Etymology Dictionary

AITCH-BONE,  the rump-bone.  (Hybrid; F.,—L. and E.)   Miss Baker, in her Northamp. Gloss., gives 'aitch-bone, the extreme end of a rump of beef, cut obliquely.'   It also appears as edge-bone (Webster), ice-bone (Forby), nache-bone (Carr's Craven Glossary).   All the forms are corruptions of nache-bone, i.e. rump-bone.   The nache is 'the point of the rump;' Old Country Words, E. D. S., p. 97.   We find nache also in Fitzherbert's Husbandry (Glossary); and nach in G. Markham's Husbandry (Of Oxen).   The earliest example I have found is hach-boon, Book of St. Albans, leaf f 3, back; A.D. 1486.—O.F. nache, sing. of naches, the buttocks (Roquefort).—Low Lat. naticas, acc. of naticæ, buttocks; not in Ducange, but cited by Roquefort.   Dimin. of L. nates, pl. of natis, the rump.   Allied to Gk. νῶτον, the back; cf. Skt. nati, a bowing down, from nam, to bow down, sink, bend.   ¶ Dr. Murray draws my attention to the fact that Mr. Nicol obtained this etymology (independently) in 1878; see Minutes of Meetings of Phil. Soc. Feb. 1, 1878.