Mutton
/ˈmʌt.ən/noun
Meat from an adult sheep.
Did you know?In medieval English, the word for the animal and the word for its meat diverged socially: *mutton* came from a Norman French term for a sheep, while *sheep* stayed the everyday English word, preserving a tiny fossil of class history in your plate.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*meh₂-
“to measure”
Late Latin
Latin
mattēa
“a young sheep; ewe-lamb”
Old French
OF
moton
“sheep; ram”
Middle English
English
moton
“sheep; especially sheep meat”
Modern English
English
mutton
“meat from an adult sheep”