Thin slices of bacon or ham have been known as rashers for over four hundred years. In the seventeenth century, one early philologist proposed that their name arose from the fact that they are often made in a hurry: you “rashly” throw the slices of meat into the frying pan, taking little care to ensure that they don’t burn. It’s also possible, though, that rashers take their name from a now-obsolete verb, rash, meaning to cut or to slash. In turn, this verb probably developed from the Latin radere, meaning to scrape, which also gave rise to words erase and raze.