(1 Henry IV., i. 3.)
To the language of hawking belongs also haggard. Cotgrave defines faulcon (faucon) hagard, as "a faulcon that preyed for her selfe long before she was taken." Hence the sense of wild, untameable. The original meaning is hedge-hawk, the first syllable representing Old High Ger. hag, hedge. Hag, a witch, is of cognate origin.
SPORTING METAPHORS
The antiquity of dicing appears in the history of Ger. gefallen, to please, originally used of the "fall" of the dice. In Mid. High German it is always used with wohl, well, or übel, ill; e.g., es gefällt mir wohl, it "falls out" well for me. There can be no reasonable doubt that the deuce! is a dicer's exclamation at making the lowest throw, two, Fr. deux. We still use deuce for the two in cards, and German has Daus in both senses. Tennis has given us bandy, Fr. bander, "to bandie, at tennis" (Cotgrave). We now only bandy words or reproaches, but Juliet understood the word in its literal sense—
"Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me."
(Romeo and Juliet, ii. 5.)
Fowling has given us cajole, decoy, and trepan. Fr. cajoler, which formerly meant to chatter like a jay in a cage, has in modern French assumed the meaning of enjôler, earlier engeoler, "to incage, or ingaole" (Cotgrave), hence to entice. Fr. geôle, gaol, represents Vulgar Lat. *caveola. Decoy, earlier also coy, is Du. kooi, cage. The later form is perhaps due to duck-coy. Du. kooi is also of Latin origin. It comes, like Fr. cage, from Vulgar Lat. *cavea, and has a doublet kevie, whence Scot. cavie, a hen-coop. Trepan was formerly trapan, and belongs to trap—
"Some by the nose with fumes trapan 'em,
As Dunstan did the devil's grannam."
(Hudibras, ii. 3.)