▪ I. furch
(fɜːtʃ)
Also fouch.
[ad. F. fourche fork n.]
† 1. = fouch 2. Obs.
| 1491 in Ld. Treas. Acc. Scotl. (1877) I. 181 Item..till a man of the Chanslaris that brocht a furche of venyson to the King v s. 1693 Urquhart Rabelais iii. xi, My heart like the furch of a hart in rut doth beat within my breast. |
2. Vet. Surg. = frush, frog. Also attrib. in furch-stay.
[App. introduced by B. Clark, as a more etymologically correct substitute for the current forms. The Fr. equivalent is fourchette.]
| 1842 Bracy Clark On Running Frush (ed. 3) 2 The part diseased, and which in my Treatise on the Foot of the Horse published in 1809, I called the Furch-stay, as being the part which held the base of the Furch together. Ibid. 3 This remarkable part was without any name and very little noticed, till I gave it the epithet Frog-stay or Furch-stay. |
▪ II. furch
obs. form of furrow.