Sunday Rest: cudbear. Word Not To Use Today.

It's not often a derivation gives one actual pain, but this is a rare example.

Cudbear is also known as orchil. It's a purplish dye you get when you torture lichen to death by pouring ammonia on it.


Cudbear lichen, Rocella tinctoria. Photo by Norbert Nagel, Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany

...though when you put like that perhaps the horrible derivation is justified, after all.

Sunday Rest: cudbear. This word came into being in the 1700s as an hilarious (not) version of Cuthbert, which was the Christian name of Dr Gordon, the man who patented the dye.

The word cuddy, meaning donkey, is probably also based on a silly form of the name Cuthbert.