Forms: 5 sundyr, sondyr, s(o)undre, 6 sovneder, sowndir, 7 soundor, 7, 9 sownder, 4– sounder. [a. OF. sundre, sonre (mod. dial. sonre), of Germanic origin: cf. OE. sunor, suner, ON. sonar- (in sonarblót, -gǫltr), Lombard sonor- (in sonorpair boar), OHG. and MHG. swaner (OHG. swanering, MHG. swänre, boar).]
1. A herd of wild swine.
13[?]. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 1440. On þe sellokest swyn swenged out þere, Long sythen for þe sounder þat wiȝt for-olde.
c. 1410. Master of Game (MS. Digby 182), v. Þat men calle a trippe of tame swyne and of wylde swyne it is called a soundre, þat is to say, if þer be passed .v. or vi. togydres. Ibid., xxiv. When þei be not of iii. yere, men calleth hem swyne of soundre.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, e ij b. Twelfe make a Sounder of the wylde swyne, xvi. a medyll Sounder what place thay be inne, A grete sounder of swyne .xx. ye shall call.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 100. Of a bore, when he forsaketh the Sounder and feedeth alone he shall be called a Sanglier.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, IV. (Arb.), 100. A sounder of hog-steers, Or thee brownye lion too stalck fro the mounten he wissheth.
1598. Manwood, Lawes Forest, iv. 25 b. The first yeere he [i.e., the wild boar] is, a Pigg of the sounder.
[1616–. in Bullokar, Eng. Exp., and later Dicts.
1632. Guillim’s Heraldry, III. xiv. (ed. 2), 177. Skilfull Foresters and good Woodmen Doe vse to say, a … Sounder Of Swyne [etc.].
1824. J. Macculloch, Highl. Scotl., III. 407. I have … never spoken of … a sownder of swine, or a sculk of foxes.]
1840. E. E. Napier, Scenes & Sports For. Lands, I. iv. 115. The noble sight of a fine sounder (herd of wild hog) breaking covert and scouring along the plain.
1880. Tharp, Sword of Damocles, II. 219. Almost directly afterwards the whole sounder, of ten or a dozen, emerged into the open.
† 2. erron. a. The lair of a wild boar. rare–1.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XIX. 519. Rous’d by the hounds and hunters … cries, The savage from his leafy sounder flies.
b. (See quots.)
1823. Scott, Quentin D., ix. It had so happened that a sounder (i. e. in the language of the period, a boar of only two years old) had crossed the track of the proper object of the chase.
1891. C. Wise, Rockingham Cast. & Watsons, vii. 153. A wild Boar of the first year was a ‘Sounder.’
