Photo of a brown rabbit in a grassy field
12 July 2021
Usually, the names for common things have well-established etymologies, but surprisingly, the origin of the word rabbit is not known for certain. We have a reasonably good guess as to where rabbit comes from, but gaps in the extant corpora of medieval manuscripts prevent us from being certain.
Rabbit appears in English in the late fourteenth-century, probably a borrowing of the unattested French word *rabotte. The word rabotte appears in present-day regional French and as robete in Walloon (the dialect of French spoken in Belgium), but we don’t have any early record of the French word. So, it appears that rabbit is yet another of the words that the Normans brought across the Channel, but that can’t be proven. (Cf. coney)
The French word, in turn, may come from an unattested Middle Dutch word *robbe. Again, robbe appears in Early Modern Dutch, but there is no earlier record of it. Robbe also means seal (the marine mammal) in Middle Dutch, although how that’s related, if at all, is not clear.
Rabbit is also probably related to the Frisian verb rubben, meaning to rub or scratch, and hence to the English verb to rub. So, a rabbit is a creature that scratches in the dirt.
The earliest recorded use of rabbit in English that I know of is from John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomæus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things), written in the closing years of the fourteenth century:
Plinius spekeþ of hares and seiþ pat many kyndes ben of hares. For some ben more in quantite wiþ more gret here and rowȝ and more swifte of cours and of rennyng pan þilke þat ben ycalled cunuculi. And so heere þis name lepus is þe name of hares and of conynges. For conynges ben ycleped parui lepores “smale hares” and feble and diggen þe erþe wiþ here clawes; and maken hem dowers and dennes vnder erþe and wonen perinne; and bringen forþ many rabettes and multiplien ful swipe. And in some woodes of Spayne ben so many conynges pat somtyme þey wasten and destroyen corn in þe felde þat þey bryngen hungre into pe contray and londe. Here rabettes ben so yloued in þe ylondes Balearitis þat þese rabettes wipoute modres ben ytake and y‑ete of men of þe contrey þough þe guttes ben vnneþe clensed.
(Pliny speaks of hares and says that there are many kinds of hares. For some are more numerous with longer and shaggier hair and are swifter of course and of running than those that are called cunuculi. And therefore the name lepus is the name of hares and of coneys. For coneys are called parvi lepores “small hares” and [are] weak and dig the earth with their claws; and make themselves burrows and dens under the earth and dwell within and bring forth many rabbits and multiply very quickly. And in some woods of Spain there are so many coneys that sometimes they lay waste to and destroy corn in the field so that bring hunger into the country and land. Here rabbits are so prized in the Balearic Islands that these rabbits without mothers are taken and eaten by men of the country though the guts are not easily cleaned.)
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v. rabbit, n.
Liberman, Anatoly. Word Origins...and How We Know Them. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005, 115, 153, 183.
Merriam-Webster, 2021, s.v. rabbit, noun.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. rabet, n.(1).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2021, s.v. rabbit, n.1., rub, v.1.
Trevisa, John. On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomæus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum, vol. 2 of 3. M.C. Seymour, et al., eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, Book 18, 1221. London, British Library, Additional 27944, fol. 291v.
Photo credit: Anonymous, 2004. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.