bausondadj.

Etymology: < Old French bausant, -ssant, -sent, -cent, balcent, also bauchant, baulchant, and (without final t) bauzan, -sen, -sain, -çain, black and white spotted, piebald, a word of doubtful form and etymology, but of which the forms without -t correspond to Provençal bausan, Italian balzano, white spotted (Baretti), white-footed (Minsheu), whence also modern French balzan ‘black or bay (horse) with white feet’ (Littré). The word appears also in medieval Latin as bausendus, bausennus, bauchantus, < French. In view of the Italian and Provençal, the Old French forms in -nt are not easy to account for, but they seem to be the source of the Middle English bausand, though later spelling assimilates the word to participial adjectives in -ed, as if formed on bawson. (For the ulterior etymology there is nothing satisfactory. Conjectures may be seen in Boehmer De colorum nominibus equinorum in Roman. Studien vol. I; in Diez, who referred balzano to balza ‘border, fringe’; and in Devic (Littré, Suppl.) who has pointed out the striking identity of meaning between bausant and Arabic ablaq, feminine balqā; but notwithstanding this, the forms of the Arabic and Romanic words cannot (at present at least) be phonetically reconciled.)Previous versions of the OED give the stress as: ˈbausond.