Etymology

spavin

spa·vin
S1P3A1V4I1N1

Today it means: A bony swelling which develops in a horse's leg where the shank and splint bone meet, caused by inflammation of the cartilage connecting those bones; also, a similar swelling caused by inflammation of the hock bones. Full definition →

Middle English spavein ← Old French espavain
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spavin · noun, verb1

  1. Old French · derived fromespavain
  2. Middle English · inherited fromspavein
  3. English todayspavin

The noun is derived from Middle English spavein, spaveine (“swelling on horse’s leg causing lameness; disease causing lameness in horses”), from Old French espavain, a variant of esparvain, esprevain, esprevin (modern French éparvin, épervin). The further etymology is unknown; one suggestion is that it is from Frankish *sparwan (“sparrow”), though this is seen as quite tenuous. The verb is derived from the noun.

spavin · noun2

Origin unknown.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.