Hi I'm curious about the word Hussar. I've seen it Hussaria and Hussars. Is the word originally polish? Is this how it is spelt in polish? Is Hussaria and Hussars plurals? Is it feminine or masculine or neither? What would be the (prefix?) for it? (Like in french there is un, une presceding masculine and feminine nouns; any such in polish?
It is definately feminine. But originally it comes from Latin "hussarium" which means "chicken feathers" or more correctly "chicken wings". Roman army used this name to call weak soldiers who usually escaped battle-field during a military conflict leaving only part of their plummage which was of above-mentioned bird's origin. They still used them because when fleeing they raised the dust which was blown into the eyes of the enemy and this way helped out the outcome of the battle. After many years following Roman's empire fall due to known causes, emerging Polish state took this name to call the same type of soldiers who were scared to fight on the ground and preferred to be on the horses, thus facilitating greatly inevitable battle-field escape. Different from Roman frightened soldiers, hussars had it in the form of wings (but still made of chicken feathers, of course) in order to show their sole reliance on God and its angels' devine wings since you cannot pray with the palms of your hands touching when you flee the battle-field and hold tightly reins of the horse.
