When the apartments turn into a furnace, some are in a dog’s mood and this is logical because, as curious as it may seem, the word “heat wave” means “little bitch”. An a priori surprising association which supposes, to be understood, to go back to Latin – and, incidentally, to have some notions of astronomy.
The comparison becomes clearer when we know that the Roman scholar Varro had nicknamed canicula Sirius, the main star in the constellation Canis Major, which takes its name from its particular shape. Sirius indeed marks the neck of the dog; Wezen the base of the tail; Murzim and Adhara the front paw and the hind paw etc. canis major, so it is the Big Dog. Etcaniculaas opposed to the little female dog.
What about the sweltering temperatures we have to endure? Seen from Europe, Sirius is particularly visible between July 24 and August 24, a period of high heat. This coincidence had led the Ancients to establish a link between the appearance of this star and high temperatures. The Egyptians, before the Romans, had also made this same connection since the goddess Sopdet, personification of the star Sirius, was traditionally represented accompanied by a female dog.
The Canary Islands or “Isle of Dogs”
It is this association that has passed into French so that we too, without always realizing it, use the metaphor “little bitch” to designate exceptional weather phenomena like the one that is hitting our country at the moment. A heat wave not to be confused with a dog’s weather…
To stay on the same subject, you should also know that man’s best friend is at the origin of another surprising etymology, that of the canary. We suspect it: this canary takes its name from the Canary Islands, where it was found in abundance. What is less known is that the Spanish archipelago would have been so baptized by King Juba, in the 1st century BC, because the Numidian sovereign (a Berber people from North Africa) would have met… gigantic dogs, in latin canis. And that’s how “the Isles of Dogs” ended up giving their name to a bird…