- dairy
- late 13c., from Anglo-Fr. -erie suffix affixed to M.E. daie (in daie maid "dairymaid"), from O.E. dæge "kneader of bread, housekeeper, female servant" (see dey (1)). The native word was dey-house.
- wick (2)
- "dairy farm," now surviving, if at all, as a localism in East Anglia or Essex, it was once the common O.E. wic "dwelling place, abode," then coming to mean "village, hamlet, town," and later "dairy farm" (e.g. Gatwick "Goat-farm"). Common in this latter sense 13c.-14c. The word is a general Gmc. borrowing from L. vicus "village, hamlet" (see vicinity). Cf. O.H.G. wih "village," Ger. Weichbild "municipal area," Du. wijk "quarter, district," O.Fris. wik, O.S. wic "village."
- cooper
- "craftsman who makes wooden vessels," attested from 1176 as a surname, either from O.E. (unattested) or from a Low Ger. source akin to M.Du. cuper, E.Fris. kuper, from Low Ger. kupe (Ger. Kufe) "cask," cognate with M.L. cupa (see coop).
"A dry cooper makes casks, etc., to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids, a white cooper pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use." [OED]
The surname Cowper (pronounced "cooper") preserves a 15c. spelling. - dey (1)
- O.E. dæge "female servant, housekeeper, maid," from P.Gmc. *daigjon, from PIE *dheigh- "to form, build" (see dough). Now obsolete (though OED says, "Still in living use in parts of Scotland"), it forms the first element of dairy and the second of lady. The ground sense seems to be "kneader, maker of bread;" advancing by O.N. deigja and M.E. daie to mean "female servant, woman employed in a house or on a farm." Dæge as "servant" is the second element in many surnames ending in -day (e.g. Faraday, and perhaps Doubleday "servant of the Twin," etc.).