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Ameisen t1_ja2jc7f wrote

Reply to comment by blakerabbit in TIL Tolkien assisted on the Oxford Dictionary's first edition, focused on 'W' words waggle to warlock. He "learned more in those two years than in any other"; and certain etymologies continued to puzzle him for years, with many pages of notes written later on 'walrus' for a lecture at Leeds by PianoCharged

Yup, probably from Dutch for whale-horse. The native English word was, well, horsewhale (horshƿæl).

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MacDegger t1_ja2qg1u wrote

Walvis-paard -> walrus?

Dunno ... sound s fishy.

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Athildur t1_ja2x7gh wrote

Een 'ros' is een paard ;).

(In Dutch, one word for a horse or steed today is 'ros')

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