bacon

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun back and sides of a hog salted and dried or smoked; usually sliced thin and fried
  2. noun English scientist and Franciscan monk who stressed the importance of experimentation; first showed that air is required for combustion and first used lenses to correct vision (1220-1292)
  3. noun English statesman and philosopher; precursor of British empiricism; advocated inductive reasoning (1561-1626)

Etymology

From Middle English bacoun (“meat from the back and sides of a pig”), from Anglo-Norman bacon, bacun (“ham, flitch, strip of lard”), from Old Low Frankish *bakō (“ham, flitch”), from Proto-Germanic *bakô, *bakkô (“back”), an extension of *baką, whence English back, which see for more. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“back, buttocks; to vault, arch”). Cognate with Old Saxon baco (“back”), Dutch bake (“ham, side of bacon”), Old High German bahho (“ham, side of bacon”), whence German Bache f (“wild sow”), Alemannic German Bache m (“bacon”). (police): Extension of pig (“police”).

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