praetersorium

Speculative, a Latin word, which outside the Old English glosses appears only in Adomnán's Life of St Columba (c. AD 700), where it is clearly a word meaning 'straying cattle', which certainly would not fit here (VC I 39, a dark prophecy about a rich man: 'Non ita video; sed homuncio miser et pauper, in die qua morietur, tria apud se vicinorum praetersoria in una retentabit maceria, unamque electam de vaccis praetersoriorum occidi jubebit sibi...'). This word has been explained in various ways, most probably as a shortened form of praeteruersorium, from praeteruersare 'to pass by' (far less probably is the suggestion that it is a combination of Latin praeter + Irish scor 'paddock'). In the present context, if the word is intended to mean 'straying cattle' then paad here cannot be the word pad 'outer garment' found in herepad, etc. One also notes the OE glosses praesorium, pressorium, equated with OE pund. That instance is often taken to = 'a pound of weight', but could in fact be pound 'enclosure where animals are kept', not a regular meaning of the word pressorium (see entry at pressour), but a conceivable one; if so, however, the form 'paad' is difficult to explain. If the present word is intended to = pad 'outer garment', then a different origin is likely; if the word is not a confusion with praetexta, note that the basic word tersorium 'drying, wiping cloth' etc. is a post-Classical Latin derivative of tergere 'to touch, wipe', so the present word might similarly be < *prae(ter)-tergere. Such a Latin verb is attested in post-medieval Latin sources, but not at an earlier period, and its meaning (something like 'that which touches over, beyond', would be difficult, though not impossible, to square with that of 'an outer garment'.