dewlap
(ˈdjuːlæp)
Also 6 dew lop, erron. dew-clap.
[The second element lap is OE. læppa, pendulous piece, skirt, lappet, lobe; the first is uncertain: the equivalent Da. doglæb, Norw. doglæp, Sw. dröglapp, in which the first element is not the word for ‘dew’, suggest that the original form has been altered under the influence of popular etymology.
The English form may be explained as the ‘lap’ or pendulous piece which touches the dewy surface; but that is not likely to have been the original notion.]
1. a. The fold of loose skin which hangs from the throat of cattle.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. xiii. (MS. Bodl. 3738) In Siria beþ oxen þat haue no dewe lappis nother fresche lappes vnder þrote [palearia sub gutture]. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. iv. 711 The kyen..Wel hered eres, and dewlappes syde [= hanging low]. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 120 Dew lappe, syde skyn' vndur a bestys throte, peleare. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §59 To cutte the dewlappe before. 1565 Golding Ovid's Met. vii. 155 Their dangling dew-claps with his hand he coid unfearefullie. 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Feb. 74 His deuelap as lythe as lasse of Kent. 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 74 White..as the dangling deawlap of the silver Bull. 1621 G. Sandys Ovid's Met. ii. (1626) 43 His broad-spred brest, long dangling dew-laps deck. 1872 Mivart Elem. Anat. 237 Folds of skin hang freely in some animals, as the dewlap of cattle. |
b. Transferred to similar parts in other animals, as the loose skin under the throat of dogs, etc., the pendulous fleshy lobe or wattle of the turkey and other fowls, and humorously to pendulous folds of flesh about the human throat.
| 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. ii. i. 50 When she drinkes, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlop poure the Ale. 1654 Gayton Pleasant Notes ii. iii. 42 The dulapes and the jawy part of the face. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 161 Described to have a dew-lap under the throat..Senembi, Iguana. 1690 W. Walker Idiomat. Anglo-Lat. 222 Dew⁓laps hang down from his chaps. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1862) I. i. iii. 267 The skin hangs loose..in a kind of dewlap. 1859 J. Brown Rab. & F. (1862) 9 He [mastiff]..has the Shaksperian dewlaps shaking as he goes. 1863 G. J. Whyte-Melville Gladiators I. 3 Gelert is down, torn and mangled from flank to dewlap. |
2. ‘A brand used in marking cattle, being a cut in the lower part of the neck’ (Farmer, Americanisms, 1889).
3. Comb., dewlap-deep adj.
| 1916 A. Huxley Burning Wheel 28 Great oxen, dewlap-deep In meadows of lush grass. 1922 Blunden Shepherd (ed. 2) 21 Where milch cows dewlap-deep may wade. |
Hence ˈdewlapped, having a dewlap.
| c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. iv. 679 [699] Compact, a runcle necke, dewlapped syde Unto the kne. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. iv. i. 127 My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kinde..Crooke-kneed, and dew-lapt, like Thessalian Buls. a 1732 Gay (J.), The dewlapt bull now chafes along the plain. 1806 Southey Lett. (1856) I. 355 He is a fat, dew-lapped, velvet-voiced man. 1887 Ruskin Hortus Inclusus 11 Dew-lapped cattle..feeding on the hillside above. |