Origin and history of pedigree

pedigree(n.)

early 15c., pedigrue, "genealogical table or chart," from Anglo-French pe de gru, a variant of Old French pied de gru "foot of a crane," from Latin pedem accusative of pes "foot" (from PIE root *ped- "foot") + gruem (nominative grus) "crane," cognate with Greek geranos, Old English cran; see crane (n.)).

On old manuscripts, "descent" was indicated by a forked sign resembling the branching lines of a genealogical chart; the sign also happened to look like a bird's footprint. On this theory the form was influenced in Middle English by association with degree. This explanation dates back to Skeat and Sweet in the late 1800s. The word obviously is of French origin, and pied de gru is the only Old French term answering to the earliest English forms, but this sense is not attested in Old French (Modern French pédigree is from English). Perhaps it was a fanciful extension developed in Anglo-French. Other explanations are considered untenable.

The crane was at the time in question very common in England and France, and it figures in many similes, proverbs, and allusions. The term appears to be extant in the surname Pettigrew, Pettygrew .... [Century Dictionary]

Meaning "ancestral line" is mid-15c.; of animals, c. 1600. Related: Pedigreed.

also from early 15c.

Entries linking to pedigree

crane(n.)

large grallatorial bird with very long legs, beak, and neck, Old English cran, common Germanic (cognates: Old Saxon krano, Old High German krano, German Kranich, and, with unexplained change of consonant, Old Norse trani, Danish trane), from PIE *gere-no-, suffixed form of root *gere- (2) "to cry hoarsely," also the name of the crane (cognates: Greek geranos, Latin grus, Welsh garan, Lithuanian garnys "heron, stork"). Thus the name is perhaps an echo of its cry in ancient ears.

Misapplied to herons and storks. The gray European crane was "formerly abundant in marshy places in Great Britain, and prized as food" [OED], but was extinct there through much of 20c.

Use for "machine with a long arm for moving weights" is attested from late 13c. (a sense also in equivalent words in German, French, and Greek). The constellation was one of the 11 added to Ptolemy's list in the 1610s by Flemish cartographer Petrus Plancius after Europeans began to explore the Southern Hemisphere.

branch(n.)

c. 1300, braunch, "division or subdivision of the stem of a tree or bush" (also used of things resembling a branch in its relation to a trunk, such as geographic features, lines of family descent), from Old French branche "branch, bough, twig; branch of a family" (12c.), from Late Latin branca "footprint," later "a claw, paw," which is of unknown origin, said to be probably from Gaulish. The connecting notion would be the shape (compare pedigree).

In English it replaced native bough. The meaning "local office of a business" is recorded by 1817, from the earlier sense of "component part of a system" (1690s).

*ped-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "foot."

It might form all or part of: antipodes; apodal; Arthropoda; babouche; biped; brachiopod; cap-a-pie; centipede; cephalopod; cheliped; chiropodist; expedite; expedition; foot; foosball; fetch (v.); fetter; fetlock; gastropod; hexapod; impair; impede; impediment; impeach; impeccable; isopod; millipede; octopus; Oedipus; ornithopod; pajamas; pawn (n.2) "lowly chess piece;" peccadillo; peccant; peccavi; pedal; pedestrian; pedicel; pedicle; pedicure; pedigree; pedology; pedometer; peduncle; pejoration; pejorative; peon; pessimism; petiole; pew; Piedmont; piepowder; pilot; pinniped; pioneer; platypus; podiatry; podium; polyp; pseudopod; quadruped; sesquipedalian; stapes; talipes; tetrapod; Theropoda; trapezium; trapezoid; tripod; trivet; vamp (n.1) "upper part of a shoe or boot;" velocipede.

It might also be the source of: Sanskrit pad-, accusative padam "foot;" Avestan pad-; Greek pos, Attic pous, genitive podos; Latin pes, genitive pedis "foot;" Lithuanian padas "sole," pėda "footstep;" Old English fot, German Fuß, Gothic fotus "foot."