_Shrew_ (No. 24. p. 381.).--The word, I apprehend, means sharp. The
mouse, which is not the field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal
of a different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp snout. Shrewd means
sharp generally. Its bad sense is only incidental. They seem connected
with scratch; screw; shrags, the end of sticks or furze (Halliwell); to
shred (A.-S., screadan, but which must be a secondary form of the verb).
That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin _sorex_, seems to be an
accidental coincidence. That is said to be derived from [Greek: urax].
The French have confounded the two, and give the name _souris_ to the
common mouse, but _not_ to the shrew-mouse.
I protest, for one, against admitting that Broc is derived from _broc_,
persecution, which of course is participle from break. We say "to
badger" for to annoy, to teaze. I suppose two centuries hence will think
the name of the animal is derived from that verb, and not the verb from
it. It means also, in A.-S., _equus vilis_, a horse that is worn out or
"broken down."