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Re: Bos-...?
How on earth should BOS come to mean cattle? Even if you think of Latin bos, bovis (which is cognate to English "cow") the expected form of a place name element should be derived from the oblique cases (like bovem) and look similar to boeuf or beef, not bos.The Germanic word for cattle is fehu (Modern German: Vieh) and shows no similarity to bos at all.Given the style of place names, BOS is most probably the relic of a given name (that maybe recoverable or not).
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It is just that so many other -ley names are animal-based: Beverley, Brockley, Harley, etc.
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It still has to match the name of an animal in English (Beaver, Brock, Hare etc.) and Bos is not. The closest is the bos in bosig (boosy), which means barn, not cow, and is related to band (through bans-, as English does not like -ns- or -nt- following long vowels, so we get -swith in names instead of -suind etc.), as a place where stock is tied up. The English equivalent of Latin (actually borrowed from a neighboring Italian language) bos is, cow (the original gw- was reduced to either k- or w- or b- in different branches), and in fact, we have a Cowley in Oxfordshire.Of course many other -leys are named after people, such as Kimberley, Notts., named after a Chinemare (as recorded in the Domesday book, probably originally Cynemǽre), with later assimilation to Kimble (from Cunobelinus). Several people are recorded with the names Bosa, or Boso, or Bosel (after whom Boswell is named).
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