Neck

This word has Anglo-Saxon origins.  It is found in Alfred's translation of St. Gregory's Pastoral Care from about 899, where it is spelt hnecca.  So the word is even older than the 9th century.  In 1225 it became nekke and, in a document of about 1250, it appears as necke, from whence it evolved to the spelling we know today.

It has also become a slang word.  To neck means to engage in sexual foreplay, but it has very different meanings on each side of the Atlantic.  From the dialect of North England c.1825 it means to court, ie. put one's arm around someone's neck.  But from the 1920s in America, to neck means to pursue sexual pleasure that stops short of intercourse.  This word is usually used by teenagers, with the milder British meaning having been superseded by the American one.

As you know (if you read my earlier blogs), I like to discover unusual names, and one of my work colleagues has the wonderful surname of Neck.  This has an obvious origin.  It is a purely descriptive surname that highlights an unusual physical feature.  In 1275 in Norfolk, there was a Symon Chortneke (aka short neck), and in Cambridgeshire, there were a Henry Nekke in 1279 and a Richard Necke in 1327.  Needless to say, my colleague's neck is quite pleasant and normal...

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (1988) Chambers, Edinburgh.
Green, Jonathan (2000) Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, Cassell & Co., London.
Reaney, P.H. (1997)  A Dictionary of English Surnames, rev. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.


Juliana