Herriot

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The pen name of a British veterinary surgeon whose popular memoirs described his animal-doctoring work in rural Yorkshire
2. A pseudonym used by the Scottish-born veterinarian Alf Wight for his best-selling accounts of country practice in northern England
3. The author name under which Alf Wight wrote lively stories about farm animals and the vets who treated them in Yorkshire

Etymology: James Herriot was the pen name of James Alfred Wight, a Scottish-born veterinary surgeon who practised in the Yorkshire Dales and wrote the memoirs that made the name famous. Wight chose the pseudonym partly to keep his professional and private lives separate, and the name he settled on was a surname that carried a warm, old-fashioned sound. The surname itself has a simple origin. It derives from a medieval diminutive of Henry, the sort of pet form that English and Scottish families once used to tell one Henry from another. Henry itself came from Germanic roots meaning home and ruler, so the pen name ultimately rests on a name meaning "ruler of the home," though the diminutive form is what gave Herriot its shape.