I got a surprise when I looked up etymology of Today"s Word. I have ancestors named Eager, Eger and Ager. I have no way of knowing if they got their name from the tidal phenomenon, or from its characteristic violence. When I looked in dictionary, there are two words spelled "eager". The seond one is relate to vinegar, and the family name might be occupational, related to this.
Definition: eagre (________, ________). Forms: _. (2, 8 higra), 7 higre, 7 hygre, hyger. _. (? 6,) 7 agar, (9 dial.
ager), 79 eagre, 8 eger, egre, (9 ægir, ægre, pseudo-arch. eygre), 7 eager, eagre. [Of unknown etymology. The
conjecture which connects it with the OE. éa_or, é_or, occurring in comb., app. with sense ‘flood, ocean’, is
untenable, because the OE. _ in such a position would have become y in mod.E. Nor can it be a. ON. ægir
ocean, sea-god, as the inflexional -r would in that case have disappeared. The identity of eagre with higre
(latinized as higra by William of Malmesbury) seems clear from the sense, but is difficult to account for
phonologically. The usual pronunc. in the neighbourhood of the Humber and Trent is (________); the 17th (?
16th) c. spelling agar seems to be a phonetic rendering of this or its antecedent. The Dicts. give (________).
Identity with acker is not clearly indicated by the sense, and is very doubtful.] A tidal wave of unusual height,
caused by the rushing of the tide up a narrowing estuary; = bore n.3 Chiefly with reference to the Humber
(and Trent) and the Severn. _.[c1125 William of Malmesbury Gest. Pontific (Rolls) 292 [The Bore on the
Severn] Nautæ certe gnari, cum vident illam Higram (sic enim Anglici vocant) venire, navem obvertunt, et per
medium secantes violentiam ejus eludunt.] 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. vii. 101 With whose tumultuous waues
Shut up in narrower bounds, the Higre wildly raues. 1623 J. Taylor (Water P.) Wherry-Ferry Voy. Wks. ii.
11/1 The Flood..hath lesse mercy then Beare, Wolfe or Tyger, And..it is called the Hyger. 1704 Steele Lying
Lover, Such a Roll of the Tides as the Sailors corruptly call the Higre, instead of the Eager. 1817 Stark Hist.
Gainsburgh (1843) 522 A curious phenomenon is observed in the Trent called the Eagre or Hygre. _.[1592 Lyly
Gallathea i. i, [The scene is beside the Humber] Neptune..sendeth a Monster called the Agar, against whose
comming the waters rose, the fowles flie away, etc.] 1647 Sprigge Anglia Rediv. (1854) 76 A sudden surprisal
of the tide called Eager. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. (1650) 312 Those Agars and impetuous flows.
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