oak

oak allusion is often made to the hardness and durability of the oak, and to the traditional use of oak timber for ships. In traditional rhymes, it may be linked and compared with other trees, as the ash and the thorn.

The Oaks is an annual flat horse race for three-year-old fillies run on Epsom Downs, over the same course as the Derby. It was first run in 1779, and is so called from the estate of the 12th Earl of Derby, owner of the first winner.
beware of an oak, it draws the stroke; avoid an ash, it counts the flash; creep under the thorn, it can save you from harm proverbial saying, late 19th century, recording traditional beliefs on where to shelter from lightning during a thunderstorm.
Oak-apple Day the anniversary of Charles II's restoration (29 May), when oak-apples or oak-leaves used to be worn in memory of his hiding in an oak after the battle of Worcester.
sport the (or one's) oak (in certain universities) shut the outer door of one's room as a sign that one does not wish to be disturbed (such doors were formerly made of oak).
when the oak is before the ash, then you will only get a splash; when the ash is before the oak, then you may expect a soak proverbial saying, mid 19th century; a traditional way of predicting whether the summer will be wet or dry on the basis of whether the oak or the ash is first to come into leaf in the spring.

See also great oaks from little acorns grow, heart of oak, little strokes fell great oaks, a reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall.

oak [OE āc]. The mighty deciduous hardwood (genus Quercus) has played a prominent role in the Celtic imagination from ancient to modern times. The English word ‘druid’ (from the Latin plural druidae) derives in part from the root dru- [oak]; Celtic words for oak, e.g. OIr. and ModIr. dair, W derwen, share the same root. The ancient geographer Strabo (1st cent. AD) reported that the important sacred grove and meeting-place of the Galatian Celts of Asia Minor, Drunemeton, was filled with oaks. In an often-cited passage from Historia Naturalis (1st cent. AD), Pliny the Elder describes a festival on the sixth day of the moon where the druids climbed an oak tree, cut a bough of mistletoe, and sacrificed two white bulls as part of a fertility rite. Elsewhere druids made their wands from only three woods: yew, oak, and apple. In Mediterranean culture the oak was sacred to both Zeus and Jupiter, some aspects of which were no doubt transferred to the worship of Gaulish Jupiter. Britons under Roman occupation worshipped a goddess of the oak tree, Daron, whose name is commemorated in a rivulet in Gwynedd. According to the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions], the sacred oak of early Ireland was that of Mugna, probably located at or near Dunmanogoe, south Co. Kildare. Sacred associations of oaks survived Christianization, so that St Brigit's monastic foundation was at Cill Dara [church of (the) oak, i.e. Kildare], and St Colum Cille favoured Doire Calgaich [Calgach's oak grove, i.e. (London-)Derry]; see also DURROW [darú, from dair magh, oak plain]. In Welsh tradition Gwydion and Math use the flower of oak with broom to fashion the beautiful Blodeuwedd. When Lleu Llaw Gyffes is about to be killed by Gronw Pebyr, his wife's lover, he escapes in eagle form onto a magic oak tree. A sacred oak tree protects the Breton city of Ys until the feckless boy Kristof removes it, allowing Ys tobe engulfed. The Arthurian figure Merlin is imprisoned in an oak tree in the Breton forest of Brocéliande by Viviane/Nimiane (the Lady of the Lake). In both British and Irish fairy lore, the oak is one of three magical woods, along with ash and thorn. OIr. and ModIr. dair; ScG darach; Manx daragh; W derwen, dâr; Corn. derowen; Bret. dervenn.

oak OE. āc (pl. ǣċ) = MLG. ēk (Du. eik), OHG. eih (G. eiche), ON. eik :- Gmc. *aiks; ulterior connections unkn.