Hidden Meanings behind Meat-specific Vocabulary in the History of English

The present paper is an attempt to illustrate and discuss selected changes of meaning of meat-related vocabulary items brought about by the mechanism known as foodsemy, in which the source domain derives from the riches of the conceptual macrocategory FOODSTUFFS (e.g. pork, peach, bread), and the target is the macrocategory HUMAN BEING. The closeness and familiarity of food in our lives has given rise to various historical foodsemic metaphors during the evolution of English, most frequently in the colloquial register of the language, while the phenomenon may easily be observed in other natural languages. To this end, we intend to delve into figurative extensions of the original senses of words related to the category FOODSTUFFS. More specifically, we shall be dealing with a body of meat-related vocabulary, and the secondary senses they developed at certain points in the history of English.