(verb) - (1) To calculate, reckon. --Walter Skeat's Student's Pastime, 1896 (2) Shortened from calcule. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893 (3) He began to calke how the sonne was in Gemini. --Stephen Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, 1509
(adjective) - Dismal, gloomy, distressful; from Anglo-Saxon dreorig, sorrowful, Icelandic dreyrigr, gory. --Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(verb) - To inherit the whole property; to get possession of the whole of anything; Eastern England. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(verb/noun) - (1) To sprinkle or splash water upon. --C. Clough Robinson's Dialect of Leeds, 1862 (2) A splash of rain or mud. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - Refuse, trash, as the smallest kind of potatoes, not fully grown, are called "mere drabloch." The same is applied to bad butcher-meat. Teutonic drabbe is rendered dregs, Belgium drabbig, muddy. Thus the term might be borrowed from liquors. --John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
(verb) - Noting a family resemblance; usually applied in the case of children to parents or other ancestors. We speak of seeing the "Folger look." --William Macy's Nantucket Scrap Basket, c. 1916
(noun) - (1) A diversion common enough at country wakes and fairs. The performance requires a large circle enclosed with ropes, which is occupied by as many persons as are permitted to play. All of these except one, who is the jingler, have their eyes blinded with handkerchiefs. The eyes of the jingler are not covered, but he holds a small bell in each hand, which he is obliged to keep ringing incessantly, so long as the play continues, which is commonly about twenty minutes, but sometimes is extended to half an hour. --Joseph Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 1801 (2) His object was to elude the pursuit of his companions, and he won the prize if he was still free when the play ceased. It was an amusing sight to see the men trying to catch the jingler, running into each other's arms and catching every one but the right one. --Peter Ditchfield's Old English Sports, 1891
(verb) - Quarreling, or contending with a loud voice. Raising a wrow is exciting a quarrel and confusion in the streets. From wrawe, angry. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814
(adjective) - (1) Married. --B.E.'s New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, 1699 (2) Noozed, married, hanged. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(noun) - A train of several cars which left St. John's on the eve of the 24th of May with trouters for the various ponds of their choice, dropping them off wherever they wished along the railway line and picking them up the following night to bring them back with their catches, hangovers, fly-bites, chills, etc. Newfoundland. --D.W. Prowse's Newfoundland Guide Book, 1911
(noun) - A boundary mark in an unenclosed field. It is often a low post, thence called a dool-post; from Anglo-Saxon dælan. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(verb/adjective) - (1) To knock with a dull sound, as with the fist in the back or ribs. Stupid, dizzy, or giddy, from an affection of the brain; said especially of sheep. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897 (2) To stupefy. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830 (3) Stupefied. Dunt sheep, one that mopes about from a disorder in his head; Norfolk. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(noun) - (1) One who habitually saunters about. From dander, to stroll, wander; to trifle, misspend one's time. To talk in a rambling, incoherent way. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905 (2) On the dander, on a drinking spree. --Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
(noun/verb) - The act of wasting time in bad company; immodest conduct; explained as denoting immodest behavior in Ayrshire. The latter part of the word is obviously from the verb to taigle, to detain, to hinder. Shall we suppose that the term is formed from the idea of a servant being hindered, or pretending to be so, in seeking for eggs? --John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
(noun) - A young turkey, fit for the table but not fully grown--a turkey-poult. In Scottish, pout is a young partridge or moor-fowl. From French poulet, a pullet. --Edward Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, 1823
(pl. noun) - Loaded dice are called high and low men, or high and low fulhams, by Ben Jonson and other writers of his time, either because they were made at Fulham in London's West End or from that place being the resort of sharpers. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(interjection) - An interjection. This is a word, like others of the same class, the precise meaning of which is not easy to define. --James Jennings' Dialect of Somersetshire, 1869
(verb) - To treat and exhibit as an object of interest. Originally to take visitors to see the lions formerly kept at the Tower of London. Hence lion-hunter, one given to lionizing people, popularized by Dickens in Mr. and Mrs. Leo Hunter in Pickwick Papers. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - The art of secret writing, characters, or cyphers known only to persons that correspond with one another. Steganographist, an artist in private writing. --Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(verb) - I'll do it, and chance the ducks, meaning "I'll do it and take my chances," is in reference to a boat's crew arrayed in clean white jumpers or "ducks" ready for inspection when it is discovered that some duty involving the possible soiling of their garments has been neglected. They accordingly say, "We must do it, and chance the ducks"--that is, run the risk of our ducks being splashed. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(noun) - (1) A salve which was supposed to cure the wound, being applied to the weapon that made it. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755 (2) The direction, "Bind the wound and grease the nail," is still common when a wound has been given with a rusty nail. Sir Kenelm Digby says the salve is sympathetic, and quotes several instances to prove that "as the sword is treated, the wound inflicted by it feels similar. Thus, if the instrument is kept wet the wound will feel cool; if held to the fire it will feel hot." --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1887
(noun) - A salve which was supposed to cure the wound, being applied to the weapon that made it.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(pl. noun) - When two brothers marry two sisters, the children are known as double cousins. Such relationships are very common in the Ozarks, and are considered somehow significant. In referring to each other these people seldom say simply, "He's my cousin," but rather, "We're double cousins." The word cousin may indicate very distant relationship, but own cousin always means first cousin. --Vance Randolph's and George Wilson's Down in the Holler, 1953
(verb/noun) - A capital punishment inflicted on a malefactor on the seashore by laying him bound on the sands till the next full tide carried him away. From Norman falese, sands, rocks, cliffs. --John Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1839
(verb/noun) - (1) To bewitch by a certain evil influence of the eye. --Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749 (2) Reginald Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft 1584 telleth us that our English people in Ireland were much given to this idolatry in Queen Elizabeth's time insomuch that, there being a disease amongst their cattle that grew blind, they did commonly execute people for it, calling them eye-biting witches. --Thomas Ady's Candle in the Dark; or, A Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft, 1656
(verb) - To bewitch an animal with the evil eye. Northern England. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(adverb) - To come home by the villages, to be drunk; a provincial expression. If, on the other hand, one comes home by the fields, one has no opportunity for drinking. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(adjective) - Superstitiously afraid. This is the word of which eerie is a later form. The Anglo-Saxon form is earh. Aberdeenshire. --Walter Skeat's Student's Pastime, 1896
(noun) - A policy practised by a nation or party in politics of dabbling in minor acts in a hostile manner while they are unable to deal with the larger issues. It was first applied in 1898 to the policy of France in reference to the conflicting colonial interests of that country and Great Britain. The Times quoted this as "a policy of pin-pricks," which forthwith became a political phrase. --J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
(noun) - A rude, violent person, who pulls others about; whence the common name for a dog who is a good ratter. --Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(noun) - A calfskin stuffed with straw in the rude similitude of a calf, similar enough to deceive the imperfect perception organs of a cow. At milking time the tulchan, with head duly bent, was set as if to suck. The fond cow, looking round, fancied that her calf was busy and that all was right, and so gave her milk freely, which the cunning maid was straining in white abundance into the pail all the while. King James's Scotch bishops were, by the Scotch people, derisively called "tulchan bishops." --Thomas Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, 1845
(adjective) - (1) Almost choked or stifled. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871 (2) Quackle, to interrupt breathing; to suffocate; to choke. East Anglia. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - Properly, a locked-up chamber in which articles of dress, stores, etc. are kept; by extension, a privy. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(noun) - A young or small child; a brat. Often used depreciatively, and formerly as a synonym of bastard. Possibly a corruption of German bänkling, bastard, from bank, bench, i.e. a child begotten on a bench, and not in the marriage bed; 1500s-1800s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(verb) - (1) To sleep. In the old pugilistic days, a man knocked down, or "out of time," was said to be "sent to dorse." But whether because he was senseless, or because he lay on his back, is not known, though most likely the latter. Formerly spelt dorse; from Gaelic dosal, slumber. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887 (2) To dorse with a woman signifies to sleep with her. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(noun) - A means of livelihood; a working for one's bread. From "gain-bread." --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964
(verb) - A whimsical corruption of the word concur, substituting dog for cur as equivalent. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(adjective) - Furious or mad. We yet retain in some parts of England the word wodnes for furiousness or madness. --Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605
(noun) - (1) Plague, pestilence; from Old English manncwealm; c. 900-1300s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908 (2) Slaughter of men; from Robert of Gloucester. --Herbert Coleridge's Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
(noun) - (1) Sometimes a real horse, sometimes the figure of one cut out and carried by the sportsman. It being found that wild fowl, which would take alarm at the appearance of a man, would remain quiet when they saw only a horse approaching, advantage was taken of it, for the shooter to conceal himself behind a real or artificial horse to get within shot of his game. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859 (2) To supply the want of a stalking-horse you may make one of pieces of old canvas, which you must form into the shape of an old horse, with the head bending downwards, as if he grazed. --Gervase Markham's English Husbandman, 1615
(adjective) - Anciently, when a person was placed in a coffin, he was said to be "chested." Chaucer has, "He is now dead and nailed in his chest." In the heading of the 50th chapter of Genesis, the word is used in reference to Joseph, of whom it is said, "He dieth and is chested." --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
(noun) - (1) The toes of a man who turns his feet inward. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887 (2) The toes of a man who walks duck-footed. --John Farmer's and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
(interjection) - A word of command to horses in a team meaning "go to the left." This was horse-language in the 14th century of Chaucer. Heit scot and Heit broc are names still given to cart-horses. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(verb) - When a person gets the worst of a bargain, he is said to have "bought the rabbit." From an old story about a man selling a cat to a foreigner for a rabbit. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(verb/noun) - To parboil. A slight boiling. If meat seems likely to be tainted before it can be dressed, the cook must "give it a plow" to check the progress of decay and, if possible, keep it a little while at stand. In John Ray's South and East Country Words 1674 the same word is written play. He speaks of a "playing heat," and says that in Norfolk it is pronounced plaw. It may be from some French term of cookery, in books not easily accessible, or it may have descended to us from Anglo-Saxon pleoh danger. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(noun) - (1) In the North of England and in Scotland, a midwife is called a howdy, or howdy-wife. I take howdy to be a diminutive of how, and to be derived from this almost obsolete opinion of old women. I once heard an etymology of howdy to the following effect: "How d'ye"--midwives being great gossipers. --John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities, 1813 (2) Brand sneers at the derivation from "'how d'ye'--midwives being great gossipers," but I think that which he supplies is far more ridiculous. I have not been fortunate enough to discover any original to my satisfaction, but I may perhaps be permitted to observe, in defence of what has been so much ridiculed, that "how d'ye" is a natural enough salutation to a sick woman from the midwife, who, by the way, is called in German die Wehmutter, or "oh dear mother." --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(noun/verb) - In Law, the receiving of a person into friendly custody who otherwise must have gone to prison. It differs from bail because a person is, in this case, to be at large from the day of his being mainprised. --Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(noun) - This expression (from French, lit de justice) literally denoted the seat or throne upon which the King of France was accustomed to sit when personally present in Parliament, and from this original meaning the expression came, in course of time, to signify the Parliament itself. Under the ancient monarchy of France, a bed of justice denoted a solemn session of the king in Parliament. According to the principle of the old French constitution the authority of the Parliament, being derived entirely from the crown, ceased when the king was present. Consequently, all ordinances enrolled at a bed of justice were acts of the royal will, and of more authority than decisions of Parliament. --William Walsh's Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1900
(noun) - A round, hollow metallic ball having a neck with a slender pipe opening to the ball which, being partly filled with water and laid on the fire, the steam or vapourous air is forced out with great noise and violence. It is used to blow the fire, and in Italy as a cure for smoky chimneys. --John Coxe's Medical Dictionary, 1817
(noun) - Sympathetic powder (Pulvis sympatheticus) of Sir Kenelm Digby, was composed of calcined sulphate of iron, prepared in a particular manner. It was long supposed to be able to cure a wound if applied to the weapon that inflicted it, or even to a portion of the bloody clothes. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(verb) - To put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well. A forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(pl. noun) - The sun's rays, as they sometimes appear in showery weather, popularly believed to suck up the water from the earth into the sun, there to be converted into rain, and held to be a sign of coming showers. --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
(adjective) - Applied to a couple whose banns of marriage have been proclaimed three times in church. Also axed-out. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
(adjective) - (1) Affected with weakness of nerves. The word seems to be a corruption of nervous, and therefore cut out of its proper place, but in point of fact, the word nervous is a mere modern abuse. Mr. Pegge recommends nervish to be substituted for nervous, to signify weakness of the nerves. And by all means, let it be put down to our credit that we have anticipated his recommendation by many years. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830 (2) To preserve a distinction when we speak of such a man, and of the disorder by which his strength is impaired, we should rather say a nervish man, and a nervish disorder, which termination conforms with similar words, such as waspish, devilish, feverish--all expressive of bad qualities or disordered habits. --Samuel Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, 1844
(verb) - To splice two pieces of wood together. From Jutland Danish at skarre ved, to join two pieces together. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(adjective) - (1) Shaped like a breast or teat. --W. Tarton's Medical Glossary in Which the Various Branches of Medicine are Deduced from Their Original Languages, 1802 (2) Related to mammifer, an animal which has breasts or paps to suckle its young; from Latin mamma, a breast, and fero, to bear. --Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
(noun) - A small cushion or pillow. In surgery, a small olive-shaped mass of lint used for plugging deep wounds; diminutive of pulvinus, cushion. --Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 1897
(verb) - To climb up the bole trunk of a tree by the muscular action of the arms, thighs, and legs. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814
(verb) - To tie a handkerchief around a man's arm to designate that he is to play the part of a female at a dance where there are not enough ladies to go around. He is then said to dance "lady fashion," and his reward is being allowed to set with the ladies between dances. This privilege, however, quite often makes him feel as out of place as a cow on a front porch. --Ramon Adams' Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
(noun) - A beverage compounded of buffalo gall and water in the proportion of a gill to a pint, the medicinal virtue of which was thought to have been in an exact ratio to its filthy taste. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(noun) - The drinking glasses of the Middle Ages, made at Venice, were said to break into shivers if poison were put into them. Venice glass, from its excellency, became a synonym for perfection. --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(noun) - A term of ridicule for a citizen. In Henry VIII's time, flat round caps were the height of fashion but, as usual, when their date was worn out, they became ridiculous. Citizens of London continued to wear them long after they were generally disused, and were often satirized for it. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(interjection/adjective) - An expression of intimacy. To be hail-fellow with anyone, to be on such a footing as to greet him with "hail-fellow" at meeting. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(verb) - To laugh, or rather to have a countenance expressive of laughter, without laughing out. From Icelandic flyra. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(noun/verb) - (1) A person who entraps or decoys others into actions or positions which may be to his advantage and to their ruin or loss. Also applied to an animal. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926 (2) A snare; from Trapani, a part of Italy where our ships, being insidiously invited on the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were unjustly detained. --Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(noun) - A company of people, especially a disorderly or vulgar crowd; a mob, rabble; Scotland, Ireland, and Northumberland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - The shirt of a railroad boomer laborer was often given this title because as an itinerant worker he traveled light and supposedly wore the same shirt for thousands of miles. --Marjorie Tallman's Dictionary of American Folklore, 1959
(noun) - A white hat with a black mourning hatband, probably because a butcher would rather not wear a black hat. White hats and black bands have, however, become genteel ever since the late Prince Consort Albert patronized them. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(noun) - That species of intimidation practised by masters on their servants, when the latter are compelled to vote as their masters please. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(interjection) - (1) A word used in expressions of surprise, chiefly by older people. "What the farrups are ye at?" --Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883 (2) Ferrups, an exclamation of mild imprecation, especially in the phrase, "by the ferrups!" Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derwentwater. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(adjective/adverb) - Cheerful; in good spirits; friendly; hospitable. As an adverb, cheerfully. Renfrewshire, Kirkcudbright. --Mairi Robinson's Concise Scots Dictionary, 1985
(adjective/adverb) - Out of harness and the working habit. A horse has the collar slipped over its neck when put to work. --Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
(noun) - (1) In Papal times in Britain, it was considered an act of ill-luck for a newly-married couple to retire for the night until the bridal bed had been blessed. --Edwin and Mona Radford's Encyclopædia of Superstitions, 1949 (2) The pride of the clergy and the bigotry of the laity was such that newly-married people were made to wait till midnight after the marriage day before they would pronounce a benediction, unless they were handsomely paid for it, and the couple durst not undress without it, on pain of excommunication. --Francis Blomefield's Topographical History of Norfolk, c. 1752
(verb/noun) - The act of exhaling a mouthful of smoke and then inhaling it through the nose. Considered ultrasophisticated by teenagers. --Harold Wentworth's Dictionary of American Slang, 1960
(pl. noun) - (1) Small fragments of very thin things, as of dry leaves or dust of tobacco; from Norwegian flus, Swedish flisa, a scale, fragment. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878 (2) Very small flakes in bottled liquors. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(noun) - A dull-witted pedant; a foolish pretender to learning; from Nicholas Dorbellus (c. 1400-1475), a professor of scholastic philosophy at Poitiers, and a follower of Duns Scotus, whose name gave us dunce. --Joseph Shipley's Dictionary of Early English, 1955
(verb) - To pilfer stealthfully. It seems to combine the meanings of English slang crib and Cheshire creem, to hide. --Thomas Darlington's The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(noun) - The weight formerly used in the navy, by which the purser--an officer appointed by the lords of the admirality to take charge of the provisions and slops of a ship of war, and to see that they were carefully distributed--retained an eighth for "waste," and the men received only seven-eighths of what was supplied by the government. --Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867
(noun) - Drunkard's nose, a nose with "grog blossoms" or a "copper nose," such as is possessed by an "admiral of the red." --Albert Barrère's Argot and Slang Dictionary, 1911
(noun) - For cutting of meat, persons of rank kept a carver, who was designated the scissor, or carptor. --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
(noun) - A small child or diminutive person. Fairies were formerly called urchins. --Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
(noun) - This word, as far as I know, only occurs in the two following phrases. "As hard as a brazzil," is an expression of frequent occurrence to denote any kind of unusual hardness. If, for example, the bread is overbaked it is said to be baked "as hard as a brazzil," or if the housewife cannot break her Bath brick a cake of abrasive clay used for household polishing easily, she exclaims, "It's as hard as a brazzil." The other expression is "as fond as a brazzil." Here the word brazzil probably means a low, impudent girl, in which sense it is sometimes used still. -- Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(verb/noun) - To vex; to be in a feaze is to be in a state of excitement; still commonly colloquial in the States, especially in Virginia and the South. It was used formerly in the same sense as tease, as in teasing wool, but more particularly applied to curry-combing. "I'll pheeze you," says Christophoro Sly in The Taming of the Shrew meaning that he will vex the worthy hostess by staying--like teasel burrs in wool. Another authority regards it as derived from the Anglo-Saxon fysan, used to denote the rapid and noisy movement of water, and from which we get the modern fizz. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(noun) - Dry, withering weather. The wind, when such prevails, blows out of the east and northeast, just as it blew on the prophet Jonah when it withered his gourd. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(adjective) - (1) Surfeited. --J.F. Palmer's Devonshire Dialect Glossary, 1837 (2) Given to gluttony, overeating, &c. --James Barclay's Complete and Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1848 The word is related to Latin crapula, which meant excessive eating and imbibing, along with the unpleasant aftereffects. Crapula was itself adapted from a Greek forerunner.
(verb) - An admonition to one inclined to exaggerate or use explosive language. The allusion is to beer. "A pint of beer, Miss, and draw it mild." --Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(pl. noun) - A term for specie, or money. It would appear to have some connection with Dutch spaunde, "chips," slang for money; and there is a word oolik, bad, wretched. The term probably originated in New York in perversion of these words. This term has become common among English turfites. --Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1889
(noun) - (1) One who keeps a knick-knackatory; a dealer in knick-knacks. Knick-knackery, knick-knacks collectively. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908 (2) Nicknackitorian, a dealer in all manner of curiosities, such as Egyptian mummies, Indian implements, antique shields, helmets, &c. --London's Annual Register, 1802
(noun) - (1) A light flaw which suddenly careens a vessel and passes off. --Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867 (2) This phrase for a little wind, hardly sufficient for moving a sailing ship, arises from the following legend: Eric, King of Sweden, was so familiar with evil spirits that whichever way he turned his cap the wind would blow. Hence, his cap was said to be full of wind. --Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(verb) - To lock. Unchubb, to unlock. From the well known make of lock by Charles Chubb (1772-1846), English locksmith. --Paul Tempest's Lag's Lexicon: A Dictionary of the English Prison, 1950 (where is the definition that it's an erection from? Twitter? Really?)
(noun) - Opposition to the assertion that the persons from time to time reported to have died aged a century or more had really attained to that age. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(adjective) - To be for all waters, to be able to turn to any occupation, like a fish that can live in either fresh or salt water. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(adjective) - Strange, as an unkard place. A servant is unkard on his first going to a fresh servitude. --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Yorkshire, 1788
(verb) - I cannot do-withall, I cannot help it. This phrase is not uncommon in early writers. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - The action or pastime of riding on bob-sleighs. Bobbing is carried out either on bobs (five passengers) or boblets (three passengers). --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(adjective) - Pertaining to the urine of horses; hippuric acid, an acid obtained from the urine of horses; from Greek hippos horse, and ouron, urine. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
(noun) - An instrument for measuring the distance which a wheel rolls over a road; an odometer or perambulator. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889
(adjective) - To turn cat in pan is a proverbial expression signifying a changing of sides in religion or politics. It has been suggested that it should be cate, the old word for cake, which being baked and consequently turned in the pan aptly elucidates the meaning of the proverb. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(verb) - To hold a merry meeting, with noise and riot, but without doing injury to anyone. It seems generally to include the idea of a wasteful use of food and of intemperate use of strong drink. Could we suppose that the proper pronunciation were guleravage it might be derived from French gueule, the mouth, the throat, also the stomach, conjoined with the verb already mentioned; to waste, to gormandize. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(adjective) - Held up by a woman; an excuse for being late on the job. Pacific Northwest. --Walter McCulloch's Woods Words: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Loggers' Terms, 1958
(noun) - (1) Food, familiarly. --C. Clough Robinson's Glossary of Words Pertaining to the Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876 (2) Materials to support the belly. --John Ash's Dictionary of the English Language, 1775
(noun) - The science of calculating nativities, or predicting the future events of life from the stars predominant at birth. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(noun) - A skirmish or fighting between two or more. It is oft-times confounded with assalt. But they differ in that an assalt is only a wrong to the party, but an affray may also be without word or blow given, as if a man shew himself furnished with armour or weapons not usually worn, it may strike fear into others unarmed. Of the French affres, a fright. --Thomas Blount's Law Dictionary and Glossary, 1717
(noun/verb) - (1) A soft, pulpy substance. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855 (2) To squeeze, press; to beat, crush, or trample into a soft mass. Hence jammocked, worn out, exhausted. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(pl. noun) - (1) Spectacles. --R. Pearse Chope's The Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire, 1891 (2) Sparticles, spectacles. --Patrick Devine's Folklore of Newfoundland in Old Words, Phrases, and Expressions, 1937
(noun) - In Newcastle, treacle made hard by boiling. Called in other places in the North clag-candy, lady's taste, slittery, tom trot, and treacle ball. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(verb) - To cheat; to defraud. Similar in origin to such words as burke, boycott, and bogus. It is now classed as slang in England but for a long period was much used by standard English writers. In America however, the word is still looked upon as orthodox and is applied to all kinds of fraudulent dealing and deceit. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(noun) - This odd mode of expressing pleasure, which seems to be taken from the practice of animals who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears, is very common in our old dramatists. "I will bite thee by the ear." Romeo and Juliet. --Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(noun) - (1) A state of extreme carefulness approaching to miserliness. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892 (2) A state of want or deficiency; poverty. Cumberland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(noun) - (1) A human stallion; a fellow who debauches many country girls. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824 (2) From kintra, country, and cooser, a stallion. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879 revision
(pl. noun) - Trousers buttoned breeches-fashion, having the flap, not the fly, front. Warwickshire. --G.F. Northall's Folk-Phrases of Four Counties: Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire, 1894
(noun) - Beds collectively, especially in a hospital. How long will it be before the little job of putting on a shirt button is called sewage? --Eric Partridge's Chamber of Horrors: A Glossary of Official Jargon, Both English and American, 1952
(adjective) - (1) Within Lancashire, to gawm is to understand or comprehend, and a man is said to gawm that which he can hold in his hand. For this reason, a person is said there to be gawmless when his fingers are so cold and frozen that he has not proper use of them. --Rev. John Watson's Uncommon Words Used in Halifax, 1775 (2) Heedless; careless; inattentive. Senseless; vacant; lubberly. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(adjective/adverb) - Out of all restraint. Derived from the exclamation "ho!"--used to stop the combat at a tournament. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(noun) - (1) An inclination or fondness for a person of the opposite sex. --R. Pearse Chope's Dialect of Hartland Devonshire, 1891 (2) Simmithy, to look after admiringly; to pay attention to. Also written simathy. Northwest Devonshire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - Throwing with quads metal pieces of type. One takes up the quads, shakes them, and throws them after the manner of throwing dice. When the number of quads with the nicks appearing uppermost are counted, the highest thrower being the winner. --John Southward's Dictionary of Typography, 1875
(adjective) - (1) Of or pertaining to laughter; from Greek gelastikos, inclined to laugh. From Greek gelos, laughter, and skopeo, to see. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895 (2) Geloscopy, divination performed by means of laughter; divining any person's qualities or character by observation of the manner of his laughter. --Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1736
(noun) - The ordinary vegetable or fruit market, in contradistinction to a meat or fish market. --R. Pearse Chope's Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire, 1891
(noun) - The barbarous practice of throwing at cocks, formerly a custom at Shrovetide. This unmanly pastime is, I fear, not entirely abolished in some parts of England. Query--if the word sqwoilin is from cwellan, to kill? Sqwoilin is also used for throwing. --John Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Wiltshire, 1842
(noun) - A species of insanity in which the patient evinces a rage for reciting poetry. From Greek metreon, metre, and mainomai, to be insane. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
(adjective) - A suggested explanation of a person's stupidity. It was formerly believed that the scent of the flowering bean induced stupidity in the recipient of it. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - A peculiarly shaped kiln belonging to the Customs, and situated near the London docks, in which are collected contraband goods, as tobacco, cigars, tea, &c. which have been smuggled, till a sufficient quantity has been accumulated, when the whole is set fire to and consumed. --Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
(verb) - (1) To stretch or expand; to lay out a corpse; from Saxon streccan. Streeking-board, a board on which the limbs of the deceased are stretched out and composed. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825 (2) Streeker, a layer-out of the dead. --Francis Robinson's Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Whidby Yorkshire, 1876
“The laqui is a strip of leather, five or six feet long, to each end of which is fastened a stone about two pounds weight. The huntsman, who is on horseback, holds one of these in his hands, and whirling the other, slings the string at the animal in so dexterous a manner that the stones form a tight knot around his legs" - Books on Google Play
Spanish America: Or A Descriptive, Historical, and Geographical Account of the Dominions of Spain in the Western Hemisphere, Continental and Insular; Illustrated by a Map of Spanish North America, and the West-India Islands; a Map of Spanish South America, and an Engraving, Representing the Comparative Altitudes of the Mountains in Those Regions, Volume 2
(noun) - In the Ptolemaic system, the moon was fixed in the innermost of nine spheres which revolved around the earth. The inflected genitive moon's sphere occurs several times in early plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream. --C.H. Herford's Notes on the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
On Mid-Lent Sunday the Welsh customarily drank braggot, a meadlike beverage made of "spiced and honeyed ale." According to John Ray's North Country Words (1691), braggot is derived from the Welsh "brag, signifying malt, and gots, a honeycomb."
(noun) - (1) Ale given to the older workmen by an apprentice or new hand as an entrance fee on taking his place amongst them. --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879 (2) An old custom amongst miners, when a man enters first into work, to pay his first day's wages for ale. --William Hooson's Miner's Dictionary, 1747 (3) A stranger will generally be asked to "stand his foot-ale." --A. Benoni Evans' Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs, 1881 (4) Drink given by the seller to the buyer at a cattle fair. --D. Nicholson's Manuscript Collection of Caithness Scotland Words (5) A fine paid by a young man when found courting out of his own district. --William Dickinson's Glossary of the Cumberland Dialect, 1899
(adjective) - Such as the dictionary authorizes or approves. "I don't think that word is dictionatical." --J.C. Ruppenthal's Word-List from Kansas, 1916
(noun) - An artisan; one who is versed in mechanics; from French mechanicien. --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964
(noun) - Some authors mean by it a female phantom with which a man, in his sleep, sometimes believes he has intercourse, as incubus, applied to the male phantom, with which a female may dream she is similarly situate. Incubus, a sensation of a heavy weight at the epigastrum during sleep. The sensation of suffocation was formerly ascribed to the person's being possessed. The disease requires no particular treatment. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(noun) - (1) If a young woman, while she is shelling peas, meets with a pod of nine peas, the first young man who crosses the threshold afterwards is to be her husband. In Scotland it is, or was, a custom to rub with peastraw fodder made from pea stalks and leaves a girl to whom her lover has not been true. --W.C. Hazlitt's Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles, 1870 (2) I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her. --William Shakespeare's As You Like It, 1600 (3) I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod-time. --Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV, 1597
(noun) - A small sponge cake formerly eaten at funerals and sent out to friends, as wedding cake is now; Lancashire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - A hundred-pound gentleman was a term of contempt implying pretentious poverty. King Lear. --C.H. Herford's Glossary of the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(noun) - Wrath arising not at the time, but after reflection on an insult or injury, which seemed at the time light, has shown its enormity. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(noun) - On the Labrador coast, gulching has a meaning peculiar to that region and to those who frequent it. In summer, men, women, and children from Newfoundland spend some weeks there fishing and living in a very promiscuous way. As there is no tree for shelter for hundreds of miles of islands and shores, parties resort to the hollows for secret indulgence. Hence gulching has, among them, become a synonym for living a wanton life. --George Story's Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 1982
(noun) - A joker; one who breaks a jest. "A college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of my humour." Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(noun) - An obscene or indelicate act or remark, in allusion to some narratives in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - (1) One of the treasury notes issued by the Republic of Texas in 1838 which in 1862 inspired the still-used term greenback. --Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, 1951 (2) Called from the color of the paper. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940 (3) Yellowboy, a gold coin. A very low word. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(verb) - To make inarticulate sounds; to mutter; adopted from Old French barbeter, Latin balbutire, to stammer. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(noun) - (1) The law of the cudgel. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922 (2) "Club law," with pun on staff. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(pl. noun) - (1) Hard times. The idea of a cold day as a day of misfortunes appears current in Shakespeare's play Timon of Athens (Act I, Scene i). It has lately appeared in the phrase, "It's a cold day when I get left!" --Appleton Morgan's Study in the Warwickshire Dialect, 1900 (2) There'll be cold crowdings if bread gets much dearer. --G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
(noun) - (1) The act of blowing a gas or vapour into a cavity of the body, as when tobacco smoke is injected into the rectum. --Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859 (2) From Latin sufflatus, blown up, puffed out. --Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(noun) - Villages in some parts of the country formerly possessed buildings known as "beggar barns." These barns usually belonged to the farm which was situated nearest the church, and wayfaring beggars were always given gratis a night's lodging and a meal in them. It was a popular belief that such homeless wanderers had a legal right to sleep in the church porch, and it was purely a sense of public decency which substituted the beggar barn. --Frederick Hackwood's Good Old Times, 1910
(verb) - To take secretly more than one's rightful share. To make false tax returns and smouge the difference. --William O. Rice's Pioneer Dialect of Southern Illinois, 1902
God save the mark This parenthetic phrase can be used as an exclamation of contempt, impatience, or derision; as a formula spoken to avert an evil omen; or as a phrase serving to soften or lessen the offensiveness of something said. Contrary to popular belief that this expression was originally used by archers, it is now believed to have been originally used by midwives at the birth of a child bearing a “mark.” Shakespeare popularized the phrase and its variant bless the mark in his plays.
He had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. (Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591)
In modern use, save the mark is most often heard as an ironic expression of contempt.
The crisis of apathetic melancholy … from which he emerged by the reading of Marmontel’s Memoirs (Heaven save the mark!) and Wordsworth’s poetry. (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902)
(noun) - A husband who knows of and endures his wife's unfaithfulness; a contented cuckold. From woodwale, a bird whose nest is invaded by the cuckoo, and so has the offspring of another palmed off on it for its own. --John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
(pl. noun) - James I became the subject of much ridicule, not quite unmerited, for putting honours to sale. He created the order of the baronet, which he disposed of for a sum of money; and it seems that he sold common knighthood as low as £30. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
The evening before May-day is termed "Mischief Night" by the young people of Burnley and the surrounding district. All kinds of mischief are then perpetrated. Formerly, shopkeepers' sign-boards were exchanged. Young men and women play each other tricks by placing branches of trees, shrubs, or flowers under each other's windows, or before their doors. All these have a symbolic rhyming meaning, significant if not always complimentary; thus a thorn implies scorn, wicken (mountain ash) 'my dear chicken,' a bramble for one who likes to ramble, &c. Much ill-feeling is, at times, engendered by this custom. --John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson's Lancashire Folklore, 1867
(adjective) - (1) Vicious, roguish, with a connotation of cunning. A jibbling horse is said to be gafty. A boy who is full of tricks is called a gafty youth. Used exclusively of boys. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887 (2) Sly; tricky; cunning; not to be trusted; mischievous. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905 (3) A gafty person is a suspected person. --Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
(verb) - (1) In some old cookery books we are told to "soil milk before using it." This, at first sight, appears to be a curious direction. If, however, we use the correct modern orthography of the first word, we shall find that we are able to sile it--that is, to pass it through a fine sile, or sieve, in order that it shall be freed from hairs or other impurities. --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882 (2) To soil milk, to cleanse it. --John Ray's North Country Words, 1674 (3) To pour. He siled a gallon of ale down his throat. --Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1787
(noun) - (1) A cane, or pipe made of silver, or steel, with a sharp-pointed end, us'd in tapping those that are troubled with the dropsy. --Edward Phillips' New World of Words, 1706 (2) An instrument used for evacuating fluids or gases from cavities. It consists of a perforator or stilet, and of a cannula tube which is so adapted to the perforator that when the puncture is made both enter the wound with facility, after which the stilet being withdrawn, the cannula remains in the wound and affords the fluid a ready passage outwards. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844 (3) The handle of the trocar is of wood, the cannula of silver, and the perforator of steel. --Samuel Sharp's Treatise on the Operations of Surgery, 1747
(noun) - (1) In English law, the Court of the Dusty Foot. By a Court of Pie Poudre at Bartholomew Fair 1804 a young gentleman paid three pounds sixteen shillings for taking away an actress when she was going to perform, and five pounds for criminal conduct to the husband, the lady being married. --Joseph Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, 1841 (2) Piepowder is derived from the French words pied, a foot, and poudre, dusty. It is applied to a court held in fairs to yield justice to buyers and sellers, and for redress of disorders committed in them. It was so called because it was most usually held in summer, and suitors to this court were most commonly country clowns with dusty feet, and from the expedition in hearing and deciding the causes being before the dust goes off the shoes of the people's feet. --Joseph Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosæ, 1819 (3) Probably from pied puldreaux, a peddler. --George Mason's Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary, 1801
(noun) - Anything having a wild, unnatural taste is said to have daught; though this taste be not felt for some days after the thing has been eaten it is said to "have a daught behind it." Southern Scotland. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(adjective) - (1) Ugly, frightful. In North Yorkshire growsome refers to fine weather for the crops, but grewsome means ugly. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814 (2) Of an animal, apt to grow; hence growsomeness. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(pl. noun) - Words contracted from objections and solutions, applied in ridicule of the polemic divines of the time of Cromwell, who represented the arguments of their adversaries in the shape of objections--noted in the margins as ob, and their own replies as sol, solutions. Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1664) contains Pass for deep and learned scholars, / Although but paltry ob-and-sollers. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832
(noun) - In Greek and Jewish antiquities, the time of the new moon, the beginning of the lunar month; also, the festival held at that time. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(adjective) - (1) Confused through liquor; slightly drunk. Nazzy, stupified through drink. --C. Clough Robinson's Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876 (2) Nazzle, to be in a dreamy, stupid, abstracted state; Yorkshire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(verb/noun) - (1) To paint the face. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859 (2) To paint the face with fard, white paint; to hide defects and improve the complexion; 1400s-1600s. Figuratively, to embellish or gloss over anything. Paint, especially white paint, for the face. Zacharie Boyd's Zion's Flowers (c. 1620) wrote, "I have farded half my face with fard most rare." --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(noun) - A magical charm, the application of which was supposed to deprive a thief, who refused to confess his crime, of eyesight; from a 16th-century manuscript on magic. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(noun) - (1) One who habitually fails to take notice; an inadvertent person; 1600s. Inadvertisement, want of attention or observation. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901 (2) Inadvertency, not sufficiently observing; a want of care. --Nathaniel Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(pl. noun) - Horseshoes purchased by the keg in various sizes to put on the horse's feet cold. These are used where there is no blacksmith to make a perfect fit. --Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
(noun) - (1) A kind of cant word for anything petty or small. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755 (2) A fairy. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850 (3) Of obscure origin and meaning. Some have identified it with the name of a fairy knight favoured by Queen Mab, the wife of Oberon. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
(noun) - (1) A chemical physician, or one who uses chemical medicines. --John Redman Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817 (2) Iatrochemistry, the chemical theory of medicine adopted by Paracelsus. --Sir James Murray's Oxford English Dictionary, 1909
(noun) - (1) The old name of the ant, an insect very generally named from the sharp urinous smell of an anthill. From Dutch miere, pismiere, an ant. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878 (2) An ant discharges an irritant formic acid vulgarly regarded as urine. --Charles Annandale's Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, 1897 (3) Also written passimere in North Yorkshire, pisamoor in East Lancashire, pishamer in Norfolk, pishemeer in East Anglia, and pissymyour in South Cheshire, and pishminnies in Scotland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(noun) - In the state of one mesmerized, who is asleep and awake at the same time. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
(pl. noun) - To beat a person "by long chalks" is with plenty to spare. Allusion is perhaps here made to the custom of jumping and other competitions to mark the distances attained by the competitors by chalk marks, the idea being herein conveyed that the victor's marks are a long way in front of his rival's. Or the expression may have originated in a game, general in Derbyshire and elsewhere, in which the player with a lump of chalk reached, or "wrained," round his right leg and stretching his arm as far as possible made a mark along the ground. The winner of the game was he who made the most distant or "longest" chalk. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(pl. noun) - (1) The sulks; a bad temper; frowns. --Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911 (2) In the glonders, in a state of ill humour, to be pouting. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) A square of window glass, properly one placed diagonally; anciently, a diamond-shaped pane of glass. Hence the cant term, quarrel-picker, a glazier. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855 (2) Adopted from Old French quarrel, medieval Latin quadrus, a square. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914 (3) This old word is still sometimes heard in New England among the illiterate. --John Pickering's Vocabulary of the United States, 1816
(noun) - A mechanical apparatus for the exercising of a pianist's fingers; from Greek cheir, the hand, and gymnastes, a gymnast. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Language, 1871
(noun) - (1) A gentleman perfumed with civet. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909 (2) An effeminate dandy. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1889 (3) I cannot talk with civet in the room, / A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume. --William Cowper's Conversation, 1781
(noun) - A variety of carrier pigeon, presumably from Scanderoon, the name of a seaport in Syria. Perhaps so called from the fact that "formerly the pigeon was employed by the English factory at Scanderoon to carry intelligence of the arrival of their ships in that port to Aleppo" according to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 1845. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
(pl. noun) - (1) Trousers. --T. Lewis Davies' Supplemental English Glossary, 1881 (2) Inexpressibles, a euphemism for trousers. --Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912 (3) Unutterables, unmentionables, unwhisperables, or sit upons, the "nether garments"--affected terms having their origins in a most unpleasant squeamishness. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(noun) - (1) A dish made by pouring boiling water or milk on oatmeal seasoned with salt and butter. Hence brose-meal, brose-time, etc. Modern Scottish form of earlier browis, Old French broez. Often treated as a plural, like porridge, broth, ect. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888 (2) The dish is dominated from the nature of the liquid, as water-brose, kale-brose. So late as 1530, brewes was used in this sense by English writers. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun/adjective) - (1) Harm; evil; wickedness; mischief. A man who goes to prison is said to "go to quad." From Teutonic quad. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832 (2) Hostile; inimical; the Devil; quedful, full of evil; quedness, wickedness; 1200s-1600s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
(noun) - (1) A usurer; a profiteer; the "big man" of the village; also gombeen-man. --Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953 (2) Usury; adapted from modern Irish gaimbín; a derivative of Old Celtic kmbion. Gombeenism, the practice of borrowing or lending at usury. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(adjective) - The farming community has given us another useful expression in our muttons. When we speak of something being our muttons, we mean that we like it especially well. --Sydney Baker's New Zealand Slang: A Dictionary of Colloquialisms, 1941
(noun) - The term jerry-building, of which one hears so much nowadays, is probably a corruption of Jericho-building. The insinuation conveyed is that, like the walls of Jericho which fell down on the blowing of trumpets, so are such buildings likely to collapse under a very slight shock. Still used in Britain; it dates from Victorian times--not World War II, as commonly believed. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(verb) - (1) To strive; to excel; to rival; to equal; related to emulate. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832 (2) Adapted from Latin æmul-a, to emulate. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
(noun/adverb) - (1) One o'clock p.m. The people living at the foot of the Narrowdale Hills in Staffordshire never see the sun for a quarter of the year. In summertime it is one o'clock ere the disc appears over the summit. The phrase is colloquially used in the neighborhood to indicate something long deferred. --Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889 (2) Indefinitely. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(adjective) - (1) Pouring with rain. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900 (2) Puthery, sultry; English Midlands. Puther, smoke, steam, dust; a cloud of smoke or dust; English Midlands. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(pl. noun) - Clandestine marriages, especially of minors, at one time permitted without banns or license at the Chapel of the Fleet prison, but from the latter part of Queen Anne's reign 1702-1714 performed by the Fleet clergy in rooms of nearby taverns and houses. --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(noun) - (1) To say that a man comes from Hog's Norton in Oxfordshire is simply equivalent to saying that he snores. --Arthur Evans' Leicestershire Words, Phrases and Proverbs, 1881 (2) Inhabitants were so rustical in their behavior that boorish and clownish people are said to be born at Hogs-Norton. --Thomas Fuller's History of the Worthies of England, 1662
(noun) - In ancient times, the king's subjects were called to arms by the sound of a horn, and blowing the outhorne was the signal for assembly. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(noun/adjective) - (1) The name by which half-timbered houses are known in some parts of England. --Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889 (2) A post-and-pan house is one formed of uprights and cross-pieces of timber which are not plastered over but generally blackened, as many old cottages are in various parts of England. The timbers in these structures is represented in the word post. The Anglo-Saxon word pan, or pane, a piece or portion, refers to the filled up interstices. We still use the word in the phrase pane of glass. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - A proof of great strength, namely for a man to stand in a half-bushel and lift from the ground and place on his shoulders a load of wheat that is fourteen score weight. There is an oak chest of great antiquity in the wooden church of Peover. Any woman who can raise the heavy lid with her left arm is said to be a fit wife for a Cheshire yeoman. --Edgerton Leigh's Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(verb/noun) - (1) To go hither and thither in search of anything. Ash-batherer, a man who collected ashes for sale. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905 (2) Formerly, within the memory of many, it was customary for men to go about and buy up wood-ashes at farm-houses and cottages and carry them in bags on horse or donkey-back, and retail them for making lye for washing purposes, or for cleaning wooden ware, and as a substitute for soda. --Robert Lawson's Upton-on-Severn Words and Phrases, 1884
(noun) - (1) A grammarian. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914 (2) To break Priscian's head, to outrage the rules of grammar. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922 (3) The phrase, "Priscian a little scratched" from Love's Labour's Lost is a paraphrase of a common expression, "diminuis Prisciana caput," which was applied to such as speak false Latin. It may be fairly said that from the sixth century until recently Priscian has reigned over Latin grammar. --John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and Glossary, 1902
(noun) - A horse employed to draw a carriage with another. Metaphorically, a person intimately connected with another, generally applied to people in low life. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - The position of a sheep when on its back and unable to get up. Fat sheep, at the time when their fleeces are at the fullest growth, very often get upon their backs, and having nothing to kick against are unable to turn. The situation is dangerous inasmuch as the animal's struggles soon bring on inflammation of the bowels. Somerset. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(noun) - A rafter in a kitchen or outhouse; a rack fixed to a rafter or balk, used in old farmhouses which holds the flitches of bacon used by the family. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(verb) - To thrive; spoken of crops and livestock. Also in a general sense, as "he muddles on but does not moys." --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Norfolk, 1787
(noun) - A slave who, for punishment of some fault, was made to carry a heavy wooden fork upon his neck through the city with his hands tied to it. Hence the word came to signify generally a rogue, a villain. --Frederick Hackwood's Good Cheer: The Romance of Food, 1911
(noun) - (1) A variety of iron ore, so called from the belief that it was found in the nest of the eagle, where it was supposed to prevent the eagle's eggs from becoming rotten. --Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859 (2) This stone was formerly supposed to facilitate delivery if bound on the thigh, and to prevent abortion if bound on the arm. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(noun) - (1) The swan companies annually used to take up the swans for the purpose of marking them. --T. Lewis Davies' Supplemental English Glossary, 1881 (2) Swan-upping was, among our ancestors, a very favorite sport, not unattended by risk, for the birds seldom submitted to the process without a struggle, which occasionally cost the captor a ducking. --W.C. Hazlitt's Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles, 1870 (3) Swan-upper, an official who takes up and marks swans. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(noun) - (1) A rural sport practised at wakes and fairs in Derbyshire. A ram, whose tail is well soaped and greased, is turned out to the multitude. Anyone that can take him by the tail and hold him fast is to have him for his own. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796 (2) From tup, a male sheep; a ram. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(adjective) - Milk, soured by keeping too long in the bucket, or by being kept in a foul bucket. The word is not now used, but is applied to cheese when instead of being solid it has a spongy look and is full of cavities. --Frederick Elworthy's Specimens of English Dialects, 1778
(noun) - (1) One who is prone to form strange ideas. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850 (2) An imaginer 1600s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(adjective/verb) - (1) Probably rough, boorish, according to Lord Hailes. It might bear this meaning as descriptive of the shaggy appearance of a dog; from French bourru, flockie, hairie, rugged, and Old French bourre, locks of wool. But it seems more naturally to convey the idea of cruelty. From French bourreau, an executioner. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808 (2) Burrie, to push roughly; to crowd confusedly and violently; to overpower. --Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911 (3) Shaggy; rough. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(noun) - Throughout the West, the combination of two aces and two eights is known as the dead-man's hand. This superstition was handed down from the time that Jack McCall killed Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, while he sat in a poker game holding this hand. All five cards Hickok held were black--either clubs or spades. --Ramon Adams' Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
(noun) - The great annual purification of the linen used in a family by means of bouk, a lye made of cow's dung and stale urine, in which foul linen is steeped in order to its being cleansed or whitened. The linen is sometimes allowed to lie in this state for several days. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) A greater load than can well be carried at one time, but is nevertheless undertaken to save the trouble of another journey--a lazy man's load. Old English lither, bad, wicked, has a secondary meaning of "lazy" in some of our early writers. John Ray gives "lither, idle, lazy, slothful," in North Country Words 1691; John Jamieson Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808 has "lidder, sluggishness, and lythyrnes, sloth." --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879 (2) Hence, lidderie, feeble, lazy; litherly, idly, lazily; litherums, idleness. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(adjective) - Skir, or kir-handed people, left-handed ones, are not safe for a traveller to meet on a Tuesday morning. On other days it is fortunate to meet them. If you enter another man's house with your skir foot foremost, you draw down evil upon its inhabitants. If, therefore, you have carelessly done so, you must avert the mischief by going out and making your entrance a second time with the right foot. I conclude that this little superstition once held its ground in the South, for Dr. Samuel Johnson is said to have entertained it, and to have left a house and re-entered it right foot foremost if on the first occasion he had planted his left foot on the threshold.
--William Henderson's Folklore of the Northern Counties of England, 1879
(noun) - (1) A perfume-box, round vessel pierced with holes for containing perfumes. From French pomme d'ambre, an apple of amber.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) This term was applied both to a ball composed of perfumes and to the case used for carrying them about the person. Pomanders were carried either in the pocket or suspended from the neck or girdle, and were sometimes looked upon as amulets, sometimes as an efficient means of preventing infection. An old recipe for making them directs a mixture of carefully prepared garden soil, labdanum, benzoin, storax, ambergris, civet and musk. These, when well incorporated, are warrented "to make you smell as sweet as my lady's dog, if your breath be not too valiant."
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and Glossary, 1902
(adjective) - (1) When a man publicly declares he will not pay any of his wife's debts which have been contracted since some fixed day, she is said to be knotchelled, a certain disgraceful imaginary mark. Lancashire.
--Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
(2) In short, she is a marked woman.
--Edgerton Leigh's Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(3) In Lancashire, to "cry a woman knotchel" is when a man gives a public notice that he will not pay his wife's debts.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms, 1855
(4) Cry-notchil, to advertise irresponsibility for a wife's debts. In the old time, this was effected by means of the bell-man. It is now done through the medium of newspapers.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
(noun) - (1) Deafness; adaptation of Latin surditas . . . from surdus, in an active sense, deaf; in a passive sense, silent, mute, dumb, dull, indistinct.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(2) The term surdism is applied to those degrees of deafness which make the acquisition of speech in the very young impossible by ordinary means.
--D. Williams' Medical Discoveries of Infancy, 1898
(adjective/adverb) - According to Cocker is equivalent to "sure to be right." In the days of the Stuarts lived a man, Edward Cocker. In his day and a long time after, his work on arithmetic was in general use in this country, and regarded as a standard of accuracy.
(noun) - (1) Swelling in the groin caused by venereal disease.
--C.T. Onions' Oxford Shakespeare Glossary, 1911
(2) The French for it, according to Cotgrave, was clapoir, a botch in the groyne . . . It is thought to have originated from the circumstance of the public stews at Bankside in Southwark London, being under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. Hence, Ben Jonson calls it, "The Wincestrian goose, bred on the Southwark Bank in time of popery, when Venus there maintain'd her mystery."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Then ther's a Goose that breeds at Winchester,
(noun) - (1) Work done by the tenant for his landlord, the remains of socage, which now generally consists in a day or two's work with a horse and cart, drawing coals, materials, &c. In former times, many other various things were added. The tenant kept a cock for his landlord in cock-fighting days, and a dog. The landlord's pig and geese were turned into the tenant's fields after the crops were removed. A tenant also brought his landlord every year a cheese or a goose. In short, it was a sort of barter in times when the exchangeable medium of goods, money, was not plentiful, in fact very scarce, and the purchase of commodities had to be subvented in other ways.
--Edgerton Leigh's Glossary of the Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(2) Hence booning, rendering service to a neighbour.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(pl. noun) - Stockings covering the legs and feet. In the ninth century, persons of rank wore them as high as the middle of the thigh, but in the lower classes they only reached to the calf and hence were called nether stocks.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(interjection) - The cry uttered on the London Stock Exchange when the presence of a stranger is detected. It is supposed to be derived from the fact that the number of members of the exchange was, for long, limited to 1399.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - An old name for a false conception or a fœtus imperfectly formed . . . supposed to be occasioned by the influence of the moon. Trinculo supposes Caliban to be a mooncalf in The Tempest (Act II, Scene 2), saying, "I hid me under a dead mooncalf's gaberdine." Sometimes used as a term of reproach to signify a living monster, lumpish, stupid, and heavy.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(noun) - (1) A wood-demon who is supposed to guard over unripe nuts. "Melsh Dick'll catch thee lad," was a common threat used to frighten children going nutting.
--Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) A sylvan goblin, the protector of hazelnuts from the depredations of mischievous boys.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - A dollar, chopped or stamped with a private mark as a guarantee of its genuineness. Dollars similarly marked had currency in England in the first quarter of the last 18th century, and one of the present writers can recollect this occasional occurrence in Scotland in his childhood. The word chap is adopted in Malay with meanings of self-impression, stamp (to seal or stamp) though there is, as Mr. Walter Skeat points out, a pure native word tera, or tra, and chop has acquired the specific sense of a passport or license.
--Col. Henry Yule's Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words, 1886
(adjective) - Whatever led will may mean now, it doubtless once meant the same as will led, a phrase which occurs in a specimen of the Norfolk dialect. Will led is said to mean demented, but the original sense was bewildered. Will, in this sense, has no immediate connexion with will in the sense of "inclination," but represents the Scandinavian form of the English wild, which often had the sense of "astray, bewildered, at a loss," and the like.
(noun) - An expression derived from the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London ere the metropolis rejoiced in a Zoological Gardens, when travelling menageries were unheard of. Country visitors in town for a few days never failed at that period to feast their eyes upon a real live lion, and on returning to their homes boasted of having seen the "London Lion."
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
(noun) - A kind of pottage of which a mess was offered to the kings of England on their coronation day by the lord of the manor at Addington in Surrey, being the "service" by which that manor was held.
October's full moon was nicknamed the "huntsman's moon" by Celtic tribes and called the "blood moon" in medieval England, as it signaled the beginning of hunting season. Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, (1882) explained the name: "Sportsmen do not hunt by moonlight. The obvious meaning therefore is hunter's month--the crop being harvested, there is nothing to interfere with the sport of the hunter."
The anonymous English book of etiquette, Manners and Rules of Good Society (1901), offered this fine point of hunting behavior: "It is difficult to make a would-be sportsman comprehend the strict etiquette maintained between the owners of manors; that is to say, he would think nothing of crossing the boundary of his host's manor, gun in hand, if he felt inclined to follow a bird or hare he had wounded, oblivious of the fact that in the first place the greatest punctiliousness is observed between gentlemen in the matter of trespassing on each other's land when out shooting. Unless the greatest intimacy existed, a sportsman would hardly venture to pick up his dead bird if it had fallen on a neighbour's manor, and would on no account look for a wounded bird, but for a dead one only."
(noun) - (1) A sore or wounded leg. It is likely to be from Italian gamba, qualified by some adjective now lost, perhaps through the blunder of someone ignorant of that language . . . The term belongs to the leg only. Nobody ever had a game arm, hand, or even foot.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) From game, lame, crooked, deformed, disabled, injured, sore; hence gam-legged, having crooked legs; West Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(verb) - To make buttons means to look sorry and sad perhaps because button-making is a sorry occupation. Not to have all one's buttons, to be deficient in intellect.
On this date in York, England, any dogs found in the streets were once subject to being whipped in commemoration of the 18th-century swallowing of consecrated wafers by a dog in the cathedral. Beginning in the 16th century, many English churches employed churchwardens, or beadles, who not only supervised the sometimes unruly canines that traditionally accompanied their owners to church but were often charged with keeping parishioners awaking during services.
Edward Peacock's Glossary of Lincolnshire (1877) added, "In Northorpe Church until about seventy years ago, there was a small pew on the south side just within the charnel arch known as Hall Dog-pew, in which the dogs that had followed the author's grandfather and family to church were imprisoned during divine service."
(noun) - A parish official whose duties consisted in expelling any dog . . . which might intrude into the church during the performance of any service. The office usually joined with that of the sexton and pew-opener. The short, stout dog-whip was a regular part of the dog-whipper's equipment. In one Derby church, the office has existed down to the year 1861 and has become almost hereditary in one family.
--J.C. Atkinson's Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, 1891
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) When anything has made a noise for some time, and it is then quashed, it is said to have "gone to the bumwhush." This is too often the way with people of great popularity--they have their day then go to the bumwhush.
(adjective) - A drunken man is sometimes said to have a "turkey on his back," perhaps the allusion to his having won one at a raffle in a drinking-place.
--James Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1877
(noun) - A very expressive name for an hermaphrodite, to which it exactly answers, will being for the man and gill (with g soft) for Gillian or Juliana, on the woman's part.
(adjective) - (1) A genuine Newcastle word applied to the beauty of form, as of manners and morals, but most particularly used to describe those mild and affectionate dispositions which render the persons agreeable in the domestic state.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Knowing, sagacious, judicious, prudent; wary, cautious; skillful, clever, lucky; careful, frugal; endowed with occult or magical powers.
(noun) - A slang term anciently applied to London - substituted for Cocaigne by the poets and wits of the 16th century. Lud's Town, a name sometimes anciently given to London was so called after Lud, a mythical king of England. "And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads." Shakespeare's Cymbeline.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Teratology is when bold writers, fond of the sublime, intermix something great and prodigious in everything they write, whether there be foundation for it in reason or not, that this is call'd bombast.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1727
(3) A discourse of prodigies and wonders.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1678
(4) A marvellous tale, or collection of such tales.
(verb) - (1) A kind of apologetical apostrophe, when anything was said that might be thought filthy or indecent. It was contracted into sa'reverence, and thence corrupted into sir- or sur-reverence, which in one instance became the substitute for the word which it introduced, as, "I trod in a sa'reverence."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) Used apologetically in introducing some remark that might offend the hearer. "Who, saving your reverence, is the divell himselfe." Merchant of Venice.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(3) A native woman of Devon, in describing something not particularly delicate, apologized with the phrase, "saving your reverence." This is not uncommon in the country, "saving your presence" being sometimes substituted. It occurs in Romeo and Juliet and is of great antiquity, being found in Mandeville's Travels.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(verb) - To wash. It was anciently 13th century the custom for guests to wash before sitting down to meals, and it seems that the signal for this ablution was given by sounding a trumpet.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(noun) - The term circumlocution office carries with it the same idea as "red tape." It was originated by Dickens in Little Dorrit as a skit on the dilatoriness of government offices in transacting business. It was an office where business was habitually muddled up and delayed by high-salaried officials who shirked duties by passing them on to other departments, who in turn passed them elsewhere.
(noun) - (1) An obsolete variant of cludder, a crowd, heap, cluster. Clouder is probably the same word as clutter, and is evidently the proper term for "a lot of cats."
--C.E. Hare's Language of Field and Sport, 1939
(2) Cludder, cluther, a large quantity, or mass of anything, gathered together.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) This occupation was formerly much more common in Lancashire than now, sand being more frequently used, not only for the purpose of cleaning but as a kind of ornament, and to preserve cleanliness. After a floor had been washed, to "sand" it by scrubbing with loose sand was almost the universal custom.
--J.H. Nodal's Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, 1882
(noun) - It was the custom for persons much employed in writing to carry ink, pens, &c. in a horn. Hence inkhorn terms, studied expressions that savour of the inkhorn. A very favorite expression, for a time.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(noun) - People, after they have been fou, feel as they are returning to their wits again, a buzzing and singin' in the head, which are called bees o' the brain. Also, when they are getting intoxicated they feel these fanciful insects.
(adjective) - (1) As cold as a key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed; a key was anciently employed to stop any slight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old writers.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(2) Lifeless.
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
(noun) - (1) Term for difficult or cramped writing.
--Robert Mayne's Expository Lexicon of the Terms . . . of Medicine and General Science, 1853-1860
(2) Writer's cramp now graphospasm; also in anglicized form, mogigraphy; hence, mogigraphic. From Greek mogi, with toil and pain, used in a few modern Latin pathological terms, as mogilalia, mogilalism, stammering, and mogiphonia, "a difficulty in producing loud vocal sounds with the larynx, ordinary speech remaining," from the Sydenham Society Lexicon.
once ran from this day, the Feast of Epiphany, through Ash Wednesday, when marriages commonly took place in Britain. They were frowned on during Lent, especially on March 19, and were all but forbidden during the Christmas season, from late November until Epiphany. June nuptials remained in vogue and were blessed by the Church, but those during the "lusty month of May" were condemned as a holdover from pagan times, as this couplet reminds us:
John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities (1813) noted: "There was formerly a custom in the North of England, which will be thought to have bordered very closely upon indecency, and strongly marks the grossness of manners that prevailed among our ancestors. It was for the young men . . . to strive immediately after the ceremony to see who could first pluck off the Bride's Garters from her legs. This was done before the very altar . . . Whoever were so fortunate as to be victors in this . . . contest, during which the bride was often obliged to scream out, and was very frequently thrown down, bore the garters about the church in triumph."
(noun) - (1) The game of tennis. Evidently from Belgian kaatspel, as the ball used in tennis is called kaatsbal, and the chace or limits of the game kaats. Old French cace signifies chace, and cache incursion.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(2) During the reign of France's Charles V palm play, which may properly enough be denominated hand-tennis, was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money.
--Joseph Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 1801
(noun) - (1) An eyebrow. Adaptation of Middle Low German winbrâ, corresponding to Old High German wintbrâwe and German wimper, eyelash; formed of wint wind, and brow; 1400s-1600s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) Blacke-hair'd, broad-ey'd, his hairy win-browes meet.
(verb) - To try to deceive, as plovers do by feigning a broken wing when one approaches their eggs or young. A term of reproach meaning numbskull. From Dutch dik, thick, and kop, head.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
(adjective) - An American expression for one who has decamped, leaving debts behind. It was, and is, no unusual thing for a man to display this notice - perhaps only the initials "G.T.T." on his door for the callers after he has absconded.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
(verb) - (1) To be slightly intoxicated, to be the worse for liquor; to be unsteady; usually in past participle nizzled. Nizzle-toppin, an actively-inclined but weak-minded person; mid-Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) Neezled, little drunk or intoxicated.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of North of England Words, 1873
a person who exhumes and steals dead bodies, especially for dissection; body snatcher. Origin of resurrectionist. 1770-1780. First recorded in 1770-80; resurrection + -ist.
(2) A kind of nervous colick, whose seat is the ileum, whereby that gut is twisted.
--John Walker's Dictionary of the English Language, 1835
(3) A dangerous disease consisting in the expulsion of feculent matter by the mouth, accompanied with a swelling of the lower ventricle, an intense pain, and a total constipation.
--Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, 1740
(pl. noun) - (1) The miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye on looking closely into it. Our old poets make it an employment of lovers to look for them in each other's eyes.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) Love in the expression of the eyes - the little babe Cupid, and hence the conceit, originating from the reflection of the onlooker in the pupil of another's eyes.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(3) Bird of the eye, the little refracted image on the retina. In many languages there is an endearing term of this kind. The Greeks call it the girl or virgin; and our ancestors talked of the "baby in the eye."
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(noun) - A bleak, cold place. A place where the frost wind finds easy admittance. Also a person with a saucy air - as much thinking that he does not care a damn for the world . . . He passes the poor with a sneer, and capsizes the infirm with a laugh - his bosom is a bleak place, a bensle - cold unfeeling blasts whistle round his frozen heart.
(noun) - (1) Or stirrup-dram also stirrup-glass, a glass of ardent spirits, or draught of ale, given by the landlord of an inn to his guest when about to depart on horseback.
--John Jamieson's Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1825
(2) Tib Mumps will be out wi' the stirrup-dram in a gliffing.
--Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering, 1815
(3) In the north of the Highlands called "cup at the door."
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
One who writes or discourses on heroes. From heroology, also herology, a history of, or treatise on, heroes. Heroological, pertaining to the history of heroes; heroogony, generation of heroes.
(noun) - (1) If the stay of the guest exceeds a week, it should be called "a visitation." If it includes a dining, or a tea-drinking, or evening-spending, it may be termed "a visit," while a mere call can be mentioned as "a vis."
--Eliza Leslie's Behaviour Book, 1859
(2) If you cannot make me a visit, at least make me a vis, if you can.
--Charles Southey's Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell, 1844
(adverb/adjective) - To go woolward was to wear woollen next to the skin as a penance. "Wolward and wetshod went I forth" William Langland's Piers Plowman, c.1399.
--William Toone's Glossary and Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(noun) - (1) This punishment, which is called running the gantlet, is seldom inflicted except for crimes as will excite a general antipathy amongst the seamen, as on some occasions the culprit would pass without receiving a single blow, particularly in cases of mutiny or sedition.
--William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1771
(2) From Ghent and Dutch loopen, to run, because the punishment was first inflicted in that place.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
(adjective) - Cracked. Eggs which have been set upon are said to have become spretched a day or two before the liberation of the chicken is effected. Lincolnshire.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(adverb) - A proverbial expression in America signifying "to the utmost." The allusion is to a vehicle sunk in the mud to the hub, which is as far as it can go.
are deceptive glimpses of sunlight between dark clouds. The word itself is derived from OE 'deofol', and ultimately, via the Latin 'diabolus', from the Greek 'diabolos', which originally meant an accuser or slanderer, from the corresponding verb meaning literally to throw across.
In the 1880s, the alliterative shilling shocker — also called a shilling dreadful — began to appear for a type of more substantial short sensational novel, often by writers of some ability (Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was placed in this category when it first came out).
(2) From chitter, to shiver; to tremble. Hence, boys are wont to call that bit of bread which they preserve for eating after bathing a chittering-piece.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - A concluding piece or movement played at the end of an oratorio or the like; formed on post, and ludus, play, on analogy of prelude, interlude.
(noun) - Patch was at one time a term of contempt. It did not . . . necessarily mean a fool, but signified what we now mean by a contemptible fellow. Shakespeare has A Midsummer Night's Dream: "A crew of patches, base mechanicals." Crosspatch is the only remnant of the word. It is very expressive of a cross, ill-tempered, disagreeable person.
--Eliezer Edwards' Dictionary of Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
That children dying unbaptized (called Tarans) wandered in woods and solitudes, lamenting their hard fate, and were often seen. It cannot be doubted, that many of these stories concerning apparitions, tarans, &c., came out of the cloisters of Monks and Friars, or were the invention of designing Priests, who deluded the world with their stories of Purgatory and Limbics Infantum. - The History of the Province of Moray: Comprising the Counties of Elgin and Nairn, the Greater Part of the County of Inverness and a Portion of the County of Banff,--all Called the Province of Moray Before There was a Division Into Counties, Volume 3
...The mysterious lady Frau Bertha is ever attended by troops of unbaptized children, and she takes them with her when the joins the wild huntsman, and sweeps with him and his wild pack across the wintry sky. In North Devon the local name is "Yeth hounds". heath and heathen being both "Yeth" in the North Devon dialect (...) and the belief seems to be that their unbaptized children's spirits, having no admittance into Paradise, unite in a pack of "Heathen" or "Yeth" hounds, and hunt the Evil One to home they ascribe their unhappy condition. These Yeth Hounds or Wisht Hounds were well known in west country folk lore. - The Blessed and the Damned: Sinful Women and Unbaptised Children in Irish Folklore by Anne O'Connor
(noun) - (1) A wanton wench that is ready to ride upon the men's backs, or else passively to be their rompstall. The word mutton, when applied to a woman, whether alone or as part of a compound epithet, seems always to have been opprobrious, as in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton; and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour." From rig, rigging, ready to bestride any inactive stallion, and give him a quickening spur.
--Frederick Elworthy's Specimens of English Dialects: Devonshire, 1879
(2) Rigmutton rumpstall, a wanton girl. West Country.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(pl. noun) - (1) In the phrase to take eggs for money, to accept an offer which one would rather refuse . . . Farmers' daughters would go to market, taking with them a basket of eggs. If one bought something worth . . . three shillings, fourpence, she would pay the three shillings and say - "will you take eggs for the rest of the money?" If the shopman weakly consented, he received the value of the fourpence in eggs, usually . . . at the rate of four or five a penny. But the strong-minded shopman would refuse. Eggs were even used to pay interest for money.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(2) A proverbial expression, when a person was either awed by threats or overreached by subtlety, to give money upon a trifling or fictitious consideration.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Mine honest friend, will you take eggs for money?
(noun) - If you ask a Scotchman the distance to any place he will reply, after asking you in return where you came from, that it is so many miles and a bittock.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
(noun) - A young thief; from grinche, a thief . . . Other varieties of the tribe of thieving malefactors go by the appellations of chevalier de la grippe, limousineur, voleur de bonjour, droguiste, &c. The English brethren are denominated: prig, cracksman, crossman, sneaksman, moucher, hooker, flash cove, bug-hunter, cross-cove, buz-faker, stook-hauler, toy-getter, prop-nailer, area-sneak, lob-sneak, lully-prigger, thimble-twister, conveyancer, pudding-snammer, beak-hunter, ziff, buttock-and-file, poll-thief, little snakesman, mill-ben, cove on the cross, flashman and, formerly a good fellow, a bridle-cull.
--Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1889
(noun) - A quick motion, between running and walking when one, on account of fear or weakness, is not able to run at full speed. The term seems to have had its origin from the flight of those who, living in a country subject to many inroads and depredations, were often obliged to escape from their enemies, while in consequence of hot pursuit their lives were in jeopardy every moment.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(adjective) - A practical joke was to secure someone's door from the outside with long coffin-screws. The victim was said to be screwed in or screwed up. Hence, screwed up came to mean defeated, baffled, incapable of retaliation. Oxford.
(verb) - A prisoner is said to stand mute when, being arraigned for treason or felony, he either makes no answer, or answers foreign to the purpose. Anciently, a mute was taken back to prison, placed in a dark dungeon, naked, on his back, on the bare ground, and a great weight of iron placed on his body . . . By statute 12 George III, judgment is awarded against mutes, in the same manner as if they were convicted or confessed. A man refusing to plead was condemned and executed . . . on a charge of burglary, at Wells, 1792.
(noun) - (1) A travelling hawker, who sells by Dutch auction, i.e., reduces the price of his wares until he finds a purchaser. From Anglo-Saxon chepe, a market. Sometimes cheap-John.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) Cheap-jackery, that which is characteristic of a cheap-jack.
(noun) - (1) A passion, a rage. In a panshard, in a rage, out of temper. Pansheet, a state of excitement, confusion, sudden passion. Panshite in West Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) You have no need to get into a panshard.
--John Wise's New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery, 1883
(verb/noun) - A whining beggar is a cadger. "On the cadge" is applied to the regular "rounders" who wander from town to town telling in each place a pitiful story of distress. In Scotland a cadger is an itinerant peddler of fish.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
(noun) - The bitterest grief; extreme affliction. The ancients taught that grief and joy were subject to the gall, affection to the heart, knowledge to the kidneys, anger to the bile one of the four humors of the body, and courage or timidity to the liver. The gall of bitterness, like the heart of hearts, means the bitter centre of bitterness, as the heart of hearts means the innermost recesses of the heart of affections.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(noun) - Time or season; the divisions of the 24 hours. From an ancient book in the old German dialect, Speygel der Leyen, or the Mirrour of Laymen, it appears that the 24 hours were divided into prime, tierce, sext, none, vesper, fall of night, and metten (nightly mass). Our ancestors also had certain divisions of the artificial day, as undertide, &c.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
A pourquoi story ("pourquoi" means "why" in French), also known as an origin story, pourquoi tale or an etiological tale, is a fictional narrative that explains why something is the way it is, for example why a snake has no legs, or why a tiger has stripes. Many legends and folk tales are pourquoi stories.
(noun) - (1) A distemper peculiar to sailors in hot climates wherein they imagine the sea to be green fields, and they throw themselves into it if not restrained.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) A species of furious delirium to which sailors are subject in the torrid zone; a kind of phrenitis, the attack of which comes on suddenly after a broiling day.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(3) From French calenture, heat; from Latin caleo, to be hot.
(noun) - (1) A satisfying meal; adopted from Old French bouffage defined in its original sense by Cotgrave below. "His inwards and flesh remaining could make no bouffage, but a light bit for the grave." Letter of Sir Thomas Browne, 1672.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(2) Any meat that, eaten greedily, fils the mouth, and makes the cheeks to swell; cheeke-puffing meat.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
(noun) - (1) A chair in which an offender was placed to be hooted at or pelted by the mob; or it might be used for ducking its occupant; from Icelandic kuka, to ease oneself, and kukr, dung.
--Charles Annandale's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(2) An instrument of punishment formerly in use for scolds, disorderly women, fraudulent tradespeople, etc.
(adjective) - The participle kilted is sometimes used metaphorically to denote language that borders upon indecency. Derived from kilt, to lift up the petticoats or clothes to avoid wetting them when going on foot. From this verb comes kilt, the English or Saxon name for the most conspicuous portion of the Highlander garb, called by the Highlanders themselves the fillibeg, or little coat.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(noun) - A storm consisting of several days of tempestuous weather, believed by the peasantry to take place periodically about the beginning of April, at the time that the gowk, or cuckoo, visits this country. Metaphorically used to denote an evil or obstruction which is only of short duration.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(adjective) - (1) Fire-bitten. Spoken of oatmeal &c. that is overdried.
--Francis Grose's Glossary of Provincial and Local Words, 1811
(2) Burnt, overheated, dried; fire-fangitness, the state of being overheated, burnt.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(3) Cheese is said to be firefangit when it is swelled and cracked, and has received a peculiar taste in consequence of being exposed to much heat before it has been dried.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) Originally, a rhyme or piece of poetry used in charming and killing rats. The term . . . came to mean halting metres, doggerel, a tirade of nonsense.
--David Donaldson's Supplement to Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, 1887
(2) The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in Ireland, arose probably from some metrical charm or incantation used there for that purpose.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Rhime them to death, as they do in Irish rats / In drumming tunes.
was the Anglo-Saxon name for May because in that month they began to milk their cows three times daily. William Carr's Dialect of Craven (1828) described beesting pudding as "a pudding made of beest, the first milk after a cow calves." When this happened, it was customary for a farmer to offer beest to his neighbors.
(pl. noun) - (1) The first milk after a cow has calved, which is thick and clotty, and in Northampton called cherry-curds. From German biest-milch . . . Anglo-Saxon beost, byst . . . French calle-bouté, curded or beesty, as the milk of a woman that is newly delivered . . . The earth was in the Middle Ages supposed to be surrounded by a sea of so thick a substance as to render navigation impossible. This was called mer bétée in French and lebermer in German - the loppered sea.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) Fore-milk. To draw the first portion of a cow's milk.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(3) Colostre, the first milke, tearmed beest, or beestings.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
(4) A disease caused by imbibing beestings; from Latin colostratio.
(adjective) - A word of Pope's coining, not to be imitated: "Increase of years makes men more talkative but less writative; to that degree I now write no letters but of plain how d'ye's."
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(noun) - (1) An eager wish or longing. A very ancient phrase, many centuries old.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) Used allusively as a playful synonym for mind; an inclination, a fancy, a liking. Also (rarely) to be in a month's mind, to have a strong expectation.
(noun) - The term . . . had its origin from a considerable number of the principal families in the county of Fife having at least a bee in their bonnet.
--John Jamieson's Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1825
(pl. noun) - (1) A term applied during the Civil War to Southern country people from their home-spun clothing.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
(2) Derived from the colour of the uniforms worn in the early part of the war by Confederate soldiers in the West, which, being homespun, were dyed brown with the juice of the butternut (Juglans cinerea).
(noun/verb) - (1) Softenings of very profane phrases, the mere euphemisms of hard swearing, as od's blood, dash it, see you blowed first, deuce take it, by gosh, and like profane preludes such as boatswains and their mates are wont to use.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867
(2) Dammy boy: an unruly person. In allusion to the habit of excessive use of the word "damn" and general swearing by the man-about town of 16th and 17th centuries.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - (1) A name given in allusion to hens, to that kind of defective vision which is comparatively good by day but lost or obscure by night.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) Hens . . . cannot see to pick up small grains in the dusk of the evening, and so employ this time in going to roost; this is sometimes called hen-blindness.
(adjective) - Of actions proceeding in secret, or in the dark; kept concealed; hence of evil or deceitful nature. Of persons, secret in purpose or action; reserved; hence, underhand, sly, crafty. Of a person, treated as a confidant; entrusted with hidden matters. Of places, serving well to conceal, as lying out of the way.
(adjective) - Prudish, prim, and discreetly silent, applied only to women; or contemptuously to effeminate men, as in the phrase, "He's as mim as a maiden." In this sense the word is distinguished from mum, which means silent, or secret only, without reference to sex, as in the current slang, "mum's the word" . . . The word mim has a meaning of its own, which should preserve it in the language. It is derived by some authorities from the Greek mimeo, to imitate by action without speaking; whence mimicry, mimic, and pantomime.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(adjective) - (1) Elevated in nature or character above what pertains to the earth or world; belonging to a region above the world. Humorously or ironically applied to what is ideal, fantastic, or chimerical. Situated above the earth. Adapted from Medieval Latin supramunda by Thomas Aquinas.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(2) Perhaps, in that supermundane region, we may be amused with seeing the fallacy of our own guesses.
(noun) - Moon-man signifies in English a madman because the moon hath greatest domination, above any other planet, over the bodies of frantic persons . . . Their name they borrow from the moon because, as the moon is never in one shape two nights together but wanders up and down heaven like an antic, so these companions never tarry one day in a place.
(noun) - An inordinate desire to become the possessor or tenant of a small holding of land. Specifically, the intense feeling evinced by the Irish in favour of a peasant proprietary.
(adjective) - A grig is a grasshopper. In most countries the cricket and the grasshopper are types representing a careless, happy existence. We have the related saying "Merry as a cricket," and Tennyson in "The Brook" speaks of "high-elbowed grigs that leap in summer grass."
(noun) - A sort of coif or cap with a double bottom, between which is enclosed a mixture of aromatic powders. It was formerly used as a powerful cephalic.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(noun) - A gaudily dressed female, one whose chief pleasure consists of dress. Perhaps from flam, "an illusory pretext", and foye, what excites disgust. This term, however, seems to be the same with Old English flamefew, "the moonshine in the water." Any gaudy trapping in female dress. Ayershire.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879
(pl. noun) - (1) Freckles on the skin resembling the seeds of the fern, freckled with fern, quite like small ticks . . . Ferns are frequently the receptacle of ticks, of which tickles may be considered a diminutive.
--William Carr's Dialect of Craven, 1828
(2) These are popularly accounted for as the marks made by the spurting of milk from the mother's breast, inevitably occasioned, so that a face may be marred that is "over bonny."
--C. Clough Robinson's Glossary of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876
(noun) - (1) A term of reproach, the meaning of which appears to be unknown to those who use it. It is evidently a corruption of whore's-bird, to which it must be added that bird in Old English and Anglo-Saxon means birth, and hence offspring, progeny; or the Old English burd, bride, young woman, in which case the term means a bastard daughter. Either way, it comes to much the same, and the term was easily generalized.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
(2) Whore is the past participle of Anglo-Saxon hynan, to hire. The word means simply someone, anyone, hired. It was formerly written without the w.
--John Tooke's Diversions of Purley, 1840
(3) Wasbird, a wartime phrase used of any elderly man eager to enlist.
--Edward Fraser's Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases, 1925
(4) Used also of children and occasionally of animals.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(verb) - A north country phrase equivalent to "change the subject." The allusion is to the square blocks of dried peat which are used for fuel and which, when they become red-hot underneath, are turned to allow the burning side to give out its warmth and glow.
--Basil Hargrave's Origins and Meanings of Popular Phrases, 1925
(noun) - One who professes to foretell events by the aspects and situation of the stars. Formerly one who understood the motions of the planets without predicting.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(noun) - A spurious word which by a remarkable series of blunders has gained a foothold in the dictionaries. It is usually defined as "a cap of state, wrought up into the shape of two crowns, worn formerly by English kings." Neither word nor thing has any real existence. In Edward Hall's "Chronicles" 1550 the word bicocket (Old French bicoquet, a sort of peaked cap or head-dress) happened to be printed abococket. Other writers copied the error. Then in 1577 Holinshed improved the new word to abococke, and Abraham Fleming to abacot, and so it spun merrily along, a sort of rolling stone of philology . . . until Spelman landed the prize in his "Glossarium," giving it the definition quoted above. So through the dictionaries of Bailey, Ash, and Todd it has been handed down to our time - a standing example of the . . . ponderous indolence which philologers repeat without examining the errors of their predecessors. Nay, the error has been amusingly accentuated by . . . a rough wood-cut of the mythical abacot, which in its turn has been servilely reproduced.
--William Walsh's Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1909
(noun) - (1) In Law, a Kentish custom whereby the lands of a father are, at his death, equally divided among his sons, to the exclusion of the females, or those of a brother are equally divided among brothers, if he dies without issue.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(2) Apparently from a British source, although the word is of Gaelic form.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(3) Disgavel, to take away the tenure of gavelkind.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(verb) - Drink a dram; strictly speaking, to drink till one's eye is bunged up, or closed. Boys at school said, "I'll bung your eye," meaning to strike one in the eye, the consequence of which was generally a bunged eye, that is, so swollen as to be closed up. It is derived, no doubt, from bung, which came from a Welsh word that means a stopple stopper.
--Alfred Elwyn's Glossary of Supposed Americanisms, 1859
(adjective) - It probably means as easy as turning over the leaf page of a book . . . or tracing a lady's name on the table with spilt wine. With a wet finger, easily, readily.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(verb) - To waste time in a lazy lingering manner. It has exactly the same sense as drumble, which Mrs. Ford uses in The Merry Wives of Windsor, in berating her servants for not being more nimble in carrying off the laundry-basket. Had that merry gossip been an East Angle, she must have said dringle.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(noun/verb) - (1) The remainder in a cask or package which has leaked or been partially used.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, 1867
(2) Ullage of a cask is what such a vessel wants of being full.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1706
(3) The quantity of liquor contained in a cask partially filled, and the capacity of the portion which is empty, are termed respectively the wet and dry ullage.
--Encyclopedia Britannica, 1883
(4) To calculate the amount of ullage in a cask. To fill up again an ullaged cask.
(pl. noun) - Pigs' trotters, or pigs' feet. Many examples can be given of this strange perversion of names - Albany beef, Marblehead turkey, etc. Similarly in England, a herring is called a Billingsgate pheasant, a two-eyed steak, etc.
--Sylva Clapin's New Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
(noun) - (1) Romantic or absurd notions or actions.
--William Grimshaw's Ladies' Lexicon and Parlour Companion, 1854
(2) Quixotic principles, character, or practice; an instance of this - a quixotic action or idea. Quixotize, to act in a quixotic manner; to render quixotic. Quixotry, quixotism.
(noun) - News that everyone has already heard; probably from a piper going from place to place and still relating the same story till it be in everyone's mouth.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) A word used in Anglo-Saxon laws meaning originally some punishment and afterwards the fine in commutation thereof. The legal antiquaries since c.1600 have taken it to mean the pillory.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
(2) Among the Saxons, healsfang - of heals, a necke, and fang, to take.
--John Cowell's Interpreter . . . Containing the Signification of Words, 1607
(3) The sum every man sentenced to the pillory would have had to pay to save him from that punishment.
--Benjamin Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 1840
(noun) - A small combustible body, set on fire, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. The courage of the toper was tried in the attempt to swallow it flaming; and his dexterity was proved by being able to do it unhurt. Raisins in hot brandy were the commonest flap-dragons.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
Comments by gammerstang
Show previous 200 comments...
Gammerstang commented on the word calk
(verb) - (1) To calculate, reckon. --Walter Skeat's Student's Pastime, 1896 (2) Shortened from calcule. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893 (3) He began to calke how the sonne was in Gemini. --Stephen Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, 1509
February 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word airdrawn
(adjective) - Imaginary; drawn or painted in the air. --William Grimshaw's Ladies' Lexicon and Parlour Companion, 1854
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word summer's story
(noun) - By summer's story, Shakespeare seems to have meant some gay fiction. --Edmond Malone's Plays of William Shakespeare, 1778
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nose-riders
(pl. noun) - Spectacles. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drear
(adjective) - Dismal, gloomy, distressful; from Anglo-Saxon dreorig, sorrowful, Icelandic dreyrigr, gory. --Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sweep broom-field
(verb) - To inherit the whole property; to get possession of the whole of anything; Eastern England. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word slart
(verb/noun) - (1) To sprinkle or splash water upon. --C. Clough Robinson's Dialect of Leeds, 1862 (2) A splash of rain or mud. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drabloch
(noun) - Refuse, trash, as the smallest kind of potatoes, not fully grown, are called "mere drabloch." The same is applied to bad butcher-meat. Teutonic drabbe is rendered dregs, Belgium drabbig, muddy. Thus the term might be borrowed from liquors. --John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word seasurrounded
(adjective) - Encircled by the sea. --Richard Coxe's New Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, 1813
February 13, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word seeing the look
(verb) - Noting a family resemblance; usually applied in the case of children to parents or other ancestors. We speak of seeing the "Folger look." --William Macy's Nantucket Scrap Basket, c. 1916
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jingling-match
(noun) - (1) A diversion common enough at country wakes and fairs. The performance requires a large circle enclosed with ropes, which is occupied by as many persons as are permitted to play. All of these except one, who is the jingler, have their eyes blinded with handkerchiefs. The eyes of the jingler are not covered, but he holds a small bell in each hand, which he is obliged to keep ringing incessantly, so long as the play continues, which is commonly about twenty minutes, but sometimes is extended to half an hour. --Joseph Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 1801 (2) His object was to elude the pursuit of his companions, and he won the prize if he was still free when the play ceased. It was an amusing sight to see the men trying to catch the jingler, running into each other's arms and catching every one but the right one. --Peter Ditchfield's Old English Sports, 1891
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brundle
(verb) - To be as a child when walking. --Walter Skeat's Glossary of Devonshire Words, 1896
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word glimmerers
(pl. noun) - Persons begging with sham licenses, pretending losses by fire. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wrawling
(verb) - Quarreling, or contending with a loud voice. Raising a wrow is exciting a quarrel and confusion in the streets. From wrawe, angry. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clashamaclabber
(noun) - A loquacious person; a gossip. --Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fidther
(noun) - Rustle; any slight sound, as of a mouse. --Appleton Morgan's Study in the Warwickshire Dialect, 1900
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nooz'd
(adjective) - (1) Married. --B.E.'s New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, 1699 (2) Noozed, married, hanged. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trouters' train
(noun) - A train of several cars which left St. John's on the eve of the 24th of May with trouters for the various ponds of their choice, dropping them off wherever they wished along the railway line and picking them up the following night to bring them back with their catches, hangovers, fly-bites, chills, etc. Newfoundland. --D.W. Prowse's Newfoundland Guide Book, 1911
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dool
(noun) - A boundary mark in an unenclosed field. It is often a low post, thence called a dool-post; from Anglo-Saxon dælan. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dunt
(verb/adjective) - (1) To knock with a dull sound, as with the fist in the back or ribs. Stupid, dizzy, or giddy, from an affection of the brain; said especially of sheep. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897 (2) To stupefy. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830 (3) Stupefied. Dunt sheep, one that mopes about from a disorder in his head; Norfolk. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word danderer
(noun) - (1) One who habitually saunters about. From dander, to stroll, wander; to trifle, misspend one's time. To talk in a rambling, incoherent way. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905 (2) On the dander, on a drinking spree. --Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
February 12, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flat side of the grave
(noun) - This side of the grave. "The schoolmaster hain't got a friend on the flat side of the grave." --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eggtaggle
(noun/verb) - The act of wasting time in bad company; immodest conduct; explained as denoting immodest behavior in Ayrshire. The latter part of the word is obviously from the verb to taigle, to detain, to hinder. Shall we suppose that the term is formed from the idea of a servant being hindered, or pretending to be so, in seeking for eggs? --John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gullantine
(verb) - To kill, destroy. Evidently from guillotine. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word poult
(noun) - A young turkey, fit for the table but not fully grown--a turkey-poult. In Scottish, pout is a young partridge or moor-fowl. From French poulet, a pullet. --Edward Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, 1823
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fulhams
(pl. noun) - Loaded dice are called high and low men, or high and low fulhams, by Ben Jonson and other writers of his time, either because they were made at Fulham in London's West End or from that place being the resort of sharpers. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pseudosophisticate
False or feigned sophistication.
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word zuggers
(interjection) - An interjection. This is a word, like others of the same class, the precise meaning of which is not easy to define. --James Jennings' Dialect of Somersetshire, 1869
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lionize
(verb) - To treat and exhibit as an object of interest. Originally to take visitors to see the lions formerly kept at the Tower of London. Hence lion-hunter, one given to lionizing people, popularized by Dickens in Mr. and Mrs. Leo Hunter in Pickwick Papers. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word steganography
(noun) - The art of secret writing, characters, or cyphers known only to persons that correspond with one another. Steganographist, an artist in private writing. --Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chance the ducks
(verb) - I'll do it, and chance the ducks, meaning "I'll do it and take my chances," is in reference to a boat's crew arrayed in clean white jumpers or "ducks" ready for inspection when it is discovered that some duty involving the possible soiling of their garments has been neglected. They accordingly say, "We must do it, and chance the ducks"--that is, run the risk of our ducks being splashed. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dummocks
(pl. noun) - Legitimate blows given in certain games. --G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word weaponsalve
(noun) - (1) A salve which was supposed to cure the wound, being applied to the weapon that made it. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755 (2) The direction, "Bind the wound and grease the nail," is still common when a wound has been given with a rusty nail. Sir Kenelm Digby says the salve is sympathetic, and quotes several instances to prove that "as the sword is treated, the wound inflicted by it feels similar. Thus, if the instrument is kept wet the wound will feel cool; if held to the fire it will feel hot." --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1887
(noun) - A salve which was supposed to cure the wound, being applied to the weapon that made it.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word double cousins
(pl. noun) - When two brothers marry two sisters, the children are known as double cousins. Such relationships are very common in the Ozarks, and are considered somehow significant. In referring to each other these people seldom say simply, "He's my cousin," but rather, "We're double cousins." The word cousin may indicate very distant relationship, but own cousin always means first cousin. --Vance Randolph's and George Wilson's Down in the Holler, 1953
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word deliverhede
(noun) - Nimbleness, agility; 1400s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Adam's leather
(noun) - The human skin. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word faleste
(verb/noun) - A capital punishment inflicted on a malefactor on the seashore by laying him bound on the sands till the next full tide carried him away. From Norman falese, sands, rocks, cliffs. --John Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1839
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eye-bite
(verb/noun) - (1) To bewitch by a certain evil influence of the eye. --Nathan Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749 (2) Reginald Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft 1584 telleth us that our English people in Ireland were much given to this idolatry in Queen Elizabeth's time insomuch that, there being a disease amongst their cattle that grew blind, they did commonly execute people for it, calling them eye-biting witches. --Thomas Ady's Candle in the Dark; or, A Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft, 1656
(verb) - To bewitch an animal with the evil eye. Northern England. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word by the villages
(adverb) - To come home by the villages, to be drunk; a provincial expression. If, on the other hand, one comes home by the fields, one has no opportunity for drinking. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eargh
(adjective) - Superstitiously afraid. This is the word of which eerie is a later form. The Anglo-Saxon form is earh. Aberdeenshire. --Walter Skeat's Student's Pastime, 1896
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word policy of pin-pricks
(noun) - A policy practised by a nation or party in politics of dabbling in minor acts in a hostile manner while they are unable to deal with the larger issues. It was first applied in 1898 to the policy of France in reference to the conflicting colonial interests of that country and Great Britain. The Times quoted this as "a policy of pin-pricks," which forthwith became a political phrase. --J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word towser
(noun) - A rude, violent person, who pulls others about; whence the common name for a dog who is a good ratter. --Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tulchan
(noun) - A calfskin stuffed with straw in the rude similitude of a calf, similar enough to deceive the imperfect perception organs of a cow. At milking time the tulchan, with head duly bent, was set as if to suck. The fond cow, looking round, fancied that her calf was busy and that all was right, and so gave her milk freely, which the cunning maid was straining in white abundance into the pail all the while. King James's Scotch bishops were, by the Scotch people, derisively called "tulchan bishops." --Thomas Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, 1845
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quackered
(adjective) - (1) Almost choked or stifled. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871 (2) Quackle, to interrupt breathing; to suffocate; to choke. East Anglia. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cephalgic
(noun) - A medicine good for the headache. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mimesis
(noun) - In rhetoric, imitation of the voice or gestures of another. --Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word garderobe
(noun) - Properly, a locked-up chamber in which articles of dress, stores, etc. are kept; by extension, a privy. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bantling
(noun) - A young or small child; a brat. Often used depreciatively, and formerly as a synonym of bastard. Possibly a corruption of German bänkling, bastard, from bank, bench, i.e. a child begotten on a bench, and not in the marriage bed; 1500s-1800s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word festival-exceedings
(noun) - An additional dish to the regular dinner. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mouth-mauling
(noun) - A volley of abusive language; indistinct drawling utterance. --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word whatish
(adjective) - Of doubtful quality; questionable. --Francis Robinson's Glossary of Whitby, 1855
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word doss
(verb) - (1) To sleep. In the old pugilistic days, a man knocked down, or "out of time," was said to be "sent to dorse." But whether because he was senseless, or because he lay on his back, is not known, though most likely the latter. Formerly spelt dorse; from Gaelic dosal, slumber. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887 (2) To dorse with a woman signifies to sleep with her. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gagnepain
(noun) - A means of livelihood; a working for one's bread. From "gain-bread." --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word condog
(verb) - A whimsical corruption of the word concur, substituting dog for cur as equivalent. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wod
(adjective) - Furious or mad. We yet retain in some parts of England the word wodnes for furiousness or madness. --Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word manqualm
(noun) - (1) Plague, pestilence; from Old English manncwealm; c. 900-1300s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908 (2) Slaughter of men; from Robert of Gloucester. --Herbert Coleridge's Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clazum
(noun) - Force; rush; violence. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stalkinghorse
(noun) - (1) Sometimes a real horse, sometimes the figure of one cut out and carried by the sportsman. It being found that wild fowl, which would take alarm at the appearance of a man, would remain quiet when they saw only a horse approaching, advantage was taken of it, for the shooter to conceal himself behind a real or artificial horse to get within shot of his game. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859 (2) To supply the want of a stalking-horse you may make one of pieces of old canvas, which you must form into the shape of an old horse, with the head bending downwards, as if he grazed. --Gervase Markham's English Husbandman, 1615
February 11, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word yows
Old word for ewe.
February 9, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chested
(adjective) - Anciently, when a person was placed in a coffin, he was said to be "chested." Chaucer has, "He is now dead and nailed in his chest." In the heading of the 50th chapter of Genesis, the word is used in reference to Joseph, of whom it is said, "He dieth and is chested." --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
February 9, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word in scuggery
(adjective) - In secrecy; hid, as from creditors. --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Yorkshire, 1788
February 9, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word forjuts
(pl. noun) - The pieces running up between the fingers of gloves. --Angelina Parker's Supplement to the Oxfordshire Glossary, 1881
February 9, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word council-of-ten
(noun) - (1) The toes of a man who turns his feet inward. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887 (2) The toes of a man who walks duck-footed. --John Farmer's and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
February 9, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hait-wo
(interjection) - A word of command to horses in a team meaning "go to the left." This was horse-language in the 14th century of Chaucer. Heit scot and Heit broc are names still given to cart-horses. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
February 8, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word penance board
(noun) - The pillory. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 8, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word buy the rabbit
(verb) - When a person gets the worst of a bargain, he is said to have "bought the rabbit." From an old story about a man selling a cat to a foreigner for a rabbit. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
February 8, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word plaw
(verb/noun) - To parboil. A slight boiling. If meat seems likely to be tainted before it can be dressed, the cook must "give it a plow" to check the progress of decay and, if possible, keep it a little while at stand. In John Ray's South and East Country Words 1674 the same word is written play. He speaks of a "playing heat," and says that in Norfolk it is pronounced plaw. It may be from some French term of cookery, in books not easily accessible, or it may have descended to us from Anglo-Saxon pleoh danger. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
February 8, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word howdy-wife
(noun) - (1) In the North of England and in Scotland, a midwife is called a howdy, or howdy-wife. I take howdy to be a diminutive of how, and to be derived from this almost obsolete opinion of old women. I once heard an etymology of howdy to the following effect: "How d'ye"--midwives being great gossipers. --John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities, 1813 (2) Brand sneers at the derivation from "'how d'ye'--midwives being great gossipers," but I think that which he supplies is far more ridiculous. I have not been fortunate enough to discover any original to my satisfaction, but I may perhaps be permitted to observe, in defence of what has been so much ridiculed, that "how d'ye" is a natural enough salutation to a sick woman from the midwife, who, by the way, is called in German die Wehmutter, or "oh dear mother." --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
February 8, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mainprise
(noun/verb) - In Law, the receiving of a person into friendly custody who otherwise must have gone to prison. It differs from bail because a person is, in this case, to be at large from the day of his being mainprised. --Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bed of justice
(noun) - This expression (from French, lit de justice) literally denoted the seat or throne upon which the King of France was accustomed to sit when personally present in Parliament, and from this original meaning the expression came, in course of time, to signify the Parliament itself. Under the ancient monarchy of France, a bed of justice denoted a solemn session of the king in Parliament. According to the principle of the old French constitution the authority of the Parliament, being derived entirely from the crown, ceased when the king was present. Consequently, all ordinances enrolled at a bed of justice were acts of the royal will, and of more authority than decisions of Parliament. --William Walsh's Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1900
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word æoliphile
(noun) - A round, hollow metallic ball having a neck with a slender pipe opening to the ball which, being partly filled with water and laid on the fire, the steam or vapourous air is forced out with great noise and violence. It is used to blow the fire, and in Italy as a cure for smoky chimneys. --John Coxe's Medical Dictionary, 1817
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word holy-cruel
l (adjective) - Cruel by being too virtuous. --John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nearing clothes
(pl. noun) - The garments or linen worn next to the skin. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sympasm
(noun) - Sympathetic powder (Pulvis sympatheticus) of Sir Kenelm Digby, was composed of calcined sulphate of iron, prepared in a particular manner. It was long supposed to be able to cure a wound if applied to the weapon that inflicted it, or even to a portion of the bloody clothes. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kecken-hearted
(adjective) - Squeamish, ready to be sick at the sight of food. --Francis Robinson's Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases, 1855
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word feague
(verb) - To put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well. A forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word muckeren
(adjective) - Miserly; covetous. --G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word resurrection doctor
(noun) - A doctor who buys bodies from grave-riflers. --Eric Partidge's Dictionary of the Underworld, 1950
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quarroms
(pl. noun) - Body, arms, back. --A.V. Judges' Elizabethan Underworld, 1930
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sun-suckers
(pl. noun) - The sun's rays, as they sometimes appear in showery weather, popularly believed to suck up the water from the earth into the sun, there to be converted into rain, and held to be a sign of coming showers. --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flay-craw
(noun) - A scarecrow. --F.T. Dinsdale's Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Teesdale in the County of Durham, 1849
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boist
(noun) - A little extempore bed by a fireside for a sick person. --Samuel Pegge's Alphabet of Kenticisms, 1736
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word earthworm oil
(noun) - A greenish oil obtained from earthworms, used as a remedy for earache. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889-1891
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word axed-up
(adjective) - Applied to a couple whose banns of marriage have been proclaimed three times in church. Also axed-out. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nervish
(adjective) - (1) Affected with weakness of nerves. The word seems to be a corruption of nervous, and therefore cut out of its proper place, but in point of fact, the word nervous is a mere modern abuse. Mr. Pegge recommends nervish to be substituted for nervous, to signify weakness of the nerves. And by all means, let it be put down to our credit that we have anticipated his recommendation by many years. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830 (2) To preserve a distinction when we speak of such a man, and of the disorder by which his strength is impaired, we should rather say a nervish man, and a nervish disorder, which termination conforms with similar words, such as waspish, devilish, feverish--all expressive of bad qualities or disordered habits. --Samuel Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, 1844
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tippertant
(noun) - A young upstart. --Edward Slow's Glossary of Wiltshire Words, Used by the Peasantry in the Neighborhood of Salisbury, c. 1900
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cadulix
(noun) - Male genital organ. Central Pennsylvania. --Harold Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary, 1944
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word skare on
(verb) - To splice two pieces of wood together. From Jutland Danish at skarre ved, to join two pieces together. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Dutch leave
(noun) - To take Dutch leave, to desert without official permission. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mammiformis
(adjective) - (1) Shaped like a breast or teat. --W. Tarton's Medical Glossary in Which the Various Branches of Medicine are Deduced from Their Original Languages, 1802 (2) Related to mammifer, an animal which has breasts or paps to suckle its young; from Latin mamma, a breast, and fero, to bear. --Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pulvillus
(noun) - A small cushion or pillow. In surgery, a small olive-shaped mass of lint used for plugging deep wounds; diminutive of pulvinus, cushion. --Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 1897
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word swarble
(verb) - To climb up the bole trunk of a tree by the muscular action of the arms, thighs, and legs. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word inchpin
(noun) - The lower gut of a deer. --John Bullokar's English Expositor, 1616
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word heifer brand
(verb) - To tie a handkerchief around a man's arm to designate that he is to play the part of a female at a dance where there are not enough ladies to go around. He is then said to dance "lady fashion," and his reward is being allowed to set with the ladies between dances. This privilege, however, quite often makes him feel as out of place as a cow on a front porch. --Ramon Adams' Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word prairie-bitters
(noun) - A beverage compounded of buffalo gall and water in the proportion of a gill to a pint, the medicinal virtue of which was thought to have been in an exact ratio to its filthy taste. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bungfunger
(verb) - To startle; to confuse. Also used as an adjective for confounded. --John Farmer and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Venice glass
(noun) - The drinking glasses of the Middle Ages, made at Venice, were said to break into shivers if poison were put into them. Venice glass, from its excellency, became a synonym for perfection. --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flat-cap
(noun) - A term of ridicule for a citizen. In Henry VIII's time, flat round caps were the height of fashion but, as usual, when their date was worn out, they became ridiculous. Citizens of London continued to wear them long after they were generally disused, and were often satirized for it. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hail-fellow
(interjection/adjective) - An expression of intimacy. To be hail-fellow with anyone, to be on such a footing as to greet him with "hail-fellow" at meeting. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flire
(verb) - To laugh, or rather to have a countenance expressive of laughter, without laughing out. From Icelandic flyra. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trepan
(noun/verb) - (1) A person who entraps or decoys others into actions or positions which may be to his advantage and to their ruin or loss. Also applied to an animal. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926 (2) A snare; from Trapani, a part of Italy where our ships, being insidiously invited on the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were unjustly detained. --Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word swidge
(verb) - To smart violently, as a burn or recent wound. --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Yorkshire, 1788
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clamjaphry
(noun) - A company of people, especially a disorderly or vulgar crowd; a mob, rabble; Scotland, Ireland, and Northumberland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thousand-mile shirt
(noun) - The shirt of a railroad boomer laborer was often given this title because as an itinerant worker he traveled light and supposedly wore the same shirt for thousands of miles. --Marjorie Tallman's Dictionary of American Folklore, 1959
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word butcher's mourning
(noun) - A white hat with a black mourning hatband, probably because a butcher would rather not wear a black hat. White hats and black bands have, however, become genteel ever since the late Prince Consort Albert patronized them. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thumbing
(noun) - That species of intimidation practised by masters on their servants, when the latter are compelled to vote as their masters please. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word umfrazzled
(adjective) - Well done, especially an article of food. --Maurice Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang, 1902
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word farrups
(interjection) - (1) A word used in expressions of surprise, chiefly by older people. "What the farrups are ye at?" --Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883 (2) Ferrups, an exclamation of mild imprecation, especially in the phrase, "by the ferrups!" Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derwentwater. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kidgie
(adjective/adverb) - Cheerful; in good spirits; friendly; hospitable. As an adverb, cheerfully. Renfrewshire, Kirkcudbright. --Mairi Robinson's Concise Scots Dictionary, 1985
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word out of collar
(adjective/adverb) - Out of harness and the working habit. A horse has the collar slipped over its neck when put to work. --Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word zoundy
(verb) - To swoon. --Walter Skeat's Glossary of Devonshire Words, 1896
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bride-bed
(noun) - (1) In Papal times in Britain, it was considered an act of ill-luck for a newly-married couple to retire for the night until the bridal bed had been blessed. --Edwin and Mona Radford's Encyclopædia of Superstitions, 1949 (2) The pride of the clergy and the bigotry of the laity was such that newly-married people were made to wait till midnight after the marriage day before they would pronounce a benediction, unless they were handsomely paid for it, and the couple durst not undress without it, on pain of excommunication. --Francis Blomefield's Topographical History of Norfolk, c. 1752
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word French-inhale
(verb/noun) - The act of exhaling a mouthful of smoke and then inhaling it through the nose. Considered ultrasophisticated by teenagers. --Harold Wentworth's Dictionary of American Slang, 1960
February 7, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bank-full
Said of a stream when full to the brim. --A. Porson's Quaint Words and Sayings of South Worcestershire, 1875
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flizzoms
(pl. noun) - (1) Small fragments of very thin things, as of dry leaves or dust of tobacco; from Norwegian flus, Swedish flisa, a scale, fragment. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878 (2) Very small flakes in bottled liquors. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ramjollock
(verb) - To shuffle cards. --John Farmer and W.E. Henley's Slang and Its Analogues, 1904
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word right as Roosevelt
(adjective) - Entirely right. --Maurice Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang, 1934
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tumblingbay
(noun) - In a canal, an overfall or weir. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dorbel
(noun) - A dull-witted pedant; a foolish pretender to learning; from Nicholas Dorbellus (c. 1400-1475), a professor of scholastic philosophy at Poitiers, and a follower of Duns Scotus, whose name gave us dunce. --Joseph Shipley's Dictionary of Early English, 1955
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word creave
(verb) - To pilfer stealthfully. It seems to combine the meanings of English slang crib and Cheshire creem, to hide. --Thomas Darlington's The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word backrackets
(pl. noun) - Fireworks. --J. Drummond Robertson's Glossary of Archaic Gloucestershire Words, 1890
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word purser's pound
(noun) - The weight formerly used in the navy, by which the purser--an officer appointed by the lords of the admirality to take charge of the provisions and slops of a ship of war, and to see that they were carefully distributed--retained an eighth for "waste," and the men received only seven-eighths of what was supplied by the government. --Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scrunchins
(pl. noun) - Remnants of food; broken meat; remains of a feast. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word betterave
(noun) - Drunkard's nose, a nose with "grog blossoms" or a "copper nose," such as is possessed by an "admiral of the red." --Albert Barrère's Argot and Slang Dictionary, 1911
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word carptor
(noun) - For cutting of meat, persons of rank kept a carver, who was designated the scissor, or carptor. --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word urk
(noun) - A small child or diminutive person. Fairies were formerly called urchins. --Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word carriage folk
(noun) - Gentry. --Granville Leveson-Gower's Glossary of Surrey Words, 1893
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word callifudge
(noun) - A trick; a hoax; a swindle. --Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word footful
(noun) - As much as can be grasped with the foot. --Noah Webster's New International Dictionary, 1952
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Londonoy
(noun) - A Londoner; Chaucer. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brazzil
(noun) - This word, as far as I know, only occurs in the two following phrases. "As hard as a brazzil," is an expression of frequent occurrence to denote any kind of unusual hardness. If, for example, the bread is overbaked it is said to be baked "as hard as a brazzil," or if the housewife cannot break her Bath brick a cake of abrasive clay used for household polishing easily, she exclaims, "It's as hard as a brazzil." The other expression is "as fond as a brazzil." Here the word brazzil probably means a low, impudent girl, in which sense it is sometimes used still. -- Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fish-whole
(adjective) - As sound as a fish; thoroughly sound or healthy; early 1200s-1600. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lerry
(noun) - A lecture; a rustic word from lere, learning, lesson, lore. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word feaze
(verb/noun) - To vex; to be in a feaze is to be in a state of excitement; still commonly colloquial in the States, especially in Virginia and the South. It was used formerly in the same sense as tease, as in teasing wool, but more particularly applied to curry-combing. "I'll pheeze you," says Christophoro Sly in The Taming of the Shrew meaning that he will vex the worthy hostess by staying--like teasel burrs in wool. Another authority regards it as derived from the Anglo-Saxon fysan, used to denote the rapid and noisy movement of water, and from which we get the modern fizz. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gentleman turkey
(noun) - Mock modesty of the Western states requires that a male turkey should be so called. --James Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1877
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stranny
(adjective) - Wild; excited. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beer-heading
(noun) - A mixture intended to revive flat beer. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word baskwather
(noun) - Dry, withering weather. The wind, when such prevails, blows out of the east and northeast, just as it blew on the prophet Jonah when it withered his gourd. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word overcrapped
(adjective) - (1) Surfeited. --J.F. Palmer's Devonshire Dialect Glossary, 1837 (2) Given to gluttony, overeating, &c. --James Barclay's Complete and Universal Dictionary of the English Language, 1848 The word is related to Latin crapula, which meant excessive eating and imbibing, along with the unpleasant aftereffects. Crapula was itself adapted from a Greek forerunner.
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word draw it mild
(verb) - An admonition to one inclined to exaggerate or use explosive language. The allusion is to beer. "A pint of beer, Miss, and draw it mild." --Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spondulicks
(pl. noun) - A term for specie, or money. It would appear to have some connection with Dutch spaunde, "chips," slang for money; and there is a word oolik, bad, wretched. The term probably originated in New York in perversion of these words. This term has become common among English turfites. --Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1889
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word knick-knackatorian
(noun) - (1) One who keeps a knick-knackatory; a dealer in knick-knacks. Knick-knackery, knick-knacks collectively. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908 (2) Nicknackitorian, a dealer in all manner of curiosities, such as Egyptian mummies, Indian implements, antique shields, helmets, &c. --London's Annual Register, 1802
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Americaness
(noun) - A female American; a woman of American birth. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word capful of wind
(noun) - (1) A light flaw which suddenly careens a vessel and passes off. --Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867 (2) This phrase for a little wind, hardly sufficient for moving a sailing ship, arises from the following legend: Eric, King of Sweden, was so familiar with evil spirits that whichever way he turned his cap the wind would blow. Hence, his cap was said to be full of wind. --Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chubb
(verb) - To lock. Unchubb, to unlock. From the well known make of lock by Charles Chubb (1772-1846), English locksmith. --Paul Tempest's Lag's Lexicon: A Dictionary of the English Prison, 1950 (where is the definition that it's an erection from? Twitter? Really?)
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word anti-centenarianism
(noun) - Opposition to the assertion that the persons from time to time reported to have died aged a century or more had really attained to that age. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cockstride
(noun) - The length of a cock's stride. "The days are getting a cockstride longer." --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word farthingale
(noun) - A fourth part of a penny; any very small thing. --Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word for all waters
(adjective) - To be for all waters, to be able to turn to any occupation, like a fish that can live in either fresh or salt water. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word unkard
(adjective) - Strange, as an unkard place. A servant is unkard on his first going to a fresh servitude. --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Yorkshire, 1788
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word do-withall
(verb) - I cannot do-withall, I cannot help it. This phrase is not uncommon in early writers. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bobbing
(noun) - The action or pastime of riding on bob-sleighs. Bobbing is carried out either on bobs (five passengers) or boblets (three passengers). --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hippuric
(adjective) - Pertaining to the urine of horses; hippuric acid, an acid obtained from the urine of horses; from Greek hippos horse, and ouron, urine. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word randirooze
(noun) - A noise, an uproar. Devonshire and Cornwall. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word way-wiser
(noun) - An instrument for measuring the distance which a wheel rolls over a road; an odometer or perambulator. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cat in pan
(adjective) - To turn cat in pan is a proverbial expression signifying a changing of sides in religion or politics. It has been suggested that it should be cate, the old word for cake, which being baked and consequently turned in the pan aptly elucidates the meaning of the proverb. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gilravage
(verb) - To hold a merry meeting, with noise and riot, but without doing injury to anyone. It seems generally to include the idea of a wasteful use of food and of intemperate use of strong drink. Could we suppose that the proper pronunciation were guleravage it might be derived from French gueule, the mouth, the throat, also the stomach, conjoined with the verb already mentioned; to waste, to gormandize. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blonde-bound
(adjective) - Held up by a woman; an excuse for being late on the job. Pacific Northwest. --Walter McCulloch's Woods Words: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Loggers' Terms, 1958
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word culch
(noun) - Great quantity of rain. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word belly-timber
(noun) - (1) Food, familiarly. --C. Clough Robinson's Glossary of Words Pertaining to the Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876 (2) Materials to support the belly. --John Ash's Dictionary of the English Language, 1775
February 6, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word genethliacks
(noun) - The science of calculating nativities, or predicting the future events of life from the stars predominant at birth. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word affray
(noun) - A skirmish or fighting between two or more. It is oft-times confounded with assalt. But they differ in that an assalt is only a wrong to the party, but an affray may also be without word or blow given, as if a man shew himself furnished with armour or weapons not usually worn, it may strike fear into others unarmed. Of the French affres, a fright. --Thomas Blount's Law Dictionary and Glossary, 1717
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jammock
(noun/verb) - (1) A soft, pulpy substance. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855 (2) To squeeze, press; to beat, crush, or trample into a soft mass. Hence jammocked, worn out, exhausted. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ackenpucky
(noun) - Any food mixture of unknown ingredients. West Virginia, noted 1928. --Harold Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary, 1944
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spurticles
(pl. noun) - (1) Spectacles. --R. Pearse Chope's The Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire, 1891 (2) Sparticles, spectacles. --Patrick Devine's Folklore of Newfoundland in Old Words, Phrases, and Expressions, 1937
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clagham
(noun) - In Newcastle, treacle made hard by boiling. Called in other places in the North clag-candy, lady's taste, slittery, tom trot, and treacle ball. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Connecticutensian
(noun) - An inhabitant of Connecticut; late 1700s. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chouse
(verb) - To cheat; to defraud. Similar in origin to such words as burke, boycott, and bogus. It is now classed as slang in England but for a long period was much used by standard English writers. In America however, the word is still looked upon as orthodox and is applied to all kinds of fraudulent dealing and deceit. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ear-biting
(noun) - This odd mode of expressing pleasure, which seems to be taken from the practice of animals who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears, is very common in our old dramatists. "I will bite thee by the ear." Romeo and Juliet. --Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pinchery
(noun) - (1) A state of extreme carefulness approaching to miserliness. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892 (2) A state of want or deficiency; poverty. Cumberland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thorough cough
(noun) - Coughing and breaking wind backwards at the same time. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Friday-face
(noun) - A grave or gloomy expression of the countenance; 1500s-1700s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mothery
(adjective) - Thick, mouldy, as beer or vinegar when stale. --John Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Wiltshire, 1842
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word awblaster
(noun) - A cross-bowman. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word diddlecum
(adjective) - Half-mad; sorely teased. --Walter Skeat's Glossary of Devonshire Words, 1896
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kintra-cooser
(noun) - (1) A human stallion; a fellow who debauches many country girls. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824 (2) From kintra, country, and cooser, a stallion. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879 revision
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word holy-falls
(pl. noun) - Trousers buttoned breeches-fashion, having the flap, not the fly, front. Warwickshire. --G.F. Northall's Folk-Phrases of Four Counties: Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire, 1894
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word searisque
(noun) - Hazard at sea. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beddage
(noun) - Beds collectively, especially in a hospital. How long will it be before the little job of putting on a shirt button is called sewage? --Eric Partridge's Chamber of Horrors: A Glossary of Official Jargon, Both English and American, 1952
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word husy
(adjective) - Having a hoarseness or continuous cough. From German. --F.T. Dinsdale's Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Teasdale, Durham, 1849
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gawmless
(adjective) - (1) Within Lancashire, to gawm is to understand or comprehend, and a man is said to gawm that which he can hold in his hand. For this reason, a person is said there to be gawmless when his fingers are so cold and frozen that he has not proper use of them. --Rev. John Watson's Uncommon Words Used in Halifax, 1775 (2) Heedless; careless; inattentive. Senseless; vacant; lubberly. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word out of all ho
(adjective/adverb) - Out of all restraint. Derived from the exclamation "ho!"--used to stop the combat at a tournament. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cush-pet
(noun) - A term of endearment addressed to a cow, the common call for a cow being cush-cush. --Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word simmiting
(noun) - (1) An inclination or fondness for a person of the opposite sex. --R. Pearse Chope's Dialect of Hartland Devonshire, 1891 (2) Simmithy, to look after admiringly; to pay attention to. Also written simathy. Northwest Devonshire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dry lodgings
(pl. noun) - Sleeping accommodation without board. --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jeffing
(noun) - Throwing with quads metal pieces of type. One takes up the quads, shakes them, and throws them after the manner of throwing dice. When the number of quads with the nicks appearing uppermost are counted, the highest thrower being the winner. --John Southward's Dictionary of Typography, 1875
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dentriloquist
(noun) - One who speaks through the teeth. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
February 5, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gelastic
(adjective) - (1) Of or pertaining to laughter; from Greek gelastikos, inclined to laugh. From Greek gelos, laughter, and skopeo, to see. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895 (2) Geloscopy, divination performed by means of laughter; divining any person's qualities or character by observation of the manner of his laughter. --Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1736
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pannier market
(noun) - The ordinary vegetable or fruit market, in contradistinction to a meat or fish market. --R. Pearse Chope's Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire, 1891
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cock-sqwoilin
(noun) - The barbarous practice of throwing at cocks, formerly a custom at Shrovetide. This unmanly pastime is, I fear, not entirely abolished in some parts of England. Query--if the word sqwoilin is from cwellan, to kill? Sqwoilin is also used for throwing. --John Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Wiltshire, 1842
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word critical days
(pl. noun) - Wherein the disease comes to its crisis, the odd days and 14th especially. --Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word metromania
(noun) - A species of insanity in which the patient evinces a rage for reciting poetry. From Greek metreon, metre, and mainomai, to be insane. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beans are in flower
(adjective) - A suggested explanation of a person's stupidity. It was formerly believed that the scent of the flowering bean induced stupidity in the recipient of it. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Queen's tobacco-pipe
(noun) - A peculiarly shaped kiln belonging to the Customs, and situated near the London docks, in which are collected contraband goods, as tobacco, cigars, tea, &c. which have been smuggled, till a sufficient quantity has been accumulated, when the whole is set fire to and consumed. --Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word streek
(verb) - (1) To stretch or expand; to lay out a corpse; from Saxon streccan. Streeking-board, a board on which the limbs of the deceased are stretched out and composed. --John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825 (2) Streeker, a layer-out of the dead. --Francis Robinson's Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Whidby Yorkshire, 1876
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word peg away
(verb) - To continue determinedly on one's course; a camping metaphor. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
February 4, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word laqui
“The laqui is a strip of leather, five or six feet long, to each end of which is fastened a stone about two pounds weight. The huntsman, who is on horseback, holds one of these in his hands, and whirling the other, slings the string at the animal in so dexterous a manner that the stones form a tight knot around his legs" - Books on Google Play
Spanish America: Or A Descriptive, Historical, and Geographical Account of the Dominions of Spain in the Western Hemisphere, Continental and Insular; Illustrated by a Map of Spanish North America, and the West-India Islands; a Map of Spanish South America, and an Engraving, Representing the Comparative Altitudes of the Mountains in Those Regions, Volume 2
February 3, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word moon's sphere
(noun) - In the Ptolemaic system, the moon was fixed in the innermost of nine spheres which revolved around the earth. The inflected genitive moon's sphere occurs several times in early plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream. --C.H. Herford's Notes on the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word braggot
On Mid-Lent Sunday the Welsh customarily drank braggot, a meadlike beverage made of "spiced and honeyed ale." According to John Ray's North Country Words (1691), braggot is derived from the Welsh "brag, signifying malt, and gots, a honeycomb."
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word foot-ale
(noun) - (1) Ale given to the older workmen by an apprentice or new hand as an entrance fee on taking his place amongst them. --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879 (2) An old custom amongst miners, when a man enters first into work, to pay his first day's wages for ale. --William Hooson's Miner's Dictionary, 1747 (3) A stranger will generally be asked to "stand his foot-ale." --A. Benoni Evans' Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs, 1881 (4) Drink given by the seller to the buyer at a cattle fair. --D. Nicholson's Manuscript Collection of Caithness Scotland Words (5) A fine paid by a young man when found courting out of his own district. --William Dickinson's Glossary of the Cumberland Dialect, 1899
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word heart-scald
(noun) - Heartburn; figuratively a great disappointment. Also heart-scad. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dictionatical
(adjective) - Such as the dictionary authorizes or approves. "I don't think that word is dictionatical." --J.C. Ruppenthal's Word-List from Kansas, 1916
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mechanician
(noun) - An artisan; one who is versed in mechanics; from French mechanicien. --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word epigastrum
In anatomy, the epigastrium (or epigastric region) is the upper central region of the abdomen.
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word succubus
(noun) - Some authors mean by it a female phantom with which a man, in his sleep, sometimes believes he has intercourse, as incubus, applied to the male phantom, with which a female may dream she is similarly situate. Incubus, a sensation of a heavy weight at the epigastrum during sleep. The sensation of suffocation was formerly ascribed to the person's being possessed. The disease requires no particular treatment. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word peascod wooing
(noun) - (1) If a young woman, while she is shelling peas, meets with a pod of nine peas, the first young man who crosses the threshold afterwards is to be her husband. In Scotland it is, or was, a custom to rub with peastraw fodder made from pea stalks and leaves a girl to whom her lover has not been true. --W.C. Hazlitt's Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles, 1870 (2) I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her. --William Shakespeare's As You Like It, 1600 (3) I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod-time. --Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV, 1597
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bathing-machine
(noun) - A covered vehicle used at the seaside resorts of Britain in which bathers dressed. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word burying-biscuit
(noun) - A small sponge cake formerly eaten at funerals and sent out to friends, as wedding cake is now; Lancashire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word abliguration
(noun) - A prodigal spending on meat and drink. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hundred-pound gentleman
(noun) - A hundred-pound gentleman was a term of contempt implying pretentious poverty. King Lear. --C.H. Herford's Glossary of the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
January 31, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hypped
(adjective) - Made melancholy; hyppish, affected with hypochondria. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word afterwrath
(noun) - Wrath arising not at the time, but after reflection on an insult or injury, which seemed at the time light, has shown its enormity. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word coffin-ripe
(adjective) - On the verge of death. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bed-vow
(noun) - Marriage vow. --C.T. Onions' Oxford Shakespeare Glossary, 1911
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word harbouration
(noun) - A collection of anything unpleasant. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gulching
(noun) - On the Labrador coast, gulching has a meaning peculiar to that region and to those who frequent it. In summer, men, women, and children from Newfoundland spend some weeks there fishing and living in a very promiscuous way. As there is no tree for shelter for hundreds of miles of islands and shores, parties resort to the hollows for secret indulgence. Hence gulching has, among them, become a synonym for living a wanton life. --George Story's Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 1982
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word witcracker
(noun) - A joker; one who breaks a jest. "A college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of my humour." Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word strine
informal
noun
noun: Strine; noun: strine; plural noun: strines
1.
the English language as spoken by Australians; the Australian accent, especially when considered striking or uneducated.
an Australian.
plural noun: Strines
adjective
adjective: Strine; adjective: strine
1.
relating to Australians or Australian English.
"he spoke with a broad Strine accent"
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Chaucer's jest
(noun) - An obscene or indelicate act or remark, in allusion to some narratives in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jiggs
(pl. noun) - Small dregs or sediment, as of a pot of coffee or a bottle of physic. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word redback
(noun) - (1) One of the treasury notes issued by the Republic of Texas in 1838 which in 1862 inspired the still-used term greenback. --Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, 1951 (2) Called from the color of the paper. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940 (3) Yellowboy, a gold coin. A very low word. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wooden hills
(pl. noun) - A common slang term for stairs. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word barbette
(verb) - To make inarticulate sounds; to mutter; adopted from Old French barbeter, Latin balbutire, to stammer. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Stafford law
(noun) - (1) The law of the cudgel. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922 (2) "Club law," with pun on staff. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cold-crowdings
(pl. noun) - (1) Hard times. The idea of a cold day as a day of misfortunes appears current in Shakespeare's play Timon of Athens (Act I, Scene i). It has lately appeared in the phrase, "It's a cold day when I get left!" --Appleton Morgan's Study in the Warwickshire Dialect, 1900 (2) There'll be cold crowdings if bread gets much dearer. --G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word insufflation
(noun) - (1) The act of blowing a gas or vapour into a cavity of the body, as when tobacco smoke is injected into the rectum. --Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859 (2) From Latin sufflatus, blown up, puffed out. --Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beggar barn
(noun) - Villages in some parts of the country formerly possessed buildings known as "beggar barns." These barns usually belonged to the farm which was situated nearest the church, and wayfaring beggars were always given gratis a night's lodging and a meal in them. It was a popular belief that such homeless wanderers had a legal right to sleep in the church porch, and it was purely a sense of public decency which substituted the beggar barn. --Frederick Hackwood's Good Old Times, 1910
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word smouge
(verb) - To take secretly more than one's rightful share. To make false tax returns and smouge the difference. --William O. Rice's Pioneer Dialect of Southern Illinois, 1902
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crop clubs
(pl. noun) - Clubs formed to evade Mr. Pitt's tax on hair powder. --Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bless the mark
God save the mark This parenthetic phrase can be used as an exclamation of contempt, impatience, or derision; as a formula spoken to avert an evil omen; or as a phrase serving to soften or lessen the offensiveness of something said. Contrary to popular belief that this expression was originally used by archers, it is now believed to have been originally used by midwives at the birth of a child bearing a “mark.” Shakespeare popularized the phrase and its variant bless the mark in his plays.
He had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. (Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591)
In modern use, save the mark is most often heard as an ironic expression of contempt.
The crisis of apathetic melancholy … from which he emerged by the reading of Marmontel’s Memoirs (Heaven save the mark!) and Wordsworth’s poetry. (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902)
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wittol
(noun) - A husband who knows of and endures his wife's unfaithfulness; a contented cuckold. From woodwale, a bird whose nest is invaded by the cuckoo, and so has the offspring of another palmed off on it for its own. --John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thirty-pound knights
(pl. noun) - James I became the subject of much ridicule, not quite unmerited, for putting honours to sale. He created the order of the baronet, which he disposed of for a sum of money; and it seems that he sold common knighthood as low as £30. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Mischief Night
The evening before May-day is termed "Mischief Night" by the young people of Burnley and the surrounding district. All kinds of mischief are then perpetrated. Formerly, shopkeepers' sign-boards were exchanged. Young men and women play each other tricks by placing branches of trees, shrubs, or flowers under each other's windows, or before their doors. All these have a symbolic rhyming meaning, significant if not always complimentary; thus a thorn implies scorn, wicken (mountain ash) 'my dear chicken,' a bramble for one who likes to ramble, &c. Much ill-feeling is, at times, engendered by this custom. --John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson's Lancashire Folklore, 1867
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gafty
(adjective) - (1) Vicious, roguish, with a connotation of cunning. A jibbling horse is said to be gafty. A boy who is full of tricks is called a gafty youth. Used exclusively of boys. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887 (2) Sly; tricky; cunning; not to be trusted; mischievous. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905 (3) A gafty person is a suspected person. --Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clishawk
(verb) - To steal. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sile
(verb) - (1) In some old cookery books we are told to "soil milk before using it." This, at first sight, appears to be a curious direction. If, however, we use the correct modern orthography of the first word, we shall find that we are able to sile it--that is, to pass it through a fine sile, or sieve, in order that it shall be freed from hairs or other impurities. --Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882 (2) To soil milk, to cleanse it. --John Ray's North Country Words, 1674 (3) To pour. He siled a gallon of ale down his throat. --Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1787
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trocar
(noun) - (1) A cane, or pipe made of silver, or steel, with a sharp-pointed end, us'd in tapping those that are troubled with the dropsy. --Edward Phillips' New World of Words, 1706 (2) An instrument used for evacuating fluids or gases from cavities. It consists of a perforator or stilet, and of a cannula tube which is so adapted to the perforator that when the puncture is made both enter the wound with facility, after which the stilet being withdrawn, the cannula remains in the wound and affords the fluid a ready passage outwards. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844 (3) The handle of the trocar is of wood, the cannula of silver, and the perforator of steel. --Samuel Sharp's Treatise on the Operations of Surgery, 1747
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word piepowder court
(noun) - (1) In English law, the Court of the Dusty Foot. By a Court of Pie Poudre at Bartholomew Fair 1804 a young gentleman paid three pounds sixteen shillings for taking away an actress when she was going to perform, and five pounds for criminal conduct to the husband, the lady being married. --Joseph Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, 1841 (2) Piepowder is derived from the French words pied, a foot, and poudre, dusty. It is applied to a court held in fairs to yield justice to buyers and sellers, and for redress of disorders committed in them. It was so called because it was most usually held in summer, and suitors to this court were most commonly country clowns with dusty feet, and from the expedition in hearing and deciding the causes being before the dust goes off the shoes of the people's feet. --Joseph Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosæ, 1819 (3) Probably from pied puldreaux, a peddler. --George Mason's Supplement to Johnson's Dictionary, 1801
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word daught
(noun) - Anything having a wild, unnatural taste is said to have daught; though this taste be not felt for some days after the thing has been eaten it is said to "have a daught behind it." Southern Scotland. --John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word growsome
(adjective) - (1) Ugly, frightful. In North Yorkshire growsome refers to fine weather for the crops, but grewsome means ugly. --Robert Willan's List of Ancient Words of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1814 (2) Of an animal, apt to grow; hence growsomeness. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ob and sollers
(pl. noun) - Words contracted from objections and solutions, applied in ridicule of the polemic divines of the time of Cromwell, who represented the arguments of their adversaries in the shape of objections--noted in the margins as ob, and their own replies as sol, solutions. Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1664) contains Pass for deep and learned scholars, / Although but paltry ob-and-sollers. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jimrags
(pl. noun) - Fragments; pieces. --Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Billingsgate pheasant
(noun) - A red herring; from the fish-market at Billingsgate. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word neomenia
(noun) - In Greek and Jewish antiquities, the time of the new moon, the beginning of the lunar month; also, the festival held at that time. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nazz'd
(adjective) - (1) Confused through liquor; slightly drunk. Nazzy, stupified through drink. --C. Clough Robinson's Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876 (2) Nazzle, to be in a dreamy, stupid, abstracted state; Yorkshire. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fard
(verb/noun) - (1) To paint the face. --Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859 (2) To paint the face with fard, white paint; to hide defects and improve the complexion; 1400s-1600s. Figuratively, to embellish or gloss over anything. Paint, especially white paint, for the face. Zacharie Boyd's Zion's Flowers (c. 1620) wrote, "I have farded half my face with fard most rare." --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Abraham's eye
(noun) - A magical charm, the application of which was supposed to deprive a thief, who refused to confess his crime, of eyesight; from a 16th-century manuscript on magic. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fossilogy
(noun) - A discourse or treatise of fossils; also the science of fossils. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word inadvertist
(noun) - (1) One who habitually fails to take notice; an inadvertent person; 1600s. Inadvertisement, want of attention or observation. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901 (2) Inadvertency, not sufficiently observing; a want of care. --Nathaniel Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word good enoughs
(pl. noun) - Horseshoes purchased by the keg in various sizes to put on the horse's feet cold. These are used where there is no blacksmith to make a perfect fit. --Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pigwidgeon
(noun) - (1) A kind of cant word for anything petty or small. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755 (2) A fairy. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850 (3) Of obscure origin and meaning. Some have identified it with the name of a fairy knight favoured by Queen Mab, the wife of Oberon. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word iatrochemicus
(noun) - (1) A chemical physician, or one who uses chemical medicines. --John Redman Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817 (2) Iatrochemistry, the chemical theory of medicine adopted by Paracelsus. --Sir James Murray's Oxford English Dictionary, 1909
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word geswelge
(noun) - A devouring abyss; a gulf. --Rev. Joseph Bosworth's Compendious Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary, 1848
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pismire
(noun) - (1) The old name of the ant, an insect very generally named from the sharp urinous smell of an anthill. From Dutch miere, pismiere, an ant. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878 (2) An ant discharges an irritant formic acid vulgarly regarded as urine. --Charles Annandale's Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, 1897 (3) Also written passimere in North Yorkshire, pisamoor in East Lancashire, pishamer in Norfolk, pishemeer in East Anglia, and pissymyour in South Cheshire, and pishminnies in Scotland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sleep-waking
(noun) - In the state of one mesmerized, who is asleep and awake at the same time. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spang one's gales
(verb) - To make haste. --Walter Skeat's Alphabetical Clavis of the Yorkshire Dialect, 1896
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mullycrushed
(adjective) - Ruined beyond repair. --Ammon Wrigley's Old Lancashire Words and Sayings, Parish of Saddleworth, 1940
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word compiss
(verb) - To wet with urine; adaptation of French compisser; 1600s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word long chalks
(pl. noun) - To beat a person "by long chalks" is with plenty to spare. Allusion is perhaps here made to the custom of jumping and other competitions to mark the distances attained by the competitors by chalk marks, the idea being herein conveyed that the victor's marks are a long way in front of his rival's. Or the expression may have originated in a game, general in Derbyshire and elsewhere, in which the player with a lump of chalk reached, or "wrained," round his right leg and stretching his arm as far as possible made a mark along the ground. The winner of the game was he who made the most distant or "longest" chalk. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word queming
(noun) - Pleasure; from queme, agreeable, Anglo-Saxon cweman. --Herbert Coleridge's Dictionary of the Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word male-odour
(noun) - An offensive odour. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word glonders
(pl. noun) - (1) The sulks; a bad temper; frowns. --Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911 (2) In the glonders, in a state of ill humour, to be pouting. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quarrel
(noun) - (1) A square of window glass, properly one placed diagonally; anciently, a diamond-shaped pane of glass. Hence the cant term, quarrel-picker, a glazier. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855 (2) Adopted from Old French quarrel, medieval Latin quadrus, a square. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914 (3) This old word is still sometimes heard in New England among the illiterate. --John Pickering's Vocabulary of the United States, 1816
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chirogymnast
(noun) - A mechanical apparatus for the exercising of a pianist's fingers; from Greek cheir, the hand, and gymnastes, a gymnast. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Language, 1871
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word puss-gentleman
(noun) - (1) A gentleman perfumed with civet. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909 (2) An effeminate dandy. --William Whitney's Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1889 (3) I cannot talk with civet in the room, / A fine puss-gentleman that's all perfume. --William Cowper's Conversation, 1781
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scandaroon
(noun) - A variety of carrier pigeon, presumably from Scanderoon, the name of a seaport in Syria. Perhaps so called from the fact that "formerly the pigeon was employed by the English factory at Scanderoon to carry intelligence of the arrival of their ships in that port to Aleppo" according to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 1845. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word innominables
(pl. noun) - (1) Trousers. --T. Lewis Davies' Supplemental English Glossary, 1881 (2) Inexpressibles, a euphemism for trousers. --Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912 (3) Unutterables, unmentionables, unwhisperables, or sit upons, the "nether garments"--affected terms having their origins in a most unpleasant squeamishness. --John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word zuckblood
(noun) - The common leech. --Edward Slow's Glossary of Wiltshire Words, Used by the Peasantry in the Neighborhood of Salisbury, c. 1900
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brose
(noun) - (1) A dish made by pouring boiling water or milk on oatmeal seasoned with salt and butter. Hence brose-meal, brose-time, etc. Modern Scottish form of earlier browis, Old French broez. Often treated as a plural, like porridge, broth, ect. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888 (2) The dish is dominated from the nature of the liquid, as water-brose, kale-brose. So late as 1530, brewes was used in this sense by English writers. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word First of May
(noun) - A novice; a person out for his first season. Circus and carnival slang. --Maurice Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang, 1934
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word qued
(noun/adjective) - (1) Harm; evil; wickedness; mischief. A man who goes to prison is said to "go to quad." From Teutonic quad. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832 (2) Hostile; inimical; the Devil; quedful, full of evil; quedness, wickedness; 1200s-1600s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gombeen
(noun) - (1) A usurer; a profiteer; the "big man" of the village; also gombeen-man. --Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953 (2) Usury; adapted from modern Irish gaimbín; a derivative of Old Celtic kmbion. Gombeenism, the practice of borrowing or lending at usury. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word our muttons
(adjective) - The farming community has given us another useful expression in our muttons. When we speak of something being our muttons, we mean that we like it especially well. --Sydney Baker's New Zealand Slang: A Dictionary of Colloquialisms, 1941
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jerry-building
(noun) - The term jerry-building, of which one hears so much nowadays, is probably a corruption of Jericho-building. The insinuation conveyed is that, like the walls of Jericho which fell down on the blowing of trumpets, so are such buildings likely to collapse under a very slight shock. Still used in Britain; it dates from Victorian times--not World War II, as commonly believed. --A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word emule
(verb) - (1) To strive; to excel; to rival; to equal; related to emulate. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832 (2) Adapted from Latin æmul-a, to emulate. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Narrowdale noon
(noun/adverb) - (1) One o'clock p.m. The people living at the foot of the Narrowdale Hills in Staffordshire never see the sun for a quarter of the year. In summertime it is one o'clock ere the disc appears over the summit. The phrase is colloquially used in the neighborhood to indicate something long deferred. --Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889 (2) Indefinitely. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word puthering
(adjective) - (1) Pouring with rain. --Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900 (2) Puthery, sultry; English Midlands. Puther, smoke, steam, dust; a cloud of smoke or dust; English Midlands. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 27, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lockrums
(pl. noun) - A factitious word for oddities of manner, or eccentricities. --John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word all a mort
(adjective) - Depressed; out of spirits; melancholy. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fleet marriages
(pl. noun) - Clandestine marriages, especially of minors, at one time permitted without banns or license at the Chapel of the Fleet prison, but from the latter part of Queen Anne's reign 1702-1714 performed by the Fleet clergy in rooms of nearby taverns and houses. --Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Hog's Norton
(noun) - (1) To say that a man comes from Hog's Norton in Oxfordshire is simply equivalent to saying that he snores. --Arthur Evans' Leicestershire Words, Phrases and Proverbs, 1881 (2) Inhabitants were so rustical in their behavior that boorish and clownish people are said to be born at Hogs-Norton. --Thomas Fuller's History of the Worthies of England, 1662
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crypteria
Crypteria is a genus of crane fly in the family Limoniidae.
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gully-whumper
n. (US) a surprising example. (SE gull + WHOMP v. (1) i,e. something that will shock a fool
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word outhorn
(noun) - In ancient times, the king's subjects were called to arms by the sound of a horn, and blowing the outhorne was the signal for assembly. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word post-and-pan
(noun/adjective) - (1) The name by which half-timbered houses are known in some parts of England. --Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889 (2) A post-and-pan house is one formed of uprights and cross-pieces of timber which are not plastered over but generally blackened, as many old cottages are in various parts of England. The timbers in these structures is represented in the word post. The Anglo-Saxon word pan, or pane, a piece or portion, refers to the filled up interstices. We still use the word in the phrase pane of glass. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dog's wages
(pl. noun) - Food alone as wages for service. --Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kibbo kift
(noun) - A proof of great strength, namely for a man to stand in a half-bushel and lift from the ground and place on his shoulders a load of wheat that is fourteen score weight. There is an oak chest of great antiquity in the wooden church of Peover. Any woman who can raise the heavy lid with her left arm is said to be a fit wife for a Cheshire yeoman. --Edgerton Leigh's Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word batherer
(verb/noun) - (1) To go hither and thither in search of anything. Ash-batherer, a man who collected ashes for sale. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905 (2) Formerly, within the memory of many, it was customary for men to go about and buy up wood-ashes at farm-houses and cottages and carry them in bags on horse or donkey-back, and retail them for making lye for washing purposes, or for cleaning wooden ware, and as a substitute for soda. --Robert Lawson's Upton-on-Severn Words and Phrases, 1884
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word priscianist
(noun) - (1) A grammarian. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914 (2) To break Priscian's head, to outrage the rules of grammar. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922 (3) The phrase, "Priscian a little scratched" from Love's Labour's Lost is a paraphrase of a common expression, "diminuis Prisciana caput," which was applied to such as speak false Latin. It may be fairly said that from the sixth century until recently Priscian has reigned over Latin grammar. --John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and Glossary, 1902
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word coach-fellow
(noun) - A horse employed to draw a carriage with another. Metaphorically, a person intimately connected with another, generally applied to people in low life. --James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nonpower
(noun) - The position of a sheep when on its back and unable to get up. Fat sheep, at the time when their fleeces are at the fullest growth, very often get upon their backs, and having nothing to kick against are unable to turn. The situation is dangerous inasmuch as the animal's struggles soon bring on inflammation of the bowels. Somerset. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word balk
(noun) - A rafter in a kitchen or outhouse; a rack fixed to a rafter or balk, used in old farmhouses which holds the flitches of bacon used by the family. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word altesse
(noun) - Highness; a title given to members of a royal house. --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1964
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word moys
(verb) - To thrive; spoken of crops and livestock. Also in a general sense, as "he muddles on but does not moys." --William Marshall's Provincialisms of East Norfolk, 1787
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Cat-Latin
(noun) - Incoherent or idle talk; bad writing. --B. Kirkby's Lakeland Words Used in Cumberland and Westmoreland, 1898
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word furcifier
(noun) - A slave who, for punishment of some fault, was made to carry a heavy wooden fork upon his neck through the city with his hands tied to it. Hence the word came to signify generally a rogue, a villain. --Frederick Hackwood's Good Cheer: The Romance of Food, 1911
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eagle-stone
(noun) - (1) A variety of iron ore, so called from the belief that it was found in the nest of the eagle, where it was supposed to prevent the eagle's eggs from becoming rotten. --Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859 (2) This stone was formerly supposed to facilitate delivery if bound on the thigh, and to prevent abortion if bound on the arm. --Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word swan-upping
(noun) - (1) The swan companies annually used to take up the swans for the purpose of marking them. --T. Lewis Davies' Supplemental English Glossary, 1881 (2) Swan-upping was, among our ancestors, a very favorite sport, not unattended by risk, for the birds seldom submitted to the process without a struggle, which occasionally cost the captor a ducking. --W.C. Hazlitt's Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles, 1870 (3) Swan-upper, an official who takes up and marks swans. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tup-running
(noun) - (1) A rural sport practised at wakes and fairs in Derbyshire. A ram, whose tail is well soaped and greased, is turned out to the multitude. Anyone that can take him by the tail and hold him fast is to have him for his own. --Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796 (2) From tup, a male sheep; a ram. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word buckard
(adjective) - Milk, soured by keeping too long in the bucket, or by being kept in a foul bucket. The word is not now used, but is applied to cheese when instead of being solid it has a spongy look and is full of cavities. --Frederick Elworthy's Specimens of English Dialects, 1778
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word imaginant
(noun) - (1) One who is prone to form strange ideas. --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850 (2) An imaginer 1600s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word milk-meats
(pl. noun) - Butter, cheese, &c. --T. Lewis Davies' Supplemental English Glossary, 1881
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word burry
(adjective/verb) - (1) Probably rough, boorish, according to Lord Hailes. It might bear this meaning as descriptive of the shaggy appearance of a dog; from French bourru, flockie, hairie, rugged, and Old French bourre, locks of wool. But it seems more naturally to convey the idea of cruelty. From French bourreau, an executioner. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808 (2) Burrie, to push roughly; to crowd confusedly and violently; to overpower. --Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911 (3) Shaggy; rough. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dead-man's hand
(noun) - Throughout the West, the combination of two aces and two eights is known as the dead-man's hand. This superstition was handed down from the time that Jack McCall killed Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota, while he sat in a poker game holding this hand. All five cards Hickok held were black--either clubs or spades. --Ramon Adams' Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chocolate-house
(noun) - A public house where chocolate is drunk. --T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boukit-washing
(noun) - The great annual purification of the linen used in a family by means of bouk, a lye made of cow's dung and stale urine, in which foul linen is steeped in order to its being cleansed or whitened. The linen is sometimes allowed to lie in this state for several days. --John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lithermon's-load
(noun) - (1) A greater load than can well be carried at one time, but is nevertheless undertaken to save the trouble of another journey--a lazy man's load. Old English lither, bad, wicked, has a secondary meaning of "lazy" in some of our early writers. John Ray gives "lither, idle, lazy, slothful," in North Country Words 1691; John Jamieson Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808 has "lidder, sluggishness, and lythyrnes, sloth." --Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879 (2) Hence, lidderie, feeble, lazy; litherly, idly, lazily; litherums, idleness. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word usufructry
(noun) - (1) One that hath the use and reaps the profit of that, whereof the propriety doth rest in another.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
(2) In general use, one who has the use or enjoyment of something.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word skir-handed
(adjective) - Skir, or kir-handed people, left-handed ones, are not safe for a traveller to meet on a Tuesday morning. On other days it is fortunate to meet them. If you enter another man's house with your skir foot foremost, you draw down evil upon its inhabitants. If, therefore, you have carelessly done so, you must avert the mischief by going out and making your entrance a second time with the right foot. I conclude that this little superstition once held its ground in the South, for Dr. Samuel Johnson is said to have entertained it, and to have left a house and re-entered it right foot foremost if on the first occasion he had planted his left foot on the threshold.
--William Henderson's Folklore of the Northern Counties of England, 1879
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pomander
(noun) - (1) A perfume-box, round vessel pierced with holes for containing perfumes. From French pomme d'ambre, an apple of amber.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) This term was applied both to a ball composed of perfumes and to the case used for carrying them about the person. Pomanders were carried either in the pocket or suspended from the neck or girdle, and were sometimes looked upon as amulets, sometimes as an efficient means of preventing infection. An old recipe for making them directs a mixture of carefully prepared garden soil, labdanum, benzoin, storax, ambergris, civet and musk. These, when well incorporated, are warrented "to make you smell as sweet as my lady's dog, if your breath be not too valiant."
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and Glossary, 1902
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word knotchelled
(adjective) - (1) When a man publicly declares he will not pay any of his wife's debts which have been contracted since some fixed day, she is said to be knotchelled, a certain disgraceful imaginary mark. Lancashire.
--Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
(2) In short, she is a marked woman.
--Edgerton Leigh's Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(3) In Lancashire, to "cry a woman knotchel" is when a man gives a public notice that he will not pay his wife's debts.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms, 1855
(4) Cry-notchil, to advertise irresponsibility for a wife's debts. In the old time, this was effected by means of the bell-man. It is now done through the medium of newspapers.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word friggling
(verb) - (1) Loitering or trifling about.
--J. Drummond Robertson's Glossary of Archaic Gloucestershire Words, 1890
(2) Friggle, to fidget, worry; to do anything in a slow or awkward way.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word surdity
(noun) - (1) Deafness; adaptation of Latin surditas . . . from surdus, in an active sense, deaf; in a passive sense, silent, mute, dumb, dull, indistinct.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(2) The term surdism is applied to those degrees of deafness which make the acquisition of speech in the very young impossible by ordinary means.
--D. Williams' Medical Discoveries of Infancy, 1898
January 26, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eald
(noun) - (1) Old age; pure Saxon. Chaucer has elde, and Shakespeare eld.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Eld, used collectively for aged persons. The Merry Wives of Windsor.
--C.H. Herford's Notes on the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word according to Cocker
(adjective/adverb) - According to Cocker is equivalent to "sure to be right." In the days of the Stuarts lived a man, Edward Cocker. In his day and a long time after, his work on arithmetic was in general use in this country, and regarded as a standard of accuracy.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brother of the buskin
(noun) - An actor, from the buskins peculiar high-heeled boots worn by tragedy actors in ancient times.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sackering
(verb) - Telling false tales of distress. Sackerin' Sam was a well known beggar of Dalton.
--Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word superchery
(noun) - (1) Deceit; cheating; an old word of French origin.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
(2) Foul play; an injurie, wrong, affront, bravado.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drent
(adjective) - Drowned; from Scottish drencean; 1300s-1500s.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 22, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Winchester goose
(noun) - (1) Swelling in the groin caused by venereal disease.
--C.T. Onions' Oxford Shakespeare Glossary, 1911
(2) The French for it, according to Cotgrave, was clapoir, a botch in the groyne . . . It is thought to have originated from the circumstance of the public stews at Bankside in Southwark London, being under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. Hence, Ben Jonson calls it, "The Wincestrian goose, bred on the Southwark Bank in time of popery, when Venus there maintain'd her mystery."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Then ther's a Goose that breeds at Winchester,
And of all Geese, my mind is least to her.
--John "The Water Poet" Taylor, c. 1630
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word probang
(2) Provang, a whalebone instrument used for cleansing the stomach.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word prigge
(verb) - To filche; to steale.
--John Bullokar's English Expositor, 1616
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boonwork
(noun) - (1) Work done by the tenant for his landlord, the remains of socage, which now generally consists in a day or two's work with a horse and cart, drawing coals, materials, &c. In former times, many other various things were added. The tenant kept a cock for his landlord in cock-fighting days, and a dog. The landlord's pig and geese were turned into the tenant's fields after the crops were removed. A tenant also brought his landlord every year a cheese or a goose. In short, it was a sort of barter in times when the exchangeable medium of goods, money, was not plentiful, in fact very scarce, and the purchase of commodities had to be subvented in other ways.
--Edgerton Leigh's Glossary of the Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(2) Hence booning, rendering service to a neighbour.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hoppety-hick
(adjective) - Spoken of a person whose gait exhibits a sort of hopping movement followed by a kicking or swinging motion of one leg.
--G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sublunary
(adjective) - (1) Anything under the orb of the moon.
--Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, 1740
(2) Lying between the orbit of the moon and the earth; hence, subject to the moon's influence. Belonging to this world; mundane; temporal; ephemeral.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nether stocks
(pl. noun) - Stockings covering the legs and feet. In the ninth century, persons of rank wore them as high as the middle of the thigh, but in the lower classes they only reached to the calf and hence were called nether stocks.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word carroty
(adjective) - (1) Annoyed, angry, after a scolding or a mishap. Quick temper is supposed to go with red hair.
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
(2) Spoken of red hair on account of its resemblance in colour to carrots.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(3) A shock of untidy carroty hair . . .
--W.S. Maugham's Creatures of Circumstance, 1947
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fourteen hundred
(interjection) - The cry uttered on the London Stock Exchange when the presence of a stranger is detected. It is supposed to be derived from the fact that the number of members of the exchange was, for long, limited to 1399.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mooncalf
(noun) - An old name for a false conception or a fœtus imperfectly formed . . . supposed to be occasioned by the influence of the moon. Trinculo supposes Caliban to be a mooncalf in The Tempest (Act II, Scene 2), saying, "I hid me under a dead mooncalf's gaberdine." Sometimes used as a term of reproach to signify a living monster, lumpish, stupid, and heavy.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gregarian
(adjective) - (1) Of the common sort; ordinary; related to gregarius belonging to a herd.
--William Grimshaw's Ladies' Lexicon and Parlour Companion, 1854
(2) Of a soldier, common, a private. Gregarianism, the practice of collecting in flocks or companies.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word anteloquy
(noun) - (1) A preface, or the first turn in speaking.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
(2) A terme which stage-players use, by them called their cue.
--Henry Cockeram's Interpreter of Hard English Words, 1623
January 21, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word zouch
(noun) - An ungenteel man; a bookseller.
--John Awdeley's Fraternitye of Vacabondes, 1565
January 20, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bibibles
(pl. noun) - Food of liquid kind; an innovation formed on the model of edibles, which has little to recommend it, save its vulgarity.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
January 20, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word barring-out
(noun) - The breaking up of a school at the great holidays when the boys within bar the door against the master. Northern England.
--Samuel Pegge's Supplement to Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1814
January 20, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word melsh-dick
(noun) - (1) A wood-demon who is supposed to guard over unripe nuts. "Melsh Dick'll catch thee lad," was a common threat used to frighten children going nutting.
--Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) A sylvan goblin, the protector of hazelnuts from the depredations of mischievous boys.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chop-dollar
(noun) - A dollar, chopped or stamped with a private mark as a guarantee of its genuineness. Dollars similarly marked had currency in England in the first quarter of the last 18th century, and one of the present writers can recollect this occasional occurrence in Scotland in his childhood. The word chap is adopted in Malay with meanings of self-impression, stamp (to seal or stamp) though there is, as Mr. Walter Skeat points out, a pure native word tera, or tra, and chop has acquired the specific sense of a passport or license.
--Col. Henry Yule's Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words, 1886
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word led-will
(adjective) - Whatever led will may mean now, it doubtless once meant the same as will led, a phrase which occurs in a specimen of the Norfolk dialect. Will led is said to mean demented, but the original sense was bewildered. Will, in this sense, has no immediate connexion with will in the sense of "inclination," but represents the Scandinavian form of the English wild, which often had the sense of "astray, bewildered, at a loss," and the like.
--Walter Skeat's Student's Pastime, 1896
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word London lion
(noun) - An expression derived from the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London ere the metropolis rejoiced in a Zoological Gardens, when travelling menageries were unheard of. Country visitors in town for a few days never failed at that period to feast their eyes upon a real live lion, and on returning to their homes boasted of having seen the "London Lion."
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dungow-dash
(noun) - When the clouds threaten hail or rain it is said, "There is a deal of dungow-dash to come down." From dung, filth.
--Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dinket
(verb) - To dandle bounce on the knee, play with a baby.
--J. Drummond Robertson's Glossary of Archaic Gloucestershire Words, 1890
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word language of horses
(noun) - So France's Charles V nicknamed the German tongue.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dilligrout
(noun) - A kind of pottage of which a mess was offered to the kings of England on their coronation day by the lord of the manor at Addington in Surrey, being the "service" by which that manor was held.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Huntsman's Moon
October's full moon was nicknamed the "huntsman's moon" by Celtic tribes and called the "blood moon" in medieval England, as it signaled the beginning of hunting season. Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, (1882) explained the name: "Sportsmen do not hunt by moonlight. The obvious meaning therefore is hunter's month--the crop being harvested, there is nothing to interfere with the sport of the hunter."
The anonymous English book of etiquette, Manners and Rules of Good Society (1901), offered this fine point of hunting behavior: "It is difficult to make a would-be sportsman comprehend the strict etiquette maintained between the owners of manors; that is to say, he would think nothing of crossing the boundary of his host's manor, gun in hand, if he felt inclined to follow a bird or hare he had wounded, oblivious of the fact that in the first place the greatest punctiliousness is observed between gentlemen in the matter of trespassing on each other's land when out shooting. Unless the greatest intimacy existed, a sportsman would hardly venture to pick up his dead bird if it had fallen on a neighbour's manor, and would on no account look for a wounded bird, but for a dead one only."
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hunt at force
(verb) - To run the game down with dogs, in opposition to shooting it.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word game-leg
(noun) - (1) A sore or wounded leg. It is likely to be from Italian gamba, qualified by some adjective now lost, perhaps through the blunder of someone ignorant of that language . . . The term belongs to the leg only. Nobody ever had a game arm, hand, or even foot.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) From game, lame, crooked, deformed, disabled, injured, sore; hence gam-legged, having crooked legs; West Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word make buttons
(verb) - To make buttons means to look sorry and sad perhaps because button-making is a sorry occupation. Not to have all one's buttons, to be deficient in intellect.
--John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word linen-armourer
(noun) - Originally, a maker of adjuncts to armour; it became a jocular term for tailor.
--A.V. Judges' Elizabethan Underworld, 1930
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word noaharchaic
(adjective) - Extremely old-fashioned; much out of date.
--Maurice Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang, 1934
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word churchwarden
Dog-flogging Day (October 18th)
On this date in York, England, any dogs found in the streets were once subject to being whipped in commemoration of the 18th-century swallowing of consecrated wafers by a dog in the cathedral. Beginning in the 16th century, many English churches employed churchwardens, or beadles, who not only supervised the sometimes unruly canines that traditionally accompanied their owners to church but were often charged with keeping parishioners awaking during services.
Edward Peacock's Glossary of Lincolnshire (1877) added, "In Northorpe Church until about seventy years ago, there was a small pew on the south side just within the charnel arch known as Hall Dog-pew, in which the dogs that had followed the author's grandfather and family to church were imprisoned during divine service."
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dog-flogger
(noun) - A parish official whose duties consisted in expelling any dog . . . which might intrude into the church during the performance of any service. The office usually joined with that of the sexton and pew-opener. The short, stout dog-whip was a regular part of the dog-whipper's equipment. In one Derby church, the office has existed down to the year 1861 and has become almost hereditary in one family.
--J.C. Atkinson's Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, 1891
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tift
(noun) - (1) Anything as it ought to be; a poet's muse is in tift when she sings well.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(2) Condition, plight, humour; in tift, in proper capacity for doing anything. It might be used to denote eagerness to engage in any business.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(3) A slight fit of ill-humour or offendedness; a petty quarrel.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
(4) Tifted up, cleansed and put into order.
--Francis Robinson's Whitby Glossary, 1876
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bumwhush
(noun) - (1) Ruin, obscurity, annihilation.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) When anything has made a noise for some time, and it is then quashed, it is said to have "gone to the bumwhush." This is too often the way with people of great popularity--they have their day then go to the bumwhush.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word turkey on one's back
(adjective) - A drunken man is sometimes said to have a "turkey on his back," perhaps the allusion to his having won one at a raffle in a drinking-place.
--James Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1877
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word catso
(noun) - One who obtains money or goods by fraud. Catzerie is the offence.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word willgill
(noun) - A very expressive name for an hermaphrodite, to which it exactly answers, will being for the man and gill (with g soft) for Gillian or Juliana, on the woman's part.
--Samuel Pegge's Alphabet of Kenticisms, 1736
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stamfish
(verb) - To talk in a way not generally understood.
--George Matsell's Vocabulum, or The Rogue's Lexicon, 1859
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word isagogical
(adjective) - Introductory; from Greek eis, in, and ago, to lead.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word octogamie
(noun) - Marrying eight times. Latin octo eight, and Old French gamie marriage.
--Alois Brandl's Glossary of Middle English Literature, 1949
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gubernate
Latin guberno.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word callerin o' the blade
(noun) - A slight rain by which the blades of grass are cooled and refreshed.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dollydaw
(noun) - One foolishly indulged.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Devonshire Words, 1896
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dowlk
(noun) - A word of doubtful etymology, but signifying the downy plumage of a bird.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word canny
(adjective) - (1) A genuine Newcastle word applied to the beauty of form, as of manners and morals, but most particularly used to describe those mild and affectionate dispositions which render the persons agreeable in the domestic state.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Knowing, sagacious, judicious, prudent; wary, cautious; skillful, clever, lucky; careful, frugal; endowed with occult or magical powers.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pedlar's French
(noun) - (1) The jargon used by thieves, tramps, etc.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) Frenchman, any man, of any country, who cannot speak English, as anyone who does not understand East Anglian is a shireman.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word syllab
(verb) - To divide words into syllables, specially in teaching a child to read.
--Mairi Robinson's Concise Scots Dictionary, 1985
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word screelpoke
(noun) - A name bestowed on a crying child; from screed, to cry in a shrieking manner.
--C. Clough Robinson's Glossary of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lubberland
(noun) - A slang term anciently applied to London - substituted for Cocaigne by the poets and wits of the 16th century. Lud's Town, a name sometimes anciently given to London was so called after Lud, a mythical king of England. "And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads." Shakespeare's Cymbeline.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word teratology
(noun) - (1) Affectation of false sublimity.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Teratology is when bold writers, fond of the sublime, intermix something great and prodigious in everything they write, whether there be foundation for it in reason or not, that this is call'd bombast.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1727
(3) A discourse of prodigies and wonders.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1678
(4) A marvellous tale, or collection of such tales.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word save reverence
(verb) - (1) A kind of apologetical apostrophe, when anything was said that might be thought filthy or indecent. It was contracted into sa'reverence, and thence corrupted into sir- or sur-reverence, which in one instance became the substitute for the word which it introduced, as, "I trod in a sa'reverence."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) Used apologetically in introducing some remark that might offend the hearer. "Who, saving your reverence, is the divell himselfe." Merchant of Venice.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(3) A native woman of Devon, in describing something not particularly delicate, apologized with the phrase, "saving your reverence." This is not uncommon in the country, "saving your presence" being sometimes substituted. It occurs in Romeo and Juliet and is of great antiquity, being found in Mandeville's Travels.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word inbread
(noun) - The extra loaf or loaves allowed by a baker in each dozen; creating a "baker's-dozen".
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word signaturist
(noun) - One who holds the "doctrine of signatures" . . . by which it was formerly supposed a plant's nature or medicinal use was pointed out.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word laver
(verb) - To wash. It was anciently 13th century the custom for guests to wash before sitting down to meals, and it seems that the signal for this ablution was given by sounding a trumpet.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tripudiation
Tripudist, one given to "tripudiating."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word penny wedding
(noun) - A rural wedding to which all are invited but expected to bring contributions, the smallest, that of a child, being a penny.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word circumlocution office
(noun) - The term circumlocution office carries with it the same idea as "red tape." It was originated by Dickens in Little Dorrit as a skit on the dilatoriness of government offices in transacting business. It was an office where business was habitually muddled up and delayed by high-salaried officials who shirked duties by passing them on to other departments, who in turn passed them elsewhere.
--J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word arg
(verb) - To quarrel; argisome, quarrelsome.
--Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eventriqueness
(noun) - Corpulence; formed on Latin ventrem, belly.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clouder
(noun) - (1) An obsolete variant of cludder, a crowd, heap, cluster. Clouder is probably the same word as clutter, and is evidently the proper term for "a lot of cats."
--C.E. Hare's Language of Field and Sport, 1939
(2) Cludder, cluther, a large quantity, or mass of anything, gathered together.
--John Atkinson's Cleveland Yorkshire Glossary, 1868
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tutty
(adjective) - Cross, irritable.
--Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vigesimation
(noun) - (1) The act of putting to death every twentieth man. Related to decimate.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word seldshown
(adjective) - Rarely shown or exhibited; from Saxon seld; Shakespeare.
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sand-knocker
(noun) - (1) A sand-grinder.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) This occupation was formerly much more common in Lancashire than now, sand being more frequently used, not only for the purpose of cleaning but as a kind of ornament, and to preserve cleanliness. After a floor had been washed, to "sand" it by scrubbing with loose sand was almost the universal custom.
--J.H. Nodal's Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, 1882
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word inkhorn
(noun) - It was the custom for persons much employed in writing to carry ink, pens, &c. in a horn. Hence inkhorn terms, studied expressions that savour of the inkhorn. A very favorite expression, for a time.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bees in the brain
(noun) - People, after they have been fou, feel as they are returning to their wits again, a buzzing and singin' in the head, which are called bees o' the brain. Also, when they are getting intoxicated they feel these fanciful insects.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beeregar
(noun) - Sour beer . . . formed by acetous fermentation; from French aigre, sour.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word moble
(verb) - To dress grossly or inelegantly. Sometimes written mable, perhaps by a ludicrous allusion to the French je m'habille I get dressed.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word goffen
(verb) - (1) To laugh idiotically; hence, goffeny, a fool, silly person. Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) Goister, to laugh loudly.
--Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crauky
(adjective) - Merry, sportive. "How crauky the boy is!"
--Rev. R.E.G. Cole's Glossary of Southwest Lincolnshire, 1886
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word roky
Possessing or characterized by rokes . . . smoke, steam, vapour, mist, fog, drizzling rain.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trolmydames
Trollmydames \Troll"my*dames`\, n. F. trou-madame pigeon holes. The game of nineholes. Written also trolmydames. Obs.
--Shak.
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word barla-fumble
(noun) - A call for a truce by one who has fallen in play; improperly for "fall, tumble."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gruffins
(pl. noun) - Used of a cow who, when she lifts her back is said to "hump her gruffins."
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word furmenty
(noun) - A thick pottage made of whole wheat hulled, steeped, and boiled in milk.
--Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, 1740
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word momblishness
(noun) - (1) Talk, muttering. Of Teutonic mummelen; old word.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(2) Explained as "muttering talk." Error for moublienies, in "ne moubliemies," forget-me-nots, about 1500. Momble, mumble.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, List of Spurious Words, 1933
(3) "Ne momblysnesse and souenesse," no mumbling talk nor noisy sound.
--Charles Richardson's New Dictionary of the English Language, 1836-1837
The passage, "Ne momblysnesse and souenesse," found in a 1532 edition of Chaucer's works, was perhaps the origin of the long-lived confusion about this faux word. As late as 1889, William Whitney carelessly included momblishness in his Century Dictionary as the same "muttering talk" of his predecessors, citing an early 1731 edition of Bailey's dictionary as the source.
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scurryfunge
(noun) - A hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbor and the time she knocks on the door.
--John Gould's Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads, and Wazzats, 1975
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hunch-weather
(noun) - Cold weather which makes men hunch up their shoulders, and animals contract their limbs and look as if they were hunch-backed.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word key-cold
(adjective) - (1) As cold as a key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed; a key was anciently employed to stop any slight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old writers.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(2) Lifeless.
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Jeffrey God's Fo
(noun) - He that wil sweare & maintain oathes. This is such a lying knave that none wil beleve him, for the more he sweareth, ye les is to be beleved.
--John Awdeley's Fraternitye of Vagabondes, 1565
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hummums
(pl. noun) - Sweating places, or baths.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mogigraphia
(noun) - (1) Term for difficult or cramped writing.
--Robert Mayne's Expository Lexicon of the Terms . . . of Medicine and General Science, 1853-1860
(2) Writer's cramp now graphospasm; also in anglicized form, mogigraphy; hence, mogigraphic. From Greek mogi, with toil and pain, used in a few modern Latin pathological terms, as mogilalia, mogilalism, stammering, and mogiphonia, "a difficulty in producing loud vocal sounds with the larynx, ordinary speech remaining," from the Sydenham Society Lexicon.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 19, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word toozle
(verb) - (1) To pull about, especially applied to any rough dalliance with a female.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Touzly, ruffled, shaggy. In the phrase, "to touzle one's top," to make one's hair stand on end.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word opentyde
once ran from this day, the Feast of Epiphany, through Ash Wednesday, when marriages commonly took place in Britain. They were frowned on during Lent, especially on March 19, and were all but forbidden during the Christmas season, from late November until Epiphany. June nuptials remained in vogue and were blessed by the Church, but those during the "lusty month of May" were condemned as a holdover from pagan times, as this couplet reminds us:
Married in May, and kirked dressed in green,
Both bride and groom won't long be seen.
John Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities (1813) noted: "There was formerly a custom in the North of England, which will be thought to have bordered very closely upon indecency, and strongly marks the grossness of manners that prevailed among our ancestors. It was for the young men . . . to strive immediately after the ceremony to see who could first pluck off the Bride's Garters from her legs. This was done before the very altar . . . Whoever were so fortunate as to be victors in this . . . contest, during which the bride was often obliged to scream out, and was very frequently thrown down, bore the garters about the church in triumph."
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word married all o'er
(adjective) - Said of women who after their marriage . . . become . . . miserable-looking.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bag of nails
(noun) - American theives' cant. Confusion; topsy-turveydom; from "baccanals."
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word catchpule
(noun) - (1) The game of tennis. Evidently from Belgian kaatspel, as the ball used in tennis is called kaatsbal, and the chace or limits of the game kaats. Old French cace signifies chace, and cache incursion.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(2) During the reign of France's Charles V palm play, which may properly enough be denominated hand-tennis, was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money.
--Joseph Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, 1801
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word winbrow
(noun) - (1) An eyebrow. Adaptation of Middle Low German winbrâ, corresponding to Old High German wintbrâwe and German wimper, eyelash; formed of wint wind, and brow; 1400s-1600s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) Blacke-hair'd, broad-ey'd, his hairy win-browes meet.
--Thomas Heywood's Great Britaines Troy, 1609
January 18, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eggs for money
You're welcome alexz! I still have a lot more to go through.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word play dikkop
(verb) - To try to deceive, as plovers do by feigning a broken wing when one approaches their eggs or young. A term of reproach meaning numbskull. From Dutch dik, thick, and kop, head.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scissors-and-paste
(noun) - Extracts; "padding": as distinguished from original work.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1903
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tree-geese
(pl. noun) - A name given to barnacles, from their supposed metamorphosis into geese.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gone to Texas
(adjective) - An American expression for one who has decamped, leaving debts behind. It was, and is, no unusual thing for a man to display this notice - perhaps only the initials "G.T.T." on his door for the callers after he has absconded.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word post-fix
(noun/verb) - A letter appended to the end of another word; a suffix, an affix. To add a word, syllable, or letter at the end of another word.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1895
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nizzle
(verb) - (1) To be slightly intoxicated, to be the worse for liquor; to be unsteady; usually in past participle nizzled. Nizzle-toppin, an actively-inclined but weak-minded person; mid-Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) Neezled, little drunk or intoxicated.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of North of England Words, 1873
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beats the Dutch
(adjective) - Something extraordinary. "That beats the Dutch and the Dutch beats the Devil" is the superlative.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sport ivory
(verb) - If someone smiled, he sported ivory.
--Morris Marples's University Slang, 1950
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word googer
(noun) - The devil.
--Walter Skeat's Specimens of English Dialects, Westmoreland, 1879
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word resurrection man
a person who exhumes and steals dead bodies, especially for dissection; body snatcher. Origin of resurrectionist. 1770-1780. First recorded in 1770-80; resurrection + -ist.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word death hunter
(noun) - (1) An undertaker, one who furnishes the necessary articles for funerals. Carrion hunter, an undertaker, called also a cold cook.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(2) One who furnishes a newspaper with reports of deaths; a vendor of dying speeches or confessions.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word doggo
(adjective/adverb) - In hiding; desiring to be left alone; "lying doggo."
--Harold Wentworth's Dictionary of American Slang, 1960
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wolf's head
(noun) - (1) An outlaw, meaning a person who might be killed with inpugnity, like a wolf.
--Thomas Tayler's Law Glossary, 1856
(2) Originally found in the phrase "to cry wolf's head."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word expugn
(verb) - Apparently a blend of expunge and impugn.
--Louise Pound's "Second Word List from Nebraska," c.1916
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word illiack passion
(noun) - (1) Wind in the small guts.
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
(2) A kind of nervous colick, whose seat is the ileum, whereby that gut is twisted.
--John Walker's Dictionary of the English Language, 1835
(3) A dangerous disease consisting in the expulsion of feculent matter by the mouth, accompanied with a swelling of the lower ventricle, an intense pain, and a total constipation.
--Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, 1740
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word babies-in-the-eyes
(pl. noun) - (1) The miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye on looking closely into it. Our old poets make it an employment of lovers to look for them in each other's eyes.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) Love in the expression of the eyes - the little babe Cupid, and hence the conceit, originating from the reflection of the onlooker in the pupil of another's eyes.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(3) Bird of the eye, the little refracted image on the retina. In many languages there is an endearing term of this kind. The Greeks call it the girl or virgin; and our ancestors talked of the "baby in the eye."
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bensle
(noun) - A bleak, cold place. A place where the frost wind finds easy admittance. Also a person with a saucy air - as much thinking that he does not care a damn for the world . . . He passes the poor with a sneer, and capsizes the infirm with a laugh - his bosom is a bleak place, a bensle - cold unfeeling blasts whistle round his frozen heart.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stirrup-cup
(noun) - (1) Or stirrup-dram also stirrup-glass, a glass of ardent spirits, or draught of ale, given by the landlord of an inn to his guest when about to depart on horseback.
--John Jamieson's Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1825
(2) Tib Mumps will be out wi' the stirrup-dram in a gliffing.
--Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering, 1815
(3) In the north of the Highlands called "cup at the door."
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word heroologist
One who writes or discourses on heroes. From heroology, also herology, a history of, or treatise on, heroes. Heroological, pertaining to the history of heroes; heroogony, generation of heroes.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vis
(noun) - (1) If the stay of the guest exceeds a week, it should be called "a visitation." If it includes a dining, or a tea-drinking, or evening-spending, it may be termed "a visit," while a mere call can be mentioned as "a vis."
--Eliza Leslie's Behaviour Book, 1859
(2) If you cannot make me a visit, at least make me a vis, if you can.
--Charles Southey's Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell, 1844
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jackleg
(noun) - (1) A lawyer whose record would not be regarded in a desirable light; this term is equivalent to black-leg.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(2) An incompetent or unskilled or unprincipled person; frequently used of lawyers and preachers.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mistresspiece
(noun) - (1) A feminine masterpiece; after masterpiece. Compare French maîtresse pièce, the principle piece of a work; 1640s to early 1900s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(2) Rosamund . . . being the mistress-piece of beauty in that Age.
--Thomas Fuller's History of the Worthies of England, 1662
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word inkhorn terms
(pl. noun) - Pedantic expressions which "smell of the lamp."
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word woolward
(adverb/adjective) - To go woolward was to wear woollen next to the skin as a penance. "Wolward and wetshod went I forth" William Langland's Piers Plowman, c.1399.
--William Toone's Glossary and Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gantelope
(noun) - (1) This punishment, which is called running the gantlet, is seldom inflicted except for crimes as will excite a general antipathy amongst the seamen, as on some occasions the culprit would pass without receiving a single blow, particularly in cases of mutiny or sedition.
--William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1771
(2) From Ghent and Dutch loopen, to run, because the punishment was first inflicted in that place.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word puckfyst
(adjective) - Thirsty. The puckfyst is a dried toadstool. Hence, "A feels puckfyst" means I feel as dry as a dried toadstool.
--Appleton Morgan's Study in the Warwickshire Dialect, 1900
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sinkings
(pl. noun) - Toothache and neuralgia. From Dutch zinkings, rheumatism.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pig's whisper
(noun) - (1) A very short space of time.
--Jon Bee's Slang: A Dictionary, 1823
(2) Synonymous with "cockstride," cock's tread.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(3) You'll find yourself in bed in something less than a pig's whisper.
--Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, 1837
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gormed
a euph. for god-damned adj.; thus gorm v, to damn.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bezonter
(verb) - (1) An expletive denoting surprise. "Bezonter me! but aw'm fair gormed."
--Robert Holland's Glossary of Words Used in . . . Cheshire, 1886
(2) Also written bezounter and bezountee.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mopple
(verb/noun) - (1) To confuse. Halliwell says moppil is a mistake or blunder.
--Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of the Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) A state of disorder.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(3) Of an overgrown hedge, "In such a mopple."
--Francis Havergal's Herefordshire Words and Phrases, 1887
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chilver
(noun) - Mutton of a maiden sheep; Gloucestershire.
--Samuel Pegge's Supplement to Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1814
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spretched
(adjective) - Cracked. Eggs which have been set upon are said to have become spretched a day or two before the liberation of the chicken is effected. Lincolnshire.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word up to the hub
(adverb) - A proverbial expression in America signifying "to the utmost." The allusion is to a vehicle sunk in the mud to the hub, which is as far as it can go.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cruddy-butter
The Arabs press curds and butter together to store in vats, and the Scots have Crowdie or Cruddy Butter.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word devil's smiles
are deceptive glimpses of sunlight between dark clouds. The word itself is derived from OE 'deofol', and ultimately, via the Latin 'diabolus', from the Greek 'diabolos', which originally meant an accuser or slanderer, from the corresponding verb meaning literally to throw across.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mucksluff
An overcoat put on to cover the defects of one's underclothing.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word limia
is a genus of livebearing fishes belonging to the Cyprinodontiform family Poeciliidae.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chiromantically
chiromantic. : of or relating to chiromancy or chiromancers.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word porphyroferous
Possibly porphyr- L. fr Gr. porphyra, purple fish, murex, purple
Prefixes meaning purple, dark red. & ferous
-ferous; suffix: -iferous having, bearing, or containing (a specified thing).
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quignogs
An old Cornish word for pipedreams, or ridiculous thoughts or ideas.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shilling-dreadful
In the 1880s, the alliterative shilling shocker — also called a shilling dreadful — began to appear for a type of more substantial short sensational novel, often by writers of some ability (Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was placed in this category when it first came out).
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word skewboglish
(Lincolnshire) a horse that is apt to be shy
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chatillionte
(adjective) - Delightful, amusing. From French chatouiller, to tickle, to provoke with delight.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chitterie-chatterie
(noun) - (1) A piece of bread eaten immediately after bathing.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
(2) From chitter, to shiver; to tremble. Hence, boys are wont to call that bit of bread which they preserve for eating after bathing a chittering-piece.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word postlude
(noun) - A concluding piece or movement played at the end of an oratorio or the like; formed on post, and ludus, play, on analogy of prelude, interlude.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crosspatch
(noun) - Patch was at one time a term of contempt. It did not . . . necessarily mean a fool, but signified what we now mean by a contemptible fellow. Shakespeare has A Midsummer Night's Dream: "A crew of patches, base mechanicals." Crosspatch is the only remnant of the word. It is very expressive of a cross, ill-tempered, disagreeable person.
--Eliezer Edwards' Dictionary of Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sloven's year
A wonderfully prosperous season, when even the bad farmer has good crops
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word slughorne
Alternative form of slughorn. (obsolete) A battle cry.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word slut-grate
s. Grating in the hearth, through which the ashes fall, leaving the cinders.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tarans
That children dying unbaptized (called Tarans) wandered in woods and solitudes, lamenting their hard fate, and were often seen. It cannot be doubted, that many of these stories concerning apparitions, tarans, &c., came out of the cloisters of Monks and Friars, or were the invention of designing Priests, who deluded the world with their stories of Purgatory and Limbics Infantum. - The History of the Province of Moray: Comprising the Counties of Elgin and Nairn, the Greater Part of the County of Inverness and a Portion of the County of Banff,--all Called the Province of Moray Before There was a Division Into Counties, Volume 3
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thwankin
adj. A term applied to clouds which mix together in thick and gloomy succession
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word yeth-hounds
...The mysterious lady Frau Bertha is ever attended by troops of unbaptized children, and she takes them with her when the joins the wild huntsman, and sweeps with him and his wild pack across the wintry sky. In North Devon the local name is "Yeth hounds". heath and heathen being both "Yeth" in the North Devon dialect (...) and the belief seems to be that their unbaptized children's spirits, having no admittance into Paradise, unite in a pack of "Heathen" or "Yeth" hounds, and hunt the Evil One to home they ascribe their unhappy condition. These Yeth Hounds or Wisht Hounds were well known in west country folk lore. - The Blessed and the Damned: Sinful Women and Unbaptised Children in Irish Folklore by Anne O'Connor
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hunt a tavern fox
To get drunk.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gapesnest
(n) a strange sight fit only to be stared at
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word rigmutton
(noun) - (1) A wanton wench that is ready to ride upon the men's backs, or else passively to be their rompstall. The word mutton, when applied to a woman, whether alone or as part of a compound epithet, seems always to have been opprobrious, as in Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a laced mutton; and she, a laced mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing for my labour." From rig, rigging, ready to bestride any inactive stallion, and give him a quickening spur.
--Frederick Elworthy's Specimens of English Dialects: Devonshire, 1879
(2) Rigmutton rumpstall, a wanton girl. West Country.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nompion
(noun) - (1) A leader, a great man.
--J.H. Nodal's Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, 1882
(2) One possessing more knowledge than the common people. Lancashire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eggs for money
(pl. noun) - (1) In the phrase to take eggs for money, to accept an offer which one would rather refuse . . . Farmers' daughters would go to market, taking with them a basket of eggs. If one bought something worth . . . three shillings, fourpence, she would pay the three shillings and say - "will you take eggs for the rest of the money?" If the shopman weakly consented, he received the value of the fourpence in eggs, usually . . . at the rate of four or five a penny. But the strong-minded shopman would refuse. Eggs were even used to pay interest for money.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(2) A proverbial expression, when a person was either awed by threats or overreached by subtlety, to give money upon a trifling or fictitious consideration.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Mine honest friend, will you take eggs for money?
--William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, 1611
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word campanology
(noun) - A discourse on bells or bell-ringing; from Italian campana, bell.
--James Donald's Chambers' Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1877
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blacksmith's daughter
(noun) - A lock or key to a door or gate, a padlock.
--J. Robertson's Glossary of Dialect and Archaic Words Used in . . . Gloucester, 1890
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fantaisiste
fanciful, kooky, entertainer.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Englishable
(adjective) - (1) That may be rendered into English.
--John Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, 1865
(2) Capable of being translated into, or expressed in, English.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bittock
(noun) - If you ask a Scotchman the distance to any place he will reply, after asking you in return where you came from, that it is so many miles and a bittock.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blasphematour
(noun) - A blasphemer; from French blasphémateur. Blasphemeress, a woman who blasphemes; from Old French blasphemeresse. Blasphement, blasphemy.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hortyard
(noun) - A garden or orchard.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word woofits
(pl. noun) - The unpleasant aftereffects of overindulgence, especially drinking.
--Lester Berrey's American Thesaurus of Slang, 1942
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kazzardly
(adjective) - Unlucky . . . Perhaps corrupted from hazard.
--William Holloway's Dictionary of Provincialisms, 1838
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Welchman's hose
(noun) - (1) Equivalent to the breeches of a Highlander, or the dress of a naked Pict; upon the presumption that Welchmen wear no hose.
--Thomas Fielding's Select Proverbs of All Nations, 1824
(2) In phrases like "to make a Welshman's hose of" and "to make like a Welshman's hose," to stretch or wrest the meaning of a word, sentence, etc.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word close-stool
(noun) - A chamber utensil enclosed in a stool or box.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word basket of chips
(noun) - A metaphor for a pleasant experience, perhaps because a supply of chips gives promise of a good fire.
--Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word viduity
(noun) - Widowhood; from Latin viduus.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word churching mice
(pl. noun) - Murmuring in an undertone; Shropshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word debacchation
From debacchate, to revile one after the manner of drunkards.
Henry Cockeram's Interpreter of Hard English Words, 1623
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word grincheur
(noun) - A young thief; from grinche, a thief . . . Other varieties of the tribe of thieving malefactors go by the appellations of chevalier de la grippe, limousineur, voleur de bonjour, droguiste, &c. The English brethren are denominated: prig, cracksman, crossman, sneaksman, moucher, hooker, flash cove, bug-hunter, cross-cove, buz-faker, stook-hauler, toy-getter, prop-nailer, area-sneak, lob-sneak, lully-prigger, thimble-twister, conveyancer, pudding-snammer, beak-hunter, ziff, buttock-and-file, poll-thief, little snakesman, mill-ben, cove on the cross, flashman and, formerly a good fellow, a bridle-cull.
--Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1889
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word square dinkham
(adjective) - True, straightforward, correct.
--Edward Fraser's Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases, 1925
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jeoparty-trot
(noun) - A quick motion, between running and walking when one, on account of fear or weakness, is not able to run at full speed. The term seems to have had its origin from the flight of those who, living in a country subject to many inroads and depredations, were often obliged to escape from their enemies, while in consequence of hot pursuit their lives were in jeopardy every moment.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word screwed in
(adjective) - A practical joke was to secure someone's door from the outside with long coffin-screws. The victim was said to be screwed in or screwed up. Hence, screwed up came to mean defeated, baffled, incapable of retaliation. Oxford.
--Morris Marples' University Slang, 1950
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drumsler
(noun) - A drummer. A form corrupted from drumslager . . . Dutch trommelslager.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shruff
(noun) - (1) Light rubbish wood; a perquisite to hedgers. Norfolk and Suffolk.
--Samuel Pegge's Supplemental Glossary, c.1800
(2) Refuse, esp. for burning; light refuse wood, cinders, etc. used for fuel.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
(3) Shruffe, the undergrowth of the swamps; shruffey meadowe, shruffey upland. Dedham Records, 1659-1660.
--George Krapp's English Language in America, 1925
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word weather-wiseacre
(noun) - (1) A weather prophet.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) By the colour or hue of the scaum atmospheric haze do watherwiseakers guess about coming weather.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(3) From wiseacre, a wise or learned person; a sage.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word biwrixle
(verb) - To change, transform.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cheveril
(noun) - Kid leather. Hence, a very flexible conscience was called a chevril conscience. From French cheveril, goat.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stand mute
(verb) - A prisoner is said to stand mute when, being arraigned for treason or felony, he either makes no answer, or answers foreign to the purpose. Anciently, a mute was taken back to prison, placed in a dark dungeon, naked, on his back, on the bare ground, and a great weight of iron placed on his body . . . By statute 12 George III, judgment is awarded against mutes, in the same manner as if they were convicted or confessed. A man refusing to plead was condemned and executed . . . on a charge of burglary, at Wells, 1792.
--Joseph Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, 1841
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cheap-jack
(noun) - (1) A travelling hawker, who sells by Dutch auction, i.e., reduces the price of his wares until he finds a purchaser. From Anglo-Saxon chepe, a market. Sometimes cheap-John.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) Cheap-jackery, that which is characteristic of a cheap-jack.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word panshard
(noun) - (1) A passion, a rage. In a panshard, in a rage, out of temper. Pansheet, a state of excitement, confusion, sudden passion. Panshite in West Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) You have no need to get into a panshard.
--John Wise's New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery, 1883
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quill-driver
(noun) - (1) A scrivener, a clerk; satirical phrase similar to "steel bar driver," a tailor.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(2) A clerk, scribe, or hackney writer. Brother of the quill, an author.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bosky
(adjective) - Elated with liquor.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cadge
(verb/noun) - A whining beggar is a cadger. "On the cadge" is applied to the regular "rounders" who wander from town to town telling in each place a pitiful story of distress. In Scotland a cadger is an itinerant peddler of fish.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word veriloquy
(noun) - The true expression of a word; the etymology or right meaning of a word.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word glacerium
(noun) - A skating-rink with ice artificially produced, as in aquarium, vivarium.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gall of bitterness
(noun) - The bitterest grief; extreme affliction. The ancients taught that grief and joy were subject to the gall, affection to the heart, knowledge to the kidneys, anger to the bile one of the four humors of the body, and courage or timidity to the liver. The gall of bitterness, like the heart of hearts, means the bitter centre of bitterness, as the heart of hearts means the innermost recesses of the heart of affections.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thumb-bucka
(noun) - A thick slice of bread on which butter is spread with the thumb.
--Sidney Addy's Glossary of Words Used in Sheffield, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word alehoof
so called by the Saxons because a chief ingredient in their malt-liquor instead of hops.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word equivoke
(noun) - An ambiguous expression; a quibble; from Latin œquivocus, ambiguous.
--Joseph Worcester's Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word faffering
(adjective) - (1) Of the wind, blowing with cold chilly gusts.
--G. Story's Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 1982
(2) Faff, to blow in sudden gusts; Scotland, English North Country. Hence faffment, nonsense, balderdash; Lancashire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tide
(noun) - Time or season; the divisions of the 24 hours. From an ancient book in the old German dialect, Speygel der Leyen, or the Mirrour of Laymen, it appears that the 24 hours were divided into prime, tierce, sext, none, vesper, fall of night, and metten (nightly mass). Our ancestors also had certain divisions of the artificial day, as undertide, &c.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chair-days
(pl. noun) - (1) Old age, spent to a considerable extent resting in a chair.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) In thy Reverence, and thy Chaire-dayes, thus to die in Ruffian battel.
--William Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI, 1593
(3) Drooping chair, chair fit for old age; 1 Henry VI.
--C. Herford's Works of Shakespeare, 1902
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pourquoi story
A pourquoi story ("pourquoi" means "why" in French), also known as an origin story, pourquoi tale or an etiological tale, is a fictional narrative that explains why something is the way it is, for example why a snake has no legs, or why a tiger has stripes. Many legends and folk tales are pourquoi stories.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clashmaclavers
(pl. noun) - Low, idle, scandalous tales.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hochle
(verb) - To tumble lewdly with women in open day.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word calenture
(noun) - (1) A distemper peculiar to sailors in hot climates wherein they imagine the sea to be green fields, and they throw themselves into it if not restrained.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) A species of furious delirium to which sailors are subject in the torrid zone; a kind of phrenitis, the attack of which comes on suddenly after a broiling day.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(3) From French calenture, heat; from Latin caleo, to be hot.
--John Ridpath's Home Reference Library, 1898
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bouffage
(noun) - (1) A satisfying meal; adopted from Old French bouffage defined in its original sense by Cotgrave below. "His inwards and flesh remaining could make no bouffage, but a light bit for the grave." Letter of Sir Thomas Browne, 1672.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(2) Any meat that, eaten greedily, fils the mouth, and makes the cheeks to swell; cheeke-puffing meat.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cucking-stool
(noun) - (1) A chair in which an offender was placed to be hooted at or pelted by the mob; or it might be used for ducking its occupant; from Icelandic kuka, to ease oneself, and kukr, dung.
--Charles Annandale's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(2) An instrument of punishment formerly in use for scolds, disorderly women, fraudulent tradespeople, etc.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kilted
(adjective) - The participle kilted is sometimes used metaphorically to denote language that borders upon indecency. Derived from kilt, to lift up the petticoats or clothes to avoid wetting them when going on foot. From this verb comes kilt, the English or Saxon name for the most conspicuous portion of the Highlander garb, called by the Highlanders themselves the fillibeg, or little coat.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gowk's-storm
(noun) - A storm consisting of several days of tempestuous weather, believed by the peasantry to take place periodically about the beginning of April, at the time that the gowk, or cuckoo, visits this country. Metaphorically used to denote an evil or obstruction which is only of short duration.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word filching-cove
(noun) - A man thief; filching-mort, a woman thief.
--Capt. Alexander Smith's History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts and Cheats of Both Sexes, 1719
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fire-fanged
(adjective) - (1) Fire-bitten. Spoken of oatmeal &c. that is overdried.
--Francis Grose's Glossary of Provincial and Local Words, 1811
(2) Burnt, overheated, dried; fire-fangitness, the state of being overheated, burnt.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(3) Cheese is said to be firefangit when it is swelled and cracked, and has received a peculiar taste in consequence of being exposed to much heat before it has been dried.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word canvas opera
(noun) - A circus.
--Maurice Weseen's Dictionary of American Slang, 1934
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word balditude
(noun) - A state of baldness; found in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ratt-rime
(noun) - (1) Originally, a rhyme or piece of poetry used in charming and killing rats. The term . . . came to mean halting metres, doggerel, a tirade of nonsense.
--David Donaldson's Supplement to Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, 1887
(2) The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in Ireland, arose probably from some metrical charm or incantation used there for that purpose.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(3) Rhime them to death, as they do in Irish rats / In drumming tunes.
--Ben Jonson's Poetaster, 1601
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word behindhand
(adverb) - In arrears as to the discharge of one's liabilities; probably formed on the analogy of beforehand.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word yoke-mating
(noun) - Marriage; from yoke-mate, a yoke-fellow.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word good-father
(noun) - A father-in-law; also, a step-father; 1500s-1600s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trimilchi-monath
was the Anglo-Saxon name for May because in that month they began to milk their cows three times daily. William Carr's Dialect of Craven (1828) described beesting pudding as "a pudding made of beest, the first milk after a cow calves." When this happened, it was customary for a farmer to offer beest to his neighbors.
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beestings
(pl. noun) - (1) The first milk after a cow has calved, which is thick and clotty, and in Northampton called cherry-curds. From German biest-milch . . . Anglo-Saxon beost, byst . . . French calle-bouté, curded or beesty, as the milk of a woman that is newly delivered . . . The earth was in the Middle Ages supposed to be surrounded by a sea of so thick a substance as to render navigation impossible. This was called mer bétée in French and lebermer in German - the loppered sea.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) Fore-milk. To draw the first portion of a cow's milk.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(3) Colostre, the first milke, tearmed beest, or beestings.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
(4) A disease caused by imbibing beestings; from Latin colostratio.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word writative
(adjective) - A word of Pope's coining, not to be imitated: "Increase of years makes men more talkative but less writative; to that degree I now write no letters but of plain how d'ye's."
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word month's mind
(noun) - (1) An eager wish or longing. A very ancient phrase, many centuries old.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) Used allusively as a playful synonym for mind; an inclination, a fancy, a liking. Also (rarely) to be in a month's mind, to have a strong expectation.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word swilking
(adjective) - (1) Drunken. Said of a man who drinks till the liquor can be heard swilking about in his stomach.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
(2) From swilk, the noise made by liquid in a partially-filled vessel.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fifishness
(noun) - The term . . . had its origin from a considerable number of the principal families in the county of Fife having at least a bee in their bonnet.
--John Jamieson's Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1825
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word byspelt
(noun) - (1) A strange, awkward figure . . . acting contrary to reason, or propriety; as if labouring under the influence of a spell.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Byspel, one whose worthlessness is proverbial.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word exlex
(noun) - An outlaw; Latin ex, out, away, and lex, law.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word butternuts
(pl. noun) - (1) A term applied during the Civil War to Southern country people from their home-spun clothing.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
(2) Derived from the colour of the uniforms worn in the early part of the war by Confederate soldiers in the West, which, being homespun, were dyed brown with the juice of the butternut (Juglans cinerea).
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vinomadefied
(adjective) - Soaked with wine; formed on Latin madefieri, to be soaked.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dead-nip
(noun) - A blue mark in the body, not produced by a blow, contusion, or any known cause . . . sometimes called a witch's nip.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fen-nightengale
(noun) - (1) A frog; otherwise called a March-bird. It is that month when frogs are vocal.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) Fen-nightingales, toads and frogs, from their continued croaking at night. From fen, swamp.
--John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wagpastie
(noun) - (1) A term of contempt; a rogue.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(2) A deceiver of folkes by subtill craft and guile.
--Nicholas Udall's Roister Doister, 1553
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word woad
(adjective) - Mad; from Saxon wod, insanus. Wode occurs several times in Chaucer.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word barrow-back't
(adjective) - Bent by heavy work such as wheeling loaded barrows.
--Alexander Gibson's Folk-Speech of Cumberland, 1880
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cheating the devil
(noun/verb) - (1) Softenings of very profane phrases, the mere euphemisms of hard swearing, as od's blood, dash it, see you blowed first, deuce take it, by gosh, and like profane preludes such as boatswains and their mates are wont to use.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867
(2) Dammy boy: an unruly person. In allusion to the habit of excessive use of the word "damn" and general swearing by the man-about town of 16th and 17th centuries.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hen-blindness
(noun) - (1) A name given in allusion to hens, to that kind of defective vision which is comparatively good by day but lost or obscure by night.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) Hens . . . cannot see to pick up small grains in the dusk of the evening, and so employ this time in going to roost; this is sometimes called hen-blindness.
--John Good's Study of Medicine, 1834
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dern
(adjective) - Of actions proceeding in secret, or in the dark; kept concealed; hence of evil or deceitful nature. Of persons, secret in purpose or action; reserved; hence, underhand, sly, crafty. Of a person, treated as a confidant; entrusted with hidden matters. Of places, serving well to conceal, as lying out of the way.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mim
(adjective) - Prudish, prim, and discreetly silent, applied only to women; or contemptuously to effeminate men, as in the phrase, "He's as mim as a maiden." In this sense the word is distinguished from mum, which means silent, or secret only, without reference to sex, as in the current slang, "mum's the word" . . . The word mim has a meaning of its own, which should preserve it in the language. It is derived by some authorities from the Greek mimeo, to imitate by action without speaking; whence mimicry, mimic, and pantomime.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word supermundane
(adjective) - (1) Elevated in nature or character above what pertains to the earth or world; belonging to a region above the world. Humorously or ironically applied to what is ideal, fantastic, or chimerical. Situated above the earth. Adapted from Medieval Latin supramunda by Thomas Aquinas.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
(2) Perhaps, in that supermundane region, we may be amused with seeing the fallacy of our own guesses.
--Thomas Jefferson's Writings, 1818
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word alfridaria
(noun) - (1) A power which astrologers pretend that the planets possess over a person.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) From Arabic root farada, to define, decree, appoint a time for a thing, with the suffix aria.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Bryn-Mawrtyr
(noun) - A woman who has been connected with Bryn Mawr College as an undergraduate.
--Howard Savage's Slang from Bryn Mawr College, 1922
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dunny
(adjective) - (1) Hard of hearing. Dunch is deaf in Gloucestershire and Somersetshire dialects; whence is derived the word dunce.
--G. Lewis's Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Herefordshire, 1839
(2) Dunt, to confuse with noise; to deafen. From 15th-century dunt, a dull blow.
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nitty
(adjective) - Abounding with nits, the eggs of a louse or other small insect.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c. 1850
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word niding
(noun) - A low, mean, contemptible, base wretch; formerly the most opprobrious word that could be applied to any body.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sneeze-lurker
(noun) - A thief working with snuff, pepper, and the like. To give on the sneeze racket, to dose a man in the eyes, and then rob him.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1903
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tippybobs
(pl. noun) - The wealthy classes. Tippy, meaning fine, is in Brockett's North Country Words, 1825.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word moon-man
(noun) - Moon-man signifies in English a madman because the moon hath greatest domination, above any other planet, over the bodies of frantic persons . . . Their name they borrow from the moon because, as the moon is never in one shape two nights together but wanders up and down heaven like an antic, so these companions never tarry one day in a place.
--Thomas Dekker's Lanthorn and Candle Light, 1608
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clapper-dudgeon
(noun) - (1) A clapperdogeon is in English a beggar borne; Beggar's Bush.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, 1845
(2) Probably derived from the beggar's custom of clapping a dish.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word earth-hunger
(noun) - An inordinate desire to become the possessor or tenant of a small holding of land. Specifically, the intense feeling evinced by the Irish in favour of a peasant proprietary.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word humphrey
(noun) - A coat with false pockets; the better to facilitate thieving operations.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word merry as a grig
(adjective) - A grig is a grasshopper. In most countries the cricket and the grasshopper are types representing a careless, happy existence. We have the related saying "Merry as a cricket," and Tennyson in "The Brook" speaks of "high-elbowed grigs that leap in summer grass."
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cucupha
(noun) - A sort of coif or cap with a double bottom, between which is enclosed a mixture of aromatic powders. It was formerly used as a powerful cephalic.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flamfoo
(noun) - A gaudily dressed female, one whose chief pleasure consists of dress. Perhaps from flam, "an illusory pretext", and foye, what excites disgust. This term, however, seems to be the same with Old English flamefew, "the moonshine in the water." Any gaudy trapping in female dress. Ayershire.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fern-tickles
(pl. noun) - (1) Freckles on the skin resembling the seeds of the fern, freckled with fern, quite like small ticks . . . Ferns are frequently the receptacle of ticks, of which tickles may be considered a diminutive.
--William Carr's Dialect of Craven, 1828
(2) These are popularly accounted for as the marks made by the spurting of milk from the mother's breast, inevitably occasioned, so that a face may be marred that is "over bonny."
--C. Clough Robinson's Glossary of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word whiddiful
(noun) - One who deserves hanging; a scamp, rascal; one who would fill a "widdy," or hangman's halter.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word halloch
(noun) - A term used to express that strange gabbling noise people make who are talking in a language we do not understand.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wosbird
(noun) - (1) A term of reproach, the meaning of which appears to be unknown to those who use it. It is evidently a corruption of whore's-bird, to which it must be added that bird in Old English and Anglo-Saxon means birth, and hence offspring, progeny; or the Old English burd, bride, young woman, in which case the term means a bastard daughter. Either way, it comes to much the same, and the term was easily generalized.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
(2) Whore is the past participle of Anglo-Saxon hynan, to hire. The word means simply someone, anyone, hired. It was formerly written without the w.
--John Tooke's Diversions of Purley, 1840
(3) Wasbird, a wartime phrase used of any elderly man eager to enlist.
--Edward Fraser's Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases, 1925
(4) Used also of children and occasionally of animals.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word turn the peats
(verb) - A north country phrase equivalent to "change the subject." The allusion is to the square blocks of dried peat which are used for fuel and which, when they become red-hot underneath, are turned to allow the burning side to give out its warmth and glow.
--Basil Hargrave's Origins and Meanings of Popular Phrases, 1925
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word astrologian
(noun) - One who professes to foretell events by the aspects and situation of the stars. Formerly one who understood the motions of the planets without predicting.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Foot and Walker's line
(noun) - Persons who cannot afford to ride are said to patronize this old-fashioned system of getting there.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word abacot
(noun) - A spurious word which by a remarkable series of blunders has gained a foothold in the dictionaries. It is usually defined as "a cap of state, wrought up into the shape of two crowns, worn formerly by English kings." Neither word nor thing has any real existence. In Edward Hall's "Chronicles" 1550 the word bicocket (Old French bicoquet, a sort of peaked cap or head-dress) happened to be printed abococket. Other writers copied the error. Then in 1577 Holinshed improved the new word to abococke, and Abraham Fleming to abacot, and so it spun merrily along, a sort of rolling stone of philology . . . until Spelman landed the prize in his "Glossarium," giving it the definition quoted above. So through the dictionaries of Bailey, Ash, and Todd it has been handed down to our time - a standing example of the . . . ponderous indolence which philologers repeat without examining the errors of their predecessors. Nay, the error has been amusingly accentuated by . . . a rough wood-cut of the mythical abacot, which in its turn has been servilely reproduced.
--William Walsh's Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gavelkind
(noun) - (1) In Law, a Kentish custom whereby the lands of a father are, at his death, equally divided among his sons, to the exclusion of the females, or those of a brother are equally divided among brothers, if he dies without issue.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(2) Apparently from a British source, although the word is of Gaelic form.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(3) Disgavel, to take away the tenure of gavelkind.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pomster
(verb) - To treat illness without knowledge or skill in medicine. Devon and Cornwall.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word newdicle
(noun) - Something new; just as a miracle is something wonderful. A fanciful and licentious fabrication, perhaps never used at all seriously.
--Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gleeamy
(adjective) - (1) Of the weather, hot and sultry, with alternating showers.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(2) Showery, with bright intervals. From gleam, a hot interval of sunshine between showers; a ray of sunshine.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word unsex
(verb) - (1) To deprive of sex or sexual character; transformation in respect to sex; usually with reference to a woman, to make masculine.
--William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889
(2) To make otherwise than the sex commonly is.
--John Walker's Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language, 1835
(3) Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.
--William Shakespeare's Macbeth, 1605
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bung your eye
(verb) - Drink a dram; strictly speaking, to drink till one's eye is bunged up, or closed. Boys at school said, "I'll bung your eye," meaning to strike one in the eye, the consequence of which was generally a bunged eye, that is, so swollen as to be closed up. It is derived, no doubt, from bung, which came from a Welsh word that means a stopple stopper.
--Alfred Elwyn's Glossary of Supposed Americanisms, 1859
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hot spong
(noun) - (1) A sudden powerful heat.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) A sudden power of heat from the sun emerging from a cloud; Eastern England.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word babbs
(noun) - The foul luce, or slimy matter a razor scrapes off the face in shaving.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wet finger
(adjective) - It probably means as easy as turning over the leaf page of a book . . . or tracing a lady's name on the table with spilt wine. With a wet finger, easily, readily.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dringle
(verb) - To waste time in a lazy lingering manner. It has exactly the same sense as drumble, which Mrs. Ford uses in The Merry Wives of Windsor, in berating her servants for not being more nimble in carrying off the laundry-basket. Had that merry gossip been an East Angle, she must have said dringle.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word caperlash
(noun) - (1) Abusive language. To cample is a Northern word for to scold.
--Roger Wilbraham's Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire, 1826
(2) Amperlash, saucy, abusive language. "I'll have none o' thy amperlash."
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word make a long arm
(verb) - To reach far, especially when trying to help oneself to food.
--J.C. Ruppenthal's Word-List from Kansas, 1916
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word suppedaneous
(adjective) - (1) Being under the feet; from Latin pes, the foot.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) Applied to a mountain lying at the foot of another.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cumberworld
(noun) - (1) That which is only a trouble, or useless burthen to the world.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) A cumberworld, yet in the world am left,
A fruitless plot, with brambles overgrown,
Mislived man of my worlds joy bereft,
Heartbreaking cares, the offspring of my moan.
--Michael Drayton's Shepherd's Garland, 1593
(3) Cumberground, anything utterly worthless and in people's way; something that ought to be destroyed or buried out of sight.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word miscasualty
(noun) - An unlucky accident. And why is it not as good a word as mischance or misfortune?
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dortiness
(noun) - Pride, haughtiness, arrogance, insolence.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ullage
(noun/verb) - (1) The remainder in a cask or package which has leaked or been partially used.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, 1867
(2) Ullage of a cask is what such a vessel wants of being full.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1706
(3) The quantity of liquor contained in a cask partially filled, and the capacity of the portion which is empty, are termed respectively the wet and dry ullage.
--Encyclopedia Britannica, 1883
(4) To calculate the amount of ullage in a cask. To fill up again an ullaged cask.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wild fowl flavor
(noun) - Tasty and appetizing food was said to have a real "wild fowl flavor." The dish in question might be a pie or any kind of food. Nantucket.
--William Macy's Nantucket Scrap Basket, 1930
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word celibatarian
(noun) - (1) Inclined to, or favouring, celibacy.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(2) A person who is unmarried; a celebatist.
--John Ogilvie's Comprehensive English Dictionary, 1865
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stirrup-dram
(noun) - (1) A glass of ardent spirits or draught of ale given by the landlord of an inn to his guest when about to depart.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
(2) In the north of the Highlands, called "cup at the door."
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
By the 19th century, the term stirrup-cup, also called the doch-an-dorrais (from Gaelic and Irish deoch, drink, and an doruis, of the door) was extended to include the welcoming of a guest with a drink before his dismount.
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Cincinnati oysters
(pl. noun) - Pigs' trotters, or pigs' feet. Many examples can be given of this strange perversion of names - Albany beef, Marblehead turkey, etc. Similarly in England, a herring is called a Billingsgate pheasant, a two-eyed steak, etc.
--Sylva Clapin's New Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wanion
(noun) - A misfortune or calamity; a curse, mischief. Chiefly used as an imprecation in the phrases, with a wanion, and wanions on you.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quixotism
(noun) - (1) Romantic or absurd notions or actions.
--William Grimshaw's Ladies' Lexicon and Parlour Companion, 1854
(2) Quixotic principles, character, or practice; an instance of this - a quixotic action or idea. Quixotize, to act in a quixotic manner; to render quixotic. Quixotry, quixotism.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nake
To bare, unsheathe a sword. "Nake your swords." Cyril Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy 1656. From Middle English naken, to make naked.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(3) Nakedize, to go naked.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word piper's news
(noun) - News that everyone has already heard; probably from a piper going from place to place and still relating the same story till it be in everyone's mouth.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stalking-horse
(noun) - A horse, real or fictitious, by which a fowler screens himself from . . . game.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spalpeen
(noun) - (1) A wanderer. A term of contempt for a man; also used without contempt; from spailp'n, a worthless fellow, a migratory labourer.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
(2) Spal, in Irish, is a scythe, and peen a penny - that is, a mower for a penny a day.
--Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, 1780
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word healsfang
(noun) - (1) A word used in Anglo-Saxon laws meaning originally some punishment and afterwards the fine in commutation thereof. The legal antiquaries since c.1600 have taken it to mean the pillory.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
(2) Among the Saxons, healsfang - of heals, a necke, and fang, to take.
--John Cowell's Interpreter . . . Containing the Signification of Words, 1607
(3) The sum every man sentenced to the pillory would have had to pay to save him from that punishment.
--Benjamin Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 1840
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cumsloosh
(noun/adjective) - A flatterer. To get a bit cumsloosh, to become poor or relatively so.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word go to Peckham
(verb) - To go to dinner. A pun on peck.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jettatore
(noun) - A person who brings bad luck. From Italian jettatore.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flap-dragon
(noun) - A small combustible body, set on fire, and put afloat in a glass of liquor. The courage of the toper was tried in the attempt to swallow it flaming; and his dexterity was proved by being able to do it unhurt. Raisins in hot brandy were the commonest flap-dragons.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word maiden-timber
(noun) - Timber that has never been touched with the axe; New Forest.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word purfled
(adjective) - (1) Short-winded, especially in consequence of being too lusty.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(2) Full to excess, overloaded; swollen, inflated, turgid.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(3) Also in the form purfillit.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dormedory
(noun) - (1) A sleepy stupid person who does not get on with work. From dormir French, to sleep. Dormitoire was an adjective in old French.
--G.C. Lewis's Glossary of Provincial Words Used in Herefordshire, 1839
(2) Dormed, absent-minded, dazed.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word borrower's cap
(noun) - The borrower is supposed to be ever ready to off with his cap and show complaisance to him from whom he wishes to obtain a loan.
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boniform
(adjective/noun) - (1) Of a good nature or character; from Latin bonus, good, and forma, shape.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(2) A faculty by which moral goodness is appreciated; from Latin boniformis.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word roger
(noun/verb) - (1) The penis, from circa 1650; perhaps originally cant. To coit with a woman.
--Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 1956
(2) To bull, or lie with a woman; from the name of Roger being frequently given to a bull.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(3) To have sexual intercourse with.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 16, 2018
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