OUCH, a brooch, clasp or buckle, especially one ornamented with jewels, enamels, &c., and used to clasp a cope or other ecclesiastical vestment. It is also used, as in Exod. xxxix. 6, of the gold or silver setting of jewels. The word is an example of the misdivision of a substantive and the indefinite article, being properly nouche, a nouche being divided into an ouche, as a napron into an apron, a nadder into an adder, and, reversely, an ewt, i.e. eft, into a newt. Nouche was adapted into 0. Fr., whence English took the word, from the Late Lat. nusca, brooch; probably the origin.al is Celtic, cf. 0. Irish nasc, ring, nasgaim, fasten.
dang. not as funny as my explanation, but more plausible ;)
In Arabic this is sometimes referred to nunation. An N jumps from the end of one word to the first of another or vice versa, but that's a whole nother story.