† eesn.

Etymology: Cognate with late Old Frisian ies (1491; West Frisian ēs fish bait, meat eaten by animals, carrion), Old Dutch ās carrion (Middle Dutch aes food, meat eaten by animals, bait, Dutch aas , now chiefly in the sense ‘fish bait’), Old Saxon -ās (in angulās bait; Middle Low German ās carrion, meat eaten by animals), Middle High German ās carrion, meat used as animal feed (German Aas carrion) < a suffixed form of an ablaut variant (lengthened e -grade) of the Germanic base of eat v. Compare eat n. and the Germanic forms cited at that entry.Further etymology. It is unclear whether the Germanic word showed an s -suffix or a t -suffix (compare -th suffix¹ 1). With the former hypothesis (which perhaps implies reanalysis of an older s -stem), perhaps compare Lithuanian ėdesys fodder, and also (with a further suffix) classical Latin ēsca food, bait (see esculent adj.). With the latter hypothesis, perhaps compare classical Latin ēsus taking of food, eating, and ēsum , past participle of ēdere eat v. Germanic parallels. In German the word merged phonologically with the reflex of the cognate of eat n., from which it is difficult to distinguish in the sense ‘(animal) feed’. Old Swedish as meat eaten by animals, carrion (Swedish as), Old Danish aas carrion, bait (Danish ås, now regional) are borrowed from Middle Low German.