Segg

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A castrated bull or other gelded male animal, a term used in some dialects ; an archaic name for a grassy sedge plant that grows in wet ground
2. Dialect term for a neutered male cow or bull ; an old word for a reedlike marsh plant of the sedge family
3. A gelded bull in certain regional speech ; a obsolete name for a rush-like grass growing in marshes and wet places

Etymology: In Old English, "secg" was the name of a coarse, grassy marsh plant, the ancestor of modern "sedge." The same spelling later took on a very different sense. By the Middle English period, and especially in northern English and Scots dialect, "segg" was used for a castrated male animal, usually a bull or a gelding. How the two senses connect is uncertain. The word survived mainly in regional speech rather than standard English, which is why most readers have never met it.