hummel
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
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.
Inflected forms:
form: hummels
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: humble
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: hummels
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hummeling
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
present
form: hummelling
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
present
form: hummeled
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
past
form: hummeled
pos: verb
tags: US
past
form: hummelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
past
form: hummelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
past
form: humble
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A stag that has failed to grow antlers; a cow that has not developed horns.
pos: noun
tags: Northern-England
Scotland
also
attributive
examples: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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[…].
gloss: Especially in hummel corn: grain that lacks awns (beards or bristles), or has had its awns removed (barley, oats, etc.).
pos: noun
tags: also
attributive
examples: 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, […]
Hummel-corn, s[ubstantive] That kind of grain which wants a beard, as pease, beans, &c.
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.
gloss: Of an animal: to remove the horns; to poll.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To separate (barley, oats, etc.) from the awns.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: From the minute description of the machinery, I am apt to think it is made at a considerable expense; [...] I am therefore induced to mention the manner of hummelling (or fattering, as it is called in this county) with me. [...] My thrashing mill is of the old construction, being the first erected in this county (excepting one on Cotterel's plan), and is very powerful; but I apprehend any machine has power enough for the hummelling work.
[M]ost threshing-machines are defective in regard to separating the awns of barley from the grains, especially when it has been led home in a raw or soft state. Various devices are often had recourse to for obviating this defect. [...] In other cases, where either of these devices are wanting, it has to be hummelled on the barn-floor, either by means of threshing with the old flails or swiples, or by stamping it with an implement resembling a paviour's ram, the under end of which is armed with plate iron made like a honeycomb. On some occasions, barley has known to be too much hummelled, at least for the use of maltsters; as, when the awn breaks off so close as to leave a small portion of the kernel naked, such grains do not malt kindly.
Machines are in use for hummelling barley, – that is, breaking off all the awns close to the grain, – and likewise for hulling it, so as to form what is called pot or pearl barley, a very nutritious and agreeable ingredient in broths and in drinks for invalids.
If threshed by the flail, the awns and sharp points [of oats] will be less broken and hummelled than if threshed by machinery. Whatever hummels the grain most will produce the heaviest bushel, while, of course, extremely little variation will have taken place in the dynamical relation of the kernel and hull.
The Japanese hummel their rice in a mortar made of a section of a large tree hollowed out.
Derived words: hummeler
Translations: