hare

Any of various mammals of the family Leporidae, especially of the genus Lepus, similar to rabbits but having longer ears and legs and giving birth to active, furred young.

To move hurriedly, as if hunting a swift quarry.

[Middle English, from Old English hara.]

Game animal, similar to rabbit but larger; caught wild but not farmed commercially. Lepus europaeus is the common hare, but some twenty Lepus species occur in Europe. A 150-g portion is an extremely rich source of iron (15 mg); a rich source of protein; contains 12 g of fat; supplies 300 kcal (1260 kJ).

A larger relative of the rabbit the hare can weigh as much as 12 to 14 pounds, compared to a rabbit at about 5 pounds. Whether wild or domesticated, hares have a darker flesh and earthier flavor than rabbits. Wild hare, also called jackrabbit and snowshoe rabbit, generally needs marinating to tenderize it before cooking. Younger animals (1 year or less) can usually be roasted, whereas older animals are best cooked with moist-heat methods such as stewing or braising. One of the most famous dishes made with this animal is jugged hare. Although plentiful in the United States, hare isn't as popular here as in European countries.

(click to enlarge)
Black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) (credit: (Top) © G.C. Kelley/Photo Researchers, (bottom) Gordon Langsbury/Bruce Coleman Ltd.)

Bounding mammal (in the family Leporidae) whose young, unlike those of rabbits, are born fully haired, with open eyes, and sufficiently advanced to hop about a few minutes after birth. The common hare (Lepus europaeus) is native to central and southern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; introduced into Australia, it has become a pest there. In North America the jackrabbit and snowshoe hare are widespread. Many other species occur naturally on all principal landmasses except Australia. Hares have well-developed hind legs, and the ears are usually longer than the head. Species vary in length from 16 to 28 in. (40 – 70 cm), without the short tail. Hares in northern latitudes are white in winter and grayish brown in summer; elsewhere, they are usually grayish brown year-round. Hares are primarily herbivorous.

For more information on hare, visit Britannica.com.

From the Middle Ages onwards, hares have been considered unlucky. It is a bad omen if one crosses one's path, especially at the start of the day's work or of a journey; if one runs through a town, a house will burn down; no dead hare should be taken on board a fishing-boat, nor the word ‘hare’ spoken at sea. If a pregnant woman meets a hare, her baby will be born with a ‘harelip’, unless she immediately tears her petticoat. This is recorded first in Thomas Lupton's A Thousand Notable Things (1579); an earlier book, Gospelles of Dystaues (1507), warns women against eating hares, for the same reason: ‘Ye sholde not gyve to young maydens to ete the heed of a hare …and especyll to them that be wyth chylde for certaynly theyr chyldren might haue clouen lyppes.’

However, hares can bring luck or good health. Samuel Pepys carried a hare's foot in his pocket against colics, while others thought it prevented cramps and rheumatism, or protected against witchcraft (cf. rabbits). Countrywomen often soothed fretful babies by feeding them hare's brains to eat (N&Q 6s:1 (1880),34; 6s:4 (1880), 406, 457-8). One man joining the Navy in 1939 took a hare's foot as mascot (Evans and Thomson, 1972: 234).

In folklore, witches were commonly said to turn into hares; there was a widespread anecdote about a man who vainly hunted a hare which escaped into the house of an old woman—who was found panting hard. But if the hare's leg was bitten by the hunter's dog, or broken with a stone, or shot with a silver bullet, the witch would be found wounded in the same way; this, some said, took away her power (Brockie, 1886: 2-5). In Yorkshire, the hare was occasionally thought to be a familiar rather than the witch herself; when it was killed with a silver bullet, the witch cried out in grief (Henderson, 1866: 166-7; Blake-borough, 1898: 203). Both belief and story are in most regional collections, and persisted till the 1930s (Evans and Thomson, 1972: 164; Simpson, 1973: 69-70).

In the west of England white hares were said to be ghosts of forsaken girls, haunting their seducers; one caused her ex-lover's death by scaring his horse (Hunt, 1881: 377). In one Lincolnshire tale the Devil, in the form of a three-legged hare, causes the death of a boy who is playing at hanging himself, by distracting his companions at the crucial moment so that they fail to release him (Gutch and Peacock, 1908: 63).

Nowadays, many writers claim that hares were sacred to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, but there is no shred of evidence for this; Bede, the only writer to mention Eostre, does not link her with any animal. For Celtic Britons, we have Julius Caesar's authority for saying hares were sacred and provided omens for Boudicca before a battle.

See also EASTER, EASTER EGGS.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Opie and Tatem, 1989: 189-94
• Roud, 2003: 239-43

Tutor's tip: A "hare" (a large rabbit) can have very soft and valuable "hair" (the furry outgrowth of the body).

See Rabbit.

Hare could refer to:

• Hare, the mammals that are very closely related to rabbits.
• Hare is the vocative form of the Sanskrit name of svayam bhagavan Krishna, God in Hinduism and Krishnaism.
• Hare Krishna mantra
• Sea hare, are small marine gastropod molluscs
• Hare (ha-ray), the Sanskrit vocative of Hari, see Hare Krishna.
• Hare Indians, a native group from the Northwest Territories of Canada.
• The Hare method of voting, attributed to Thomas Hare:
  • Instant-runoff voting for single seat elections; or
  • Single transferable vote for electing multi-seat constituencies.

Entertainment

• Hare (Monster Rancher), a monster in the Monster Rancher video game and anime franchise, raised by monster breeders, which then fight in tournaments
• Hare and Tortoise, a German-style board game designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games
• Peppy Hare, a character in the Star Fox video game series
• Testudo et Lepus (The Tortoise and the Hare), the fourth episode, 2nd season of the television series Rome
• The Tortoise and the Hare, a fable attributed to Aesop
• The Turtles and the Hare, a 1991 (season 5) episode of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series
• Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare, an animated cartoon duo created by Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios

People

• Albert Hare (1887-1969), British athlete
• Anne Hare, New Zealand athlete
• Augustus Hare (1834-1903), English writer
• Augustus William Hare (1792-1834), English clergyman
• Butler B. Hare (1875-1967), South Carolina politician
• Cecil Hare, (1919-1963), American football player
• Charlie Hare (1871-1934), English soccer player
• Clayton Hare (1909-2001), Canadian teacher
• Cliff Hare, American football player
• Cyril Hare (1900-1958), English crime writer
• Darius D. Hare (1843-1897), US soldier and representative
• Darren Hare, English soccer player and coach
• David Hare (1775-1842), Scottish philanthropist
• David Hare (1917-1992), U.S. sculptor and photographer
• David Hare (born 1947), English dramatist
• Doris Hare (1905-2000), Welsh actress
• Douglas R. A. Hare, American professor
• Dusty Hare (born 1952), English Rugby Union footballer
• Ernie Hare (1883-1939), American singer
• Francis Hare, 6th Earl of Listowel
• Frode Håre, Norwegian ski jumper
• George Emlen Hare (1808-1892), American clergyman
• Henry Hare (1861-1921), English architect
• Hobart Amory Hare (born 1862), American physician
• Jack Hare, Canadian politician
• James Butler Hare (1918–1966), U.S. Congressman from South Carolina
• Jimmy Hare (1856–1946), photographer for Colliers
• Major-General John Hare
• John Hare (1844-1921), English actor
• John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham (1911-1982), British politician
• John E. Hare (born 1949), U.S. moral philosopher
• John Innes Clark Hare (1817-1905), American jurist
• John Tyrrell Holmes Hare, Bishop of Bedford
• Jonathan Hare, British physicist
• Jon Hare (born 1966), British computer game designer
• Joseph Hare, U.S. Navy admiral
• Joseph C. Hare, American lumberman from Oregon
• Judith Hare, Countess of Listowel (1903-2003), British-Hungarian journalist
• Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855), English theologian
• Katherine Hare, English theatre director
• Kenneth Hare (1919-2002), Canadian meteorologist
• Luther Hare (1851-1929) officer in the U.S. Cavalry
• Michael Hare, 2nd Viscount Blakenham (born 1938), British peer
• Nathan Hare, American educationalist
• Nicholas Hare, Speaker of the House of Commons between 1539-1540
• Pat Hare (1930-1980), U.S. singer and guitarist
• Peter Hare (1748-1834), American soldier
• Phil Hare (born 1949), American politician in Illinois
• R. M. Hare (1919-2002), British moral philosopher
• Ray Hare (1917-1975) America footballer
• Remon van de Hare, Dutch basketballer
• Robert Hare (1781–1858), Chemist.
• Robert Hare, Canadian criminal psychologist.
• Robertson Hare (1891-1979), English comedy actor
• Silas Hare (1827- 1907), US representative from Texas
• Thomas Hare English barrister
• Thomas Hare (MP) (1686–1760) Member of Parliament for Truro (UK Parliament constituency)
• Tom Hare, professor and Japanologist
• Thomas Hare (athlete)
• Thomas Hare (bishop), bishop of Pontefract
• Tom Hare, American professor
• Truxtun Hare early US decathlete and Olympic medalist
• Will Hare (1916- 1997), American actor
• William Hare (1792-1859), Irish serial killer
• William D. Hare (1834-1910), American politician from Oregon
• William G. Hare, American politician from Oregon
• William Hare, 1st Earl of Listowel (1751–1837), Irish peer and Member of Parliament
• William Hare, 2nd Earl of Listowel (1801–1856), grandson of the 1st Earl, peer and Member of Parliament
• William Hare, 3rd Earl of Listowel (1833–1924), son of the 2nd Earl, Baron Hare, Liberal politician
• William Francis Hare, 5th Earl of Listowel (1906-1997), British politician
• William Hobart Hare (1838-1909), American clergyman

See also

• O'Hare

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Common misspelling(s) of hare

• hace

Dansk (Danish)
n. - hare, sporleg
v. intr. - løbe, fare, pile

idioms:

• hare off    styrte af sted

Nederlands (Dutch)
haas, bont van een haas, zich uit de voeten maken

Français (French)
n. - (Zool, Culin) lièvre
v. intr. - partir en trombe

idioms:

• hare off    partir en trombe

Deutsch (German)
n. - Hase
v. - schnell laufen

idioms:

• hare off    sausen, rennen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (ζωολ.) λαγός
v. - (καθομ.) λακίζω, πιλαλώ

idioms:

• hare off    το βάζω στα πόδια

Italiano (Italian)
lepre

idioms:

• hare off    arrivare velocemente

Português (Portuguese)
n. - lebre (f) (Zool.)
v. - correr (gír.)

idioms:

• hare off    partir em corrida

Русский (Russian)
заяц, кролик

idioms:

• hare off    сбежать, быстро убраться

Español (Spanish)
n. - liebre
v. intr. - correr con rapidez

idioms:

• hare off    correr con gran rapidez

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - hare
v. - rusa, fly

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
兔, 野兔, 飞跑

idioms:

• hare off    飞跑

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 兔, 野兔
v. intr. - 飛跑

idioms:

• hare off    飛跑

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 산토끼, 무임 승차자
v. intr. - 질주하다, 빨리 달리다

idioms:

• hare off    질주하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 野ウサギ

idioms:

• hare off    速く走る

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الأرانب الوحشيه البريه التي تتميز بأن شفتها العليا مشقوفه (فعل) يركض بسرعه فائقه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮ארנבת‬
v. intr. - ‮רץ מהר‬

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