Pizzles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term referring to the male reproductive organ or penis, particularly in veterinary contexts
2. Describes the dried, preserved, or processed versions of animal genitalia used primarily as dog chews or food
3. Also sometimes used in texts discussing animal anatomy or characteristics specific to certain species

Etymology: "Pizzles" is the plural of "pizzle," and the surprise is that the word started out as something plain and useful: a sinew or tendon. Its ancestor was Middle Dutch "pese," meaning a sinew, tendon, or string, and the Low German and Dutch descendants kept that sense, with "pees" still meaning tendon and "pese" once used for a bowstring. The penis sense developed in dialect German, where "Pisel" carried that meaning, and English picked up the anatomical sense of the animal organ. The word is a diminutive, formed with a suffix that makes a small version of "pese," which suggests the sinew-like shape of the organ. Its deeper origin is uncertain. It may connect to Dutch "vezel," meaning fibre, and possibly to an ancient Indo-European root for blowing, though some scholars suspect the pattern of similar forms points to a borrowing from an older, non-Indo-European language spoken earlier in the region.