Editing Badger (section)

== Etymology ==
The word "badger", originally applied to the [[European badger]] (''Meles meles''), comes from earlier ''bageard'' (16th century),<ref>[[Charles Talbut Onions|C. T. Onions]], ed., ''[[The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology]]'' (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966), 68.</ref> presumably referring to the white mark borne like a badge on its forehead.<ref name="OED">{{cite book |author1=Weiner, E. S. C. |author2=Simpson, J. R. |title=The Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-19-861186-8 |access-date=30 August 2008 |url=http://dictionary.oed.com/ |archive-date=25 June 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060625103623/http://dictionary.oed.com/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Similarly, a now archaic synonym was ''bauson'' 'badger' (1375), a variant of ''bausond'' 'striped, piebald', from Old French ''bausant'', ''baucent'' 'id.'.<ref>''The American Heritage Dictionary'', 4th edn., s.v. "badger" (Houghton Mifflin, 2001).</ref>

The less common name ''brock'' ([[Old English]]: ''brocc''), ([[Scots Language|Scots]]: ''brock'') is a [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] [[loanword]] (cf. [[Goidelic languages|Gaelic]] ''broc'' and [[Welsh language|Welsh]] ''broch'', from [[Proto-Celtic]] ''*brokkos'') meaning "grey".<ref name="OED" /> The [[Proto-Germanic]] term was ''*þahsuz'' (cf. [[German language|German]] ''Dachs'', [[Dutch language|Dutch]] ''das'', [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] svin''toks''; [[Early Modern English]] ''dasse''), probably from the [[Proto-Indo-European language|PIE]] [[Root (linguistics)|root]] ''*tek'-'' "to construct," so the badger would have been named after its digging of [[sett]]s (tunnels); the Germanic term ''*þahsuz'' became ''taxus'' or ''taxō'', -''ōnis'' in [[Latin]] [[Gloss (annotation)|gloss]]es, replacing ''mēlēs'' ("[[marten]]" or "badger"),<ref>{{cite book | first1=Alfred | last1=Ernout | first2=Antoine | last2=Meillet | author-link2=Antoine Meillet | title=Dictionnaire étimologique de la langue latine | edition=4 | orig-year=1932 | year=1979 | publisher=Klincksieck | location=Paris | language=fr}}</ref> and from these words the common [[Romance languages|Romance]] terms for the animal evolved ([[Italian language|Italian]] ''tasso'', [[French language|French]] ''taisson''—''blaireau'' is now more common—[[Catalan language|Catalan]] ''toixó'', [[Spanish language|Spanish]] ''tejón'', [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] ''texugo'').<ref>{{cite book| first=Giacomo | last=Devoto | author-link=Giacomo Devoto | title=Avviamento all'etimologia italiana | edition=6 | orig-year=1979 | year=1989 | publisher=Mondadori | location=Milano | language=it}}</ref>

A male European badger is a boar, a female is a sow, and a young badger is a cub. However, in North America the young are usually called kits, while the terms male and female are generally used for adults. A collective name suggested for a group of colonial badgers is a cete,<ref>[http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kennel/collectives.htm Hints and Things: collective nouns] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130726211851/http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kennel/collectives.htm |date=26 July 2013 }} Retrieved 28 June 2010.</ref> but badger colonies are more often called clans. A badger's home is called a sett.<ref name="development">{{Cite web |url=http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/wildlife/badger.pdf |title=Scotland's Wildlife: Badgers and Development |access-date=4 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924104416/http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/wildlife/badger.pdf |archive-date=24 September 2015 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>{{clear left}}