Shrew

The word, I apprehend, means sharp. The mouse, which is not the field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal of a different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp snout. Shrewd means sharp generally. Its bad sense is only incidental. They seem connected with scratch; screw; shrags, the end of sticks or furze (Halliwell); to shred (A.-S., screadan, but which must be a secondary form of the verb). That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin *sorex*, seems to be an accidental coincidence. That is said to be derived from [Greek: urax]. The French have confounded the two, and give the name *souris* t…