Description of a Greyhound.

Popularly, the breed\'s origin can be traced to ancient Egypt, where a bas-relief depicting a smooth-coated Saluki (Persian Greyhound) or Sloughi was found in a tomb built in 4000 BC. Analyses of DNA reported in 2004, however, suggest that the greyhound is not closely related to these breeds, but is a close relative to herding dogs.

Historically, these sight hounds were used primarily for hunting in the open where their keen eyesight is valuable. It is believed that they (or at least similarly-named dogs) were introduced to the area now known as the United Kingdom in the 5th and 6th century BC from Celtic mainland Europe although the Picts and other hunter gatherer tribes of the Northern area (now known as Scotland) were believed to have had large hounds similar to that of the deerhound before the 6th century BC.

The name \"greyhound\" is generally believed to come from the Old English grighund. \"Hund\" is the antecedent of the modern \"hound\", but the meaning of \"grig\" is undetermined, other than in reference to dogs in Old English and Norse. Its origin does not appear to have any common root with the modern word \"grey\" for colour, and indeed the greyhound is seen with a wide variety of coats. This may be confusing however as the deerhound and wolfhound are more commonly grey in colour and possibly the true origins of the greyhound. It is known that in England during the medieval period, Lords and Royalty keen to own greyhounds for sport, requested they be bred to colour variants that made them easier to view and identify in pursuit of their quarry. The lighter colours, patch Like markings and white appeared in the breed that was once ordinarily grey in colour. The greyhound is the only dog mentioned by name in the Bible.

According to Pokorny, the English name \"greyhound\" does not mean \"gray dog/hound\", but simply \"fair dog\". Subsequent words have been derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *g\'her- \'shine, twinkle\': English gray, Old High German gris \'grey, old\', Old Icelandic griss \'piglet, pig\', Old Icelandic gryja \'to dawn\', gryjandi \'morning twilight\', Old Irish grian \'sun\', Old Church Slavonic zorja \'morning twilight, brightness\'. The common sense of these words is \'to shine; bright\'.