2325: nanny goat Apr 30, 2021

The term 'nanny goat' has been used to refer to a child's nurse and a domestic she-goat. It would be reasonable to assume that the term for the occupation existed either first or independently of the goat especially considering there were plenty of other terms from the 17th and 18th century that use 'nanny' in a variable sense but this is not true. The goat was an actual goat who would act as a sort of wet-nurse to a child who didn't have a mother, or whose mother couldn't or wouldn't lactate. When this term mostly replaced 'she-goat', 'billy goat' emerged to mostly replace 'he-goat'.