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hearse: hearse: [14] The ancestor of hearse seems to have been a word in an ancient Italic language meaning ‘wolf’ – Oscan hirpus. The salient feature of wolves being their teeth, the Romans took the word over as hirpex and used it for a ‘large rake, of the sort used for breaking up fields’. It passed via Vulgar Latin *herpica into Old French as herse, and by now had moved another semantic step further away from its original sense ‘wolf’, for, since agricultural harrows in those times were typically toothed triangular frames, the word herse was applied to a triangular frame for holding candles, as used in a church, and particularly as placed over a coffin at funeral services.

This was its meaning when English acquired it, and it only gradually developed via ‘canopy placed over a coffin’ and ‘coffin, bier’ to the modern sense ‘funeral carriage’ (first recorded in the mid-17th century).
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rehearse: rehearse: [13] To rehearse something is etymologically to ‘rake it over’. The word comes from Old French rehercer ‘repeat’, a compound verb based on hercer ‘harrow’. This was a derivative of the noun herce ‘large agricultural rake’, from which English gets hearse. At first in English too rehearse meant simply ‘say over again, repeat, recite’; not until the late 16th century did the modern theatrical meaning begin to emerge.
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arrears (n.): mid-14c., "in times past," from Old French ariere "behind, backward," from Vulgar Latin *ad retro, from Latin ad "to" (see ad-) + retro "behind" (see retro-). Meaning "balance due" dates from early 15c.; phrase in arrears first recorded 1610s, but in arrearages is from late 14c.
bearskin (n.): from bear (n.) + skin (n.).
earshot (n.): also ear-shot, c. 1600, from ear (n.1) + shot (n.) in the sense of "range" (as in bowshot).
fearsome (adj.): "causing fear," 1768, from fear (n.) + -some (1). Occasionally used badly in the sense "timid," which ought to stick to fearful. Related: Fearsomely; fearsomeness.
hearsay (n.): "information communicated by another, gossip," mid-15c., from phrase to hear say (Middle English heren seien, Old English herdon secgan). The notion is "hear (some people) say;" from hear (v.) + say (v.). As an adjective from 1570s. Hearsay evidence (1670s) is that which the witness gives not from his own perception but what was told to him. Compare similar formation in Dutch hooren zeggen, German hörensagen.
hearse (n.): c. 1300 (late 13c. in Anglo-Latin), "flat framework for candles, hung over a coffin," from Old French herse, formerly herce "large rake for breaking up soil, harrow; portcullis," also "large chandelier in a church," from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin hirpicem (nominative hirpex) "harrow," a rustic word, from Oscan hirpus "wolf," supposedly in allusion to its teeth. Or the Oscan word may be related to Latin hirsutus "shaggy, bristly."

The funeral display is so called because it resembled a harrow (hearse in its sense of "portcullis" is not attested in English before 15c.). Sense extended to other temporary frameworks built over dead people, then to "vehicle for carrying a dead person to the grave," a sense first recorded 1640s. For spelling, see head (n.).
rehearsal (n.): late 14c., "restatement, repetition of the words of another," from rehearse + -al (2), or from Old French rehearsal "a repeating." Sense in theater and music, "act of rehearsing," is from 1570s. Pre-wedding rehearsal dinner attested by 1953.
rehearse (v.): c. 1300, "to give an account of," from Anglo-French rehearser, Old French rehercier (12c.) "to go over again, repeat," literally "to rake over, turn over" (soil, ground), from re- "again" (see re-) + hercier "to drag, trail (on the ground), be dragged along the ground; rake, harrow (land); rip, tear, wound; repeat, rehearse;" from herse "a harrow" (see hearse (n.)). Meaning "to say over again, repeat what has already been said or written" is from mid-14c. in English; sense of "practice a play, part, etc." is from 1570s. Related: Rehearsed; rehearsing.
shears (n.): "large scissors," Old English scearra (plural) "shears, scissors," from Proto-Germanic *sker- "to cut" (cognates: Middle Dutch schaer, Old High German scara, German Schere; see shear (v.)). In 17c., also "a device for raising the masts of ships" (1620s). As "scissors," OED labels it Scottish and dialectal. Chalk is no shears (1640s) was noted as a Scottish proverb expressing the gap between planning and doing.
crocodile tears: "Tears or expressions of sorrow that are insincere", Mid 16th century: said to be so named from a belief that crocodiles wept while devouring or luring their prey.