Tufted Titmouse

The most common and plentiful resident bird we have around here is the tufted titmouse. We always see it at the bird feeder, as well as flitting around the yard, and especially calling out in the spring with its clear whistle. It is a very cute, although rather plainly-colored bird. It’s antics are fun to watch.

I was recently pondering how the titmouse got its name, and why the plural form of their name is titmice, rather than something like “titmouses” or “titsmouse.” And while I am at it, where did that “mouse” part of the name come from? Why do we not also have a “jaymouse” or an “owlmouse”… or even a “hawkmouse”? 

Confronted with profound questions such as these, I frequently retreat to my numerous bird books for an answer. But this time all the bird books failed me—they had no suggestion as to how the suffix “mouse” found its way tacked onto the tit’s name. I did discover that there are several kinds of birds called “tits” in Britain—but they are just several species of small birds; it has nothing to do with a woman’s breast.

So I turned for help to the king of beasts, the monster, the final arbiter of the origins of all English words: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED to the cognoscenti)—but only after giving up on all of our smaller dictionaries, which provided no answers to this scholarly question. I will revert to the OED only as a last resort, because it is a physical effort just to lift the beast and page through it. The etymology of words presented by the OED is heads and shoulders above any other dictionary in the world, however, so it’s the sole fallback resource, when all others fail.

We have in our possession the 1971 two-volume compact edition of the OED—which contains the complete text of the 20-volume original, reproduced and reduced micrographically into two fat volumes (packaged in a slipcase, with a powerful magnifying glass). The full 20-volume edition is simply too far beyond most households in cost. Even the 1991 up-dated, now single-volume edition (reproduced micro-micrographically) will empty your wallet of nearly $400. Our old edition is a treasure and was acquired at a song. It’s kind of a pain to use it, but there are times like this when we have no alternative.

The OED once again came through. It tells us that the original form of “titmouse”—dating back to medieval times—was “titmose” or “titmase.” In the 16^th century the spelling got corrupted to “titmouse”, possibly because of the bird’s small size and quick movements (like a mouse?). The root of the word “tit” means small, quick, or sprightly. Mystery solved. Now I’ll see if I can manage to heft the OED back into its place on the shelf.