From: tgpedersen
Message: 49263
Date: 2007-07-02
>How common is this b-/p- alternation? What are the other examples?
> At 10:31:12 PM on Saturday, June 30, 2007, Rick McCallister
> wrote:
>
> > Good, but puss also means "face" in English
> > and of course "vulva", which is shared by Spanish
> > mico, but this is a secondary meaning
> > Is the meaning "face", as in "sourpuss", somehow from
> > the animal or is a homonym?
>
> According to the OED, it's from Irish <pus> 'lip, mouth',
> generally used in a contemptuous sense. (The derivation is
> supported by the distribution, chiefly Irish and U.S.)
> For Early Irish the DIL has <pus> 'a lip', generally used in a
> contemptuous sense; this appears to be a variant of EIr
> <bus> 'a lip'.
> For Sc.Gael. Dwelly has both but takes <pus>Ernout-Meillet:
> to be a variant of <bus>. Matasovic derives the word from
> PCelt. *bussu- 'lip' and adduces:
>
> Old Irish: bus
> Middle Welsh: gwe-fus
> Middle Breton: gweuz
> Cornish: gueus gl. labia
> Gaulish: Bussu-maros [PN]
>
> He adds a note:
>
> OIr. <bus> is not well attested (it belongs to the poetic
> language, <bérla na filed>). Its stem and gender are
> unknown. Meid 2005: 129 adduces also Gaul. <Bussu-gnata>
> from Pannonia, and assumes the meaning 'kiss' for the
> element <bussu->.
>