painandgreed
First Post
OED seems uncertain on the origins of the word:
[< French ogre (late 12th cent. in Old French in sense ‘fierce pagan’, c1300 in sense ‘man-eating giant’, attested again from 1613; also hogre (1704 in the passage translated in quot. 1713)), further etymology uncertain and disputed.
French ogre is perh. < classical Latin Orcus, the name of the god of the infernal regions, Hades, Pluto (further etymology uncertain), with metathesis of r (perh. influenced by words such as bougre BOUGRE n.), or perh. < post-classical Latin Ugri, Ungri, Ongri, applied by early writers to the Hungarians or Magyars (see UGRIAN n.). Cf. (< classical Latin Orcus) Middle French orque hell (16th cent.; prob. a later reborrowing), and also Italian orco demon, monster (13th cent.), Spanish huerco devil, personification of death or hell (1330), Sardinian orcu demon, and early modern Dutch orck unruly person (Dutch regional ork). Spanish ogro (1787) is a borrowing from French ogre.
[< French ogre (late 12th cent. in Old French in sense ‘fierce pagan’, c1300 in sense ‘man-eating giant’, attested again from 1613; also hogre (1704 in the passage translated in quot. 1713)), further etymology uncertain and disputed.
French ogre is perh. < classical Latin Orcus, the name of the god of the infernal regions, Hades, Pluto (further etymology uncertain), with metathesis of r (perh. influenced by words such as bougre BOUGRE n.), or perh. < post-classical Latin Ugri, Ungri, Ongri, applied by early writers to the Hungarians or Magyars (see UGRIAN n.). Cf. (< classical Latin Orcus) Middle French orque hell (16th cent.; prob. a later reborrowing), and also Italian orco demon, monster (13th cent.), Spanish huerco devil, personification of death or hell (1330), Sardinian orcu demon, and early modern Dutch orck unruly person (Dutch regional ork). Spanish ogro (1787) is a borrowing from French ogre.