dodman

The story

1. Middle English · derived fromdodden“to shave, shear; to trim (a plant); to poll (cattle); to cut off (someone's head)”
2. English todaydodman

Possibly dod (“(archaic) rounded, bare hilltop”) + -man, in the sense of a creature carrying a hill on its back. The word dod is from dod (“to clip, cut or lop off”), from Middle English dodden (“to shave, shear; to trim (a plant); to poll (cattle); to cut off (someone's head)”), from dod, dodde (“measure of grain”), from Old English. The surveyor sense appears to be based on a misconception by English amateur archaeologist and author Alfred Watkins (1855–1935) in his book The Old Straight Track (1925).

Words from the same roots