his Maister beleue that the Cowe is woode. |
b. fig. Chatterer, prater.
| 1610 Shakes. Temp. ii. i. 266 Lords that can prate as amply..as this Gonzallo: I my selfe could make A chough of as deepe chat. |
2. Now restricted to the Red-legged Crow (Fregillus Graculus), which frequents the sea-cliffs in many parts of Britain, being particularly abundant in Cornwall; whence distinguished as the Cornish chough.
(This may have been Shakespeare's ‘chough’ in Lear; the bird, now rare at Beachy Head, was abundant on all the Sussex cliffs a century ago, and may well have been common on the Kentish coast at an earlier date.—N.E.D.)
| a. 1566 Withals Dict. 5 A cornishe chough, pyrrhocorax. 1602 Carew Cornwall 36 a, I meane not the common Daw, but one peculiar to Cornwall..termed a Cornish Chough, his bil is sharpe, long and red, his legs of the same colour. 1769 De Foe's Tour Gt. Brit. I. 407 That famous King of Crows..known by the Name of the Cornish Chough. 1773 G. White Selborne xxxix, Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 1875 F. Buckland Note in White's Selborne 425 Numbers of Cornish choughs are sent yearly from Plymouth to London..The choughs are now very rare round Beachy Head. |
| b. [1605 Shakes. Lear iv. vi. 13 The Crowes and Choughes, that wing the midway ayre.] 1611 Cotgr., Choquar, a Chough; or, Cornish Chough. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. vi. x, Some Chaughes came to have red legges and bils. 1841 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club I. ix. 253 The red-legged chough (Fregilus graculus)..finds a congenial retreat. 1858 F. W. Robertson Lect. 121 The flock of choughs, with their red beaks and legs. |
3. Comb., as chough-daw (cf. cadaw), chough-fish.
| 1746 James Health Improv. Interest 40 The Swan, or Chough-Daw. It is of no great Importance which is here meant. 1601 Holland Pliny xxxii. xi, Dracunculus..like it is to the Chough-fish Gracculus. |
▪ II. chough, n.2
obs. f. chuff, rustic.