A keeper of the cattle or common herd of a village or parish. The word hay means “hedge,” and this herdsman was so called because he had “ward” of the “hedges” also. (Anglo-Saxon, hēg, hay; hege, a hedge.)
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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