austringer means A keeper of goshawks. It carries an Arena rating of 1417, earned across 42 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, austringer ranks #1,009 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #2,141 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #2,896 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #3,004 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
Why “austringer” is a great word
AUSTRINGER — [Noun] A falconer who keeps and hunts specifically with goshawks or other short-winged hawks of the genus Accipiter. From Middle English ostreger, ostringer, borrowed from Old French ostruchier, austruchier (“goshawk keeper”), first recorded in English 1425–75. Unlike “falconer” (a generalist who flies long-winged falcons to the open sky) or “hawker” (a term for a peddler or vague hunter), the austringer is a specialist of the shadowed wood, bound to a bird of brutal, intimate pursuit. It is the glint of a hooded eye in a dim mews, the heavy jess gripped in a gauntleted fist, and the sudden, feathered violence unleashed from a perch in the tangled understory—a testament to the particular pact between human will and a creature of pure, short-range fury.
Etymology
From Middle English ostreger, ostringer, borrowed from Old French ostruchier, austruchier.
noun
- A keeper of goshawks.
- A falconer who uses accipiters for hunting.e.g.“Just as in modern shooting you must never offer criticism to the man in command, so in hawking it was important that no outside advice should be allowed to disturb the judgment of the austringer.” — 1958, T. H. White, chapter I, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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