Bird and Toad: [...] Another group of scholars derives bird from Gmc *beran ‘bear, give birth’; so in Thomson, Adams, the pre-1864 editions of Webster (from bear or the Welsh verb bridaw ‘break forth’), and Leo. Mueller, who cited Wedgwood and Ettmüller (brid || breed), preferred to look upon the bird – beran connection as more probable. Contrariwise, Charles Scott, the etymologist for The Century Dictionary, connected bird and beran in the first edition but switched to breed, brood in the second. From the semantic point of view the bird – beran etymology is irreproachable. The original meaning of bird would come out as ‘a bom creature’, which fits the Middle English meanings and the meaning ‘nestling’. OE gebyrd meant ‘birth; descent, parentage, race’ and ‘offspring’ (f., i-stem), while ‘child’ is one of the meanings of OHG giburt and MHG geburt. OE gebyrd, OHG giburt, and Go. gabaurþs, as well as OE byrþen, OHG burdin ‘burden’ have the zero grade of the alternating vowel, while bird, if related to beran, would have i < *e, the normal grade. A parallel in the normal grade would be Go. barn ‘child’, with cognates in all the Germanic languages (OE beam; from an ancient past participle: barn = ‘born creature’). Later dictionaries do not favor this etymology, but Specht cited it with some confidence. The main problem with deriving bird from beran is that the original form of the Old English noun seems to have been brid, not bird. For this reason, Mayhew called the idea of tracing bird to beran impossible. It must have been Mayhew’s criticism that made Scott revert to the bird – breed etymology – hardly a good solution, for connecting bird and breed is also “high treason.” [...]

• beran