Bellewether

February 10, 2023

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Have you ever read a word and it wedges into your mind, rolling around, bumping up suddenly into your consciousness when you’re cooking dinner or breathing in a sharp breath of cold, winter air? We are kin, then, in this regard. My most recent word fixation is bellewether (or bellwether). The term is from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) to assist in leading a flock of sheep. A shepherd could keep track of the flock’s movements by hearing the bell, even when the flock was not in sight.

In today’s world, bellwether is used to indicate a predictor of something, as in “Peregrine falcons act as a mercury bellwether, Nevada study shows.” (Las Vegas Review Journal, April 14, 2019). Or, in politics bellwether can describe a geographic region where political tendencies match those of a wider area, as in, “Turkey heads to the polls in bellwether municipal elections.” (Middle East Eye, March 31, 2019).

I can’t help but think of those sturdy sheep, the stalwart shepherd, and the sound of a brass bell. Maybe it’s the original belle with its intact “e” at the end that pulls me into the beauty of the word, or possibly the sweet idea that humans and animals worked out this simple, audible way to help each other—humans don't go hungry and the sheep are safe from the wolves. Or maybe, it’s just the word itself, spoken, with its sonorous beginning and its tactile (think twigs brushing together) ending. All in all, it’s a fabulous word don't you think?