hummel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈhʌm(ə)l/
rhymes: -ʌməl
Forms: form: hummels
form: humble
Etymology: Probably from Middle English hamelen (“to maim, mutilate; to cut short”), from Old English hamelian (“to hamstring, mutilate”), from Proto-Germanic *hamalōną, *hamlōną (“to mutilate”), from Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“hornless; mutilated”). Cognate with Dutch hamel (“wether”), English hamble, Low German hommel, hummel (“an animal lacking horns”), humlich, dialectal hommlich (“lacking horns”), Bavarian humlet (“lacking horns”), German hammeln, hämmeln (“to geld”), Icelandic hamla (“to maim, mutilate”).
OxfordDictionaries.com suggests that the “ear of grain with its awns removed” sense preceded the “animal without antlers or horns” sense.
Senses: examples: text: A pure Aberdeenshire heifer was served with a pure Teeswater bull, to whom she had a first-cross calf. The following season, the same cow was served with a pure Aberdeenshire bull; the produce was a cross calf, which at two years old had very long horns, the parents both hummel.
ref: 1850 January, “[Quarterly Summary of the Improvements and Discoveries in the Medical Sciences. Anatomy and Physiology.] On the Fœtus in Utero, as Inoculating the Maternal with the Peculiarities of the Paternal Organism; and on the Influence thereby Exerted by the Male on the Constitution and the Reproductive Powers of the Female. By Alexander Harvey, M.D. (Monthly Journ. of Med. Sciences, Oct. 1849.)”, in Isaac Hays, editor, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, volume XIX (New Series), number XXXVII, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea & Blanchard; London: John Wiley, and John Miller, →OCLC, page 180:
text: A little hillock gave me ample concealment and an excellent rest for my rifle; and there I reposed as hinds and little stags filed by. First came the wary old hind, looking sharply about her; then a little stag, indifferent to consequences; then more hinds and calves; and last of all the great hummel. As he landed on top of the brow, about fifty yards from me, he stopped to look around. I drew a bead on the junction of his neck and shoulder, pressed gently on the trigger; a bang—smack, followed, and the great hummel lay stretched upon the heather.
ref: 1872 February, “An Old Mountaineer” [pseudonym], “Deer-stalking in the Highlands”, in Baily’s Monthly Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, volume XXI, number 144, London: A. H. Baily & Co., →OCLC, page 233:
text: Hornless Stags are not unknown, especially in the German forests. By this expression is meant, not stags wich have once carried antlers and shed them, but stags which have never possessed any. In the Highlands they are termed hummel stags; […] Haviers, or stags which have been gelded when young, have no horns, as is well known, and in the early part of the stalking season, when seen through a glass, might be mistaken for hummels; but as the season advances, the necks of the latter swell, and (except in the matter of horns) they assume all the characteristics, both in appearance and behaviour, of ordinary stags, and are thus easily distinguished from haviers.
ref: 1898, J. E. Harting, “RED DEER—(Cervus elaphus)”, in the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire [Henry Charles Howard, 18th Earl of Suffolk and 11th Earl of Berkshire], Hedley Peek, and F. G. Aflalo, editors, The Encyclopædia of Sport, volume II, London: Lawrence and Bullen, Ltd. 16 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, page 248:
text: Regeneration in the animal kingdom always requires a wound stimulus. Regrowth of antlers is no exception, the wounded pedicle exposed by the casting of the previous set of antlers serving as a vital stimulus for renewal of antler growth. This was convincingly demonstrated in congenitally polled (‘hummel’) red deer, which lack antlers, have pedicles, and can be induced to form a set of antlers if the tips of the pedicles are amputated.
ref: 2005, Brian K[eith] Hall, “Antlers”, in Bones and Cartilage: Developmental and Evolutionary Skeletal Biology, San Diego, Calif.; London: Elsevier Academic Press, →ISBN, page 107, column 1:
text: Contrary to popular sporting belief[…], it has also been postulated that the reason for the hummel’s lack of antlers is not genetic, but relates to poor nutrition in the early stage of life, and a consequent failure to grow pedicles[…].
ref: 2013, Steven P. Ashby, “Some Comments on the Identification of Cervid Species in Worked Antler”, in Alice Choyke, Sonia O'Connor, editors, From These Bare Bones: Raw Materials and the Study of Worked Osseous Objects: Proceedings of the Raw Materials Session at the 11th ICAZ Conference, Paris, 2010, Oxford; Oakville, Conn.: Oxbow Books, →ISBN:
glosses: A stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.
examples: text: The farmers ſervants who have families, and engage by the year, are called hinds, and receive 10 bolls oats, 2 bolls barley, and 1 boll peas, which two laſt articles are called hummel corn, […]
ref: 1792, Robert Bowmaker, “Number LI. Parish of Dunse, (County of Berwick.)”, in John Sinclair, editor, The Statistical Account of Scotland. Drawn Up from the Communications of the Ministers of the Different Parishes, volume IV, Edinburgh: Printed and sold by William Creech [et al.], →OCLC, page 386:
text: Hummel-corn, s[ubstantive] That kind of grain which wants a beard, as pease, beans, &c.
ref: [1808, John Jamieson, “Hummel-corn”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volume I (A–K) (in Scots), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] Creech, A[rchibald] Constable & Co., and W[illiam] Blackwood; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, T[homas] Cadell & W. Davies, and H. D. Symonds, →OCLC:
text: We have a stane o' meal a week, / An' five big bowes o' hummel corn; / Potatoes, coals, lint, a'thing free, / A soo, an' hens—a gude coo's grass— / There's little, to be sure, for tea, / But mony honest folk hae less.
ref: 1876, William Brockie, “Matrimony: A Puir Hynd’s Sorrowfu Soliloquy”, in The Confessional, and Other Poems, Sunderland: T. F. Brockie, 2, High Street East, →OCLC, page 179:
glosses: Especially in hummel corn: grain that lacks awns (beards or bristles), or has had its awns removed (barley, oats, etc.).