When the crest of a rooster’s comb falls down toward their beak, they appear sad, or crestfallen. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Crestfallen”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Kate.
Hi, Kate. Where are you calling from?
Los Angeles.
Welcome to the show. How can we help you?
Hi, I had a question about the word crestfallen.
Crestfallen?
Yes.
Okay. Meaning what?
Someone who is sort of like disappointed or let down that things didn’t go.
Well, the reason I was asking about it is because my coworker and I work on a TV show.
And we read it in a script that said one of the characters was crestfallen.
And she said, what does that mean?
And so I defined it for, like, things have gone the way the character wanted them to go.
And so now he was crestfallen because he was disappointed.
Okay.
Yeah, that’s it.
And she, with my co-worker’s asking, I wonder where that word comes from.
Great.
What TV show do you work on?
I’m not sure they’d want us to say yet.
Okay.
Okay.
Because it hasn’t premiered yet.
Oh, nice.
So super secret stuff.
Will you let us know after the fact?
Yeah, I will.
Okay.
There are a couple competing theories about the origin of crestfallen.
And the one that I prefer has to do with the comb of a rooster.
They’ve got the red comb across the top of their head,
And after a while it just flops over, and they look kind of defeated.
And the reason I think this is probably what most people refer to
Is the earliest use that we find of crestfallen dates from 1589
In a particular work which was basically a tirade against people
Who had different religious views.
There was lots of competing pamphleting and editorials in the newspapers
At the time. And anyway, he talks about one of his opponents. And he describes this person
Literally as being crestfallen, that their comb has fallen down toward their beak.
And he mentions it very clearly there in a way to demonstrate that this person is defeated and
Out of sorts and doesn’t have the energy to fight to be their good opponent. However,
Another theory is that it comes from horses because there is a disease of horses where their hair kind of doesn’t stand up at the mane anymore.
They no longer look attractive and ready for the parade ground.
And their crest, another name for their mane, particularly if it’s cut all to the same length, literally falls down instead of standing up percoli.
I kind of like the rooster theory because of all the other terms that arise from cockfighting.
Yeah, it’s far more likely because it’s older, first of all.
Okay, yeah, and that was the other reason I wrote in,
Because I did a little bit of research on my own,
And I had seen both theories,
And one said it was from the horses and not from the roosters,
And the other one said, oh, no, it’s from the roosters,
And there’s nothing to do with the horses.
Yeah, the dating is not very good for the horses.
It comes up roughly 100 years after it’s used to refer to a human being
Looking like a rooster. So the first use isn’t always like the definitive source for something.
The word takes on its own life. And certainly in the horsing world, crestfallen is used with
A little bit of frequency to refer to horses whose manes aren’t not standing up. So
Maybe your own particular crestfallen comes from horses. Maybe it comes from roosters,
But either way, it still means looking a little less than perfect, a little peaked, maybe a kind
Of sad.
Okay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, good luck with the television show.
Okay.
Thank you.
And I’ll let you guys know once it’s on the air.
Oh, yeah.
Please do.
Sure.
That’d be fantastic.
Yeah.
Drop us a line.
Okay.
Good luck.
Bye, Kate.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
You know, there are all kinds of terms that come from cockfighting.
Like what else?
As I mentioned that.
Well, if not originating in cockfighting, battle royal was early on used with cockfighting.
Well-heeled may not directly come from cockfighting, but it was used early on, you know.
To refer to the spurs.
Yeah.
And I’ve also heard a British expression, oh, no cock’s eyes out.
What’s that mean?
Which means, you know, it’s all right.
Nothing big happened.
It wasn’t so bad.
Oh, I see.
The English language is a great record of all the terrible things we’ve done to animals.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
