Dog Days and Dandelions

From apian (like a bee) to zodiac (little-animals circle), a word book that spots the animal origins of words and names.

There are mice in your muscles, and blackbirds in your merlot. Behind adulation is a dog's wagging tail. Peculiar houses a herd of cattle. Grubby is crawling with bugs. Wordhound Martha Barnette collects more than 300 common (and a few not-so-common) words that have surprising animal roots. Tracing word origins back to ancient Greek and Latin as well as to European roots and American slang, the entries offer a guided tour through literature, science, folklore, politics, and more—with a wilderness of animal meanings at every turn.

For fledgling word sleuths as well as those who fawn over etymologies, this is a delightful smorgasbord for writers, students, and word lovers.

“In this zoological tour of the beastly backgrounds behind common phrases such as swan song and rare words such as snollygoster, Barnette sheds new light on both everyday and esoteric language . . . Barnette's etymological sleuthing, itself a word of animal derivation, is as educational as it is engrossing.” —Booklist

“Arranged alphabetically, the 300-plus entries make for good browsing, and readers with a penchant for odd and underused words, such as myrmidon (an unprincipled lackey) and musteline (resembling a weasel) will find them aplenty here.” —Publishers Weekly