—a question likely enough to pose any man except an English lawyer.
Cudyn Gwyn.
Aver or Aiver is a word in common use in the south of Scotland for a horse. In Burns's poem entitled "The Dream," there is this couplet:
"Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known
To mak a noble aiver."
J. Ss.
Aver (Vol. iii., p. 42.).—Your correspondents G. M. and D. 2. are at cross purposes. The latter is unquestionably right in his opinion about haver cake, haver in that instance being the German Hafer, Sw. Havre, &c., as held by Brockett (North Country Words) and Carr (Craven Glossary). But aver, averium, on which G. M. descants, is altogether a different word. As D. 2. requires the authority of a dictionary, allow me to refer him to Lacombe, Dictionnaire du vieux Langage François, where he will find:
"Avoirs, animaux domestiques de la basse cour."
"Averlands, marchand de chevaux."
And in the second, or supplementary volume of the same work: