Re: Albanian words for eyebrow

John Atkinson wrote:

"Maik輎erliebhaber" (a person having a loving interest in
chafers).
What's a chafer?
Screw literature, back to entomology. A "chafer" is one of a class of
large slow-moving beetles, the best known of which is the "cockchafer".
I believe "Marienk輎er" is also one of the many religious=sounding names
for the ladybird.

"Chafer", meaning beetle, OE "ceafor", apparently comes from a root "kaf-" meaning "gnaw" (nothing to do with "chafe", from Latin "calefacere", make hot).

A rosechafer gnaws on roses. As for a cockchafer, I hate to think...

But which of the chafes is the one related to rubbing? I'd guess the first one, but then again some on-line source claims that the 'rub' meaning is traceable to the 'make hot' one (as rubbing things may make them hot). (It's then a moot exercise to decide which root is the right one. If not both, I'd risk the french one is wrong.)
--
am

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