The Piebald Etymology of Magpie: A Multicolored Bird of Many Words

The word “piebald” usually describes animals (of a variety of species) whose coats have irregular patches of white and other darker colors and patterns such as black or brindle. We have two interesting things happening here word origin-wise:

• The “bald” element in this word means “white,” a sense we also see in animal names like “bald eagle,” whose head is of course white, not featherless. “Bald” is thought to be from the Celtic bal “white patch,” related to a “blaze” like that on a horse’s head (but also etymologically related to every other sort of “blaze”). As a matter of fact, all sorts of blazes and baldness (including hairlessness) are emerged from the same from Proto-Indo-European root *bhel-, “to shine, flash, gleam.”
• The “pie” in piebald is a comparison to a magpie, a bird whose feathers have patches of white and black and often blue/green.

And looking a bit further into name of this little bird opens a wonderfully complex can of etymological worms. Let’s take a look:

Magpie or Pie?

In 13th century English, your average magpie, which for many readers of this blog will be a Eurasian magpie or common magpie, was simply called a “pie,” originally from the word pica, the Latin word for this type of bird. (It’s notably found in the 12th- or 13th-century poem “The Owl & The Nightingale,” which features a lively and poetic debate/insult battle between the two birds.)

The Eurasian/common magpie’s binomial name is likewise Pica pica. There are several species of magpie beyond Pica pica, and several subspecies of Pica pica. There are also species of birds such as the Australian or flute magpie and the magpie-lark or peewee magpie (among other names) that are not related to other species of magpie but share a similar color pattern. Hence the name.

And again, lots of animals can have a “pied” pattern on their feathers, fur, or skin—but it’s always ultimately named after a magpie’s (or pie’s) feather pattern.

“Pica” is also the name of a condition in which a person swallows non-food items. In name, this is once again a comparison to magpies, evidently because they were also thought to feed on miscellaneous non-food items. In truth, they do have highly varied omnivorous diet, but they don’t typically eat non-food objects. In fact, like other birds that belong to the family Corvidae, they are known for their intelligence.

Jumble Pie

Beyond magpies, “pie” is seen in many historical contexts as a word for any mass of things jumbled together, all ultimately referring to the bird’s coloring. E.g., in printing and typesetting, a jumbled mass of type was called “pie.”

Meanwhile, the Pied Piper is named in part for his similarly multicolored clothing. 

On that logic of jumbled things, it would make perfect sense for the food known as “pie” (from Medieval Latin pie “meat, fish enclosed in pastry”) to be related because it also often contains a filling of jumbled of ingredients, but it’s unknown to what extent the culinary “pie” and the bird called a “pie” are etymologically connected.

A Pie Like Mag

So now we know that “piebald” more or less describes an animal with “a mix of colors (like a magpie).”

But if “pie” was already a word for a magpie, then what does “mag” mean?

It’s short for Margaret or Margery. In this case, Mag is being here used as an all-purpose name for a woman, sort of in the same way we used “jack” in terms like “jack of all trades.”

The Mag in this case is specifically suggesting a stereotypically chatty woman, a comparison to the bird’s chattering calls. Writings dating back to at least 1675 alternartively call the birds—and talkative women—“chatterpies.”

Mag also appears as a generalized woman’s name in other terms, sometimes with a similar connotation, and sometimes interchangeable with the alternative Margaret/Margery nickname Meg. You also see the name being used with a similar connotation in the 15th-c. term “Mag’s tale,” meaning a far-fetched or nonsensical story, similar to the notion of an “old wives’ tale,” but more implying something frivolous and unimportant than superstitious or mythical. 

Similarly “mag’s diversion” or sometimes “meg’s diversion” is recorded in the 1800s as a word for antics or boisterous behavior. Starting in the 1800s, you may find colloquial Scottish, Irish, and English names for centipedes or millipedes such as “mag-many-feet,” and many other varations such as meg-many-feet, meg-o’-the-many-feet, Mag-mony-feet, etc. etc. And 16th–19th c. Scottish has nicknames for large pieces of ordnance such as Great Mag and Roring Megge.

Mag (or Meg) certainly makes an impression regardless of the context.