Word of the week: quarry

Moose, deer, bear – for those gearing up for the hunting season, they can all be summed up by one word: quarry. After medieval hunters had killed their deer, they would place its heart and liver on a piece of its hide and let the dogs eat it as a reward (I hope you're not eating breakfast as you read this). The French word for an animal's hide was cuirée, which in turn came from the Latin word corium (skin). In English this became “quarry”, which, by the 1600s, came to designate the whole animal – or anything else – being pursued.
This has nothing to do with the stone quarry, which comes ultimately from the Latin quadrum (square) since stone is cut into square pieces.