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Origin and history of wren

wren(n.)

common, very small, brown migratory bird, Middle English wrenne, from Old English wrenna, metathesis variation of earlier werna, a Germanic word of uncertain origin. Compare Icelandic rindill, Old High German wrendo, wrendilo "wren." Active and sprightly, with a pleasant song, it features extensively in English folklore, often nicknamed Jenny, Katie, Kitty.

Entries linking to wren

Jenny

fem. personal name, originally another form of Jane, Janey and a diminutive of Jane or Janet; in modern use (mid-20c.) typically a shortening of Jennifer. Jenny is attested from c. 1600 as female equivalent of jack (n.), and like it applied to animals (especially of birds, of a heron, a jay, but especially Jenny wren, 1640s, in bird-fables the consort of Robin Redbreast). Also like jack used of machinery; Akrwright's spinning jenny (1783) is said to have been named for his wife, but is perhaps rather a corruption of gin (n.2) "engine."

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    Trends of wren

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    Jenny
    female equivalent of jack (n.), and like it applied to animals (especially of birds, of a heron, a jay, but especially Jenny wren...
    fraternize
    A piece of frat, Wren-language for any attractive young woman — ex-enemy — in occupied territory....
    basilisk
    basiliscus (Trevisa, late 14c.), from Latin basiliscus, from Greek basiliskos name of a kind of serpent, also the golden-crested wren...
    arch
    of an ecclesiastical court, so called for the arches that supported its steeple (the modern church is by Sir Christopher Wren...
    club
    c. 1200, "thick stick wielded in the hand and used as a weapon," from Old Norse klubba "cudgel" or a similar Scandinavian source (compare Swedish klubba, Danish klubbe), assimilated from Proto-Germanic *klumbon and related to clump (n.). Old English words for this were sagol, cyc
    depend
    mid-15c., "to be attached to as a condition or cause, be a conditional effect or result," a figurative use, also literal, "to hang, be sustained by being attached to something above;" from Old French dependre, literally "to hang from, hang down," and directly from Latin dependere
    strange
    c. 1300, straunge, "from elsewhere, foreign, of another country; unknown, unfamiliar, not belonging to the place where found," also of a country, "unfamiliar, unknown, remote," from Old French estrange "foreign, alien, unusual, unfamiliar, curious; distant; inhospitable; estrange
    Dutch
    late 14c., of language, "German, non-Scandinavian continental Germanic," also as a noun, "a German language;" also in Duche-lond "Germany." By mid-15c. distinguished into Higher and Lower, and used after c. 1600 in the narrower sense "Hollanders, residents of the Netherlands." Fr
    hedge
    Old English hecg "hedge," originally any fence, living or artificial, from West Germanic *hagjo (source also of Middle Dutch hegge, Dutch heg, Old High German hegga, German Hecke "hedge"), from a verb *hagjanan, from PIE root *kagh- "to catch, seize; wickerwork, fence" (source al
    hybrid
    c. 1600, "offspring of plants or animals of different variety or species," from Latin hybrida, variant of ibrida "mongrel," specifically "offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar," of unknown origin but probably from Greek and somehow related to hubris. A rare word before the gene

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    Dictionary entries near wren
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