Forms: 6 ayerie, æiry, 6–7 airie, 7 aiery, ayrie, earie, 8 aeiry, 7–9 aerie, airy, aery; 7 eyerie, eyery, 7–9 eyrie, 8–9 eyry. [ad. med.L. aeria, aerea, (aria, area) prob. formed on Fr. aire with same sense. The etym. of the latter is doubtful; Littré classes it with other senses of aire:—L. ārea (also written aria) ‘a spot of level ground, an open place, a threshing-floor’; whence ‘surface plaine du rocher où l’aigle fait son nid.’ Diez, comparing Pr. aire, takes ‘family, race, stock’ as the original idea, and suggests L. ager or ātrium; Wedgewood L. āer through the senses of ‘climate, country, residence, family.’ The probability rests between ārea and ātrium; the latter, as M. Paul Meyer notes, would account well for the dubiety of gender in OFr.; aire m.:—ātrium; aire f.:—ātria. The med.L. forms appear already in 12th c. The spelling EYRIE seems to have been introduced by Spelman (Gl., 1664) to support his notion of its derivation from egg, ‘Dictum a Gallico aire: sed utrumque a Sax. eghe, Germanis et Anglo-Normanis [!] eye, i. ovum … unde nidus eyerie vocatur, quasi ovorum repositorium.’ Eyre was an occas. spelling of AIRE, ayre, the earlier form in which the OFr. had itself been adopted in ME.]
1. The nest of any bird of prey; especially, in modern usage, of an eagle; also extended to that of ravens and other birds building high in the air; and fig. to a human residence or retreat perched high on a rock or mountain side.
[1224. Chart. Forest., cap. 13. Unusquisque liber homo habeat in boscis suis aereas accipitrum, espernarum, falconum, aquilarum & hieronum.]
1581. Lambarde, Eirenarcha, II. vii. 277. To take yong pigeons or yong hawkes out of their nests (or airies).
1595. Shaks., John, V. ii. 149. And like an Eagle o’re his ayerie towres.
1618. Pulton, Coll. Statutes 6, Chart. Forest. (see above) xiii. Euery Freeman shall have within his own Woods ayries of Haukes, etc.
1622. F. Markham, Bk. Honour, I. iii. § 1. An Object bright enough to trie the vertue of the best Eagle (bred in the Earie of Meditation).
1632. Massinger, Maid of Hon., I. ii. (L.).
| One aiere with proportion, nere discloses | |
| The eagle and the wren tissue. |
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 424. The eagle and the stork On cliffs and cedar tops thir eyries build.
1691. Blount, Law Dict. [from Spelman], Aery or Airy of Goshawks, rectius Eyery (from the French Eyre, i. ova).
1728. Thomson, Spring, 451. Or where the hawk, High, in the beetling cliff, his aeiry builds.
1818. Keats, Endym., III. 94. Wherever beauty dwells, In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells.
1823. Scott, Peveril, I. i. 2. The principles on which an eagle selects her eyry.
1861. F. W. Jacomb, in P. P. & Gl., Ser. 2, I. 328. These men had, from their eyrie, seen us go up the glacier.
2. The brood in the nest; the young of a bird of prey, or fig. a noble stock of children.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., I. iii. 264. Our ayery buildeth in the Cedars top, And dallies with the winde, and scornes the Sunne.
1598. Kitchin, Courts Leet (1675), 114. Also if any … take any Hauks or Æiry of Hauks.
1602. Shaks., Haml., II. ii. 354. But there is Sir an ayrie of Children, little Yases, that crye out on the top of question; and are most tyrannically clap’t for’t.
1604. Drayton, The Owle, 859. The Fesant … Seeking for safetie bred his Ayry there.
1613. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. iv. (1772), II. 140. As an eyerie from their seeges wood, Led o’re the playnes and taught to get their food.
