(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
(adjective) - Capable of being navigated by boats. The word originated in America but proved so useful that it has found its way into British English dictionaries. "The river is not boatable for several months in the year."
--M. Schlele De Vere's Americanisms: The English of the New World, 1872
(noun) - (1) A fermented liquor made of honeyed water, obtained by thoroughly washing the "comb," when drained of the honey; in a high class brew the "comb" is sometimes washed in a little "fresh beer" to hasten the fermentation; but the strength of the liquor is dependent upon the quantity of honey it contains. Metheglin, when well made, and refined and matured by age, is a "cordial" of no mean order - a homely "liqueur" of potent quality.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
(2) A spiced or medicated variety of mead, originally peculiar to Wales.
(adjective) - I have . . . noticed some of our rather curious superlatives . . . Walking over a ploughed field, a rustic, noticing some spear-grass, said, "It is the eatenest thing that grow" - that is, the most exhausting or devouring of the soil.
(adjective) - A woman who is called to straw is about to have a baby. I first assumed that it referred to a straw mattress, just as "hit the hay" signifies "go to bed." But many natives, including physicians and midwives at widely separated points in Missouri and Arkansas, assure me that straw means the act of parturition . . . It is sometimes used as a verb, as in, "Mable's a-strawin' right now."
(noun) - The act of prowling about with intent to steal . . . Probably from Algerine, an inhabitant of Algiers. The greatest commerce of the Algerines consists in the merchandize which they obtain by the piratical plunder of Christians over the whole Mediterranean.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - (1) A name invented by Gaule for magical astrology; so magastromancer, one who practices magastromancy, magastromantic, pertaining to magastromancy.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(2) Examples of the magastromancer's fatall miseries are too many to be instanc't . . . To what end serve the feigned mirables wonders of nature but to feigne the magastromantick art for the greatest mirable.
--John Gaule's Mag-Astro-Mancer; or, The Magicall-Astrologicall-Diviner Posed and Puzzled, 1652
(verb) - (1) To fatten, or grow fat. In Sternberg's Folk Lore and Glossary of Northamptonshire 1851, the local phrase is quoted, "Them pigs batten in the sun."
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(2) Fattening and battening, a toast of a child's fattening and thriving given at its baptism in private, when the bread, cheese and whisky are partaken of.
(noun) - One of those sneaks that makes a practice of watching . . . sweethearts on their nightly walks, and if any impropriety is witnessed, demanding hush-money to keep the matter secret. Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
n. A favorite name for the small circles of ice formed upon a pool when it begins to freeze over. - Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
(pl. noun) - "How go the squares?" how goes the game? The reference is to the chessboard. Thomas Middleton, Family of Love 1608. Yomenne, "yeomen"; the pawns in the game of chess.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(noun) - (1) "The black ox has trod on his foot," he has fallen into decay or adversity.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(2) Black oxen were sacrificed to the Roman gods of the Lower Regions. The c.1546 proverb, "the black ox never trod upon his foot," means he is not married. "The black ox hath trampled on him" is an equivalent of "He is henpecked."
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(3) The black ox is said to tramp on one who has lost a near relation by death.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879
(noun) - Another, and highly reprehensible way of extorting a gift, is to have what is called a philopena with a gentleman. This very silly joke is when a young lady, in cracking almonds, chances to find two kernels in one shell; she shares them with a beau; which ever first calls out "philopena" on their next meeting, is entitled to receive a present from the other; and she is to remind him of it till he remembers to comply. So much nonsense is often talked on the occasion, that it seems to expand into something of importance, and the gentleman thinks he can do no less, than purchase for the lady something very elegant, or valuable; particularly if he has heard her tell of the munificence of other beaux in their philopenas.
(pronoun) - A term used when speaking of a third person who is not present . . . It would appear to be the equivalent of "my lord," or "his lordship," used sarcastically. The word is evidentally derived from the Scottish word knab or nab, which was used derisively for a little laird, or any person of dignity.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
(adverb) - A corrupt reduplication of shall I? - the question of a man hesitating. To stand shill-I-shall-I is to continue hesitating and procrastinating.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(noun) - The young men of a place, when they know that a young man is paying attention to a girl, seize hold of him and place him in a wheelbarrow in which they wheel him up and down until they are tired, when they upset him on the nearest pile or in a pond. To say that a man has "ridden in the one-wheeled coach" is tantamount to the expression that he has gone a-courting.
--Rev. S. Rundle's Transactions of the Penzance Natural History Society, 1886
(noun) - A verdict returned by the jury . . . by which it is found that a crime has been committed without specifying the criminal, or that a sudden or violent death has occurred, without assigning any cause.
(noun) - (1) From the French rogne, the scab or scurf. A term of contempt, applied to a female, as "scurvy fellow" was similarly applied to a male, and both derived from the same French origin, and neither having particular reference to size. "Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries." Macbeth.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
--Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
(2) In the phrase, "to know the whole thruffing of anything," to know all about it. Thruffish, thoroughly well. "Thruffish, thank you." Lincolnshire. Thruffable, open throughout; figuratively, transparently honest and sincere; a person capable of being "seen through." North Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - A joke, a jeer, a scoff. In some of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected with the card-game of gleek; but it was not recollected that the Saxon language supplied the term glig, ludibrium, and doubtless a corresponding verb. Thus glee signifies mirth and jocularity; and gleeman or gligman, a minstrel or joculator. Gleek was therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a scoffing. It does not appear that the phrase to give the gleek was ever introduced in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French and derived from an original of very different import from the word in question . . . To give the minstrel is no more than a punning phrase for giving the gleek. Minstrels and jesters were anciently called gleekmen or gligmen.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(noun) - (1) A punishment among the vulgar; inflicted upon fornicators, adulterers, severe husbands, etc. . . . Offenders . . . are mounted astraddle on a long pole, or stang, supported upon the shoulders of their companions.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Stang, a strong piece of wood on which the carcasses of beasts are suspended by the sinews of the hind legs.
--Stephen Jones's Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary, 1818
(2) Oneirocritical, belonging to the interpretation of dreams.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(3) Oneirocriticism, the art of interpreting dreams. Oneirocracy, oneirocriticism. Oneirologist, one versed in oneirology. Oneiromancer, oneiromantist, oneiropolist, one who divines by dreams. Oneiropompist, a sender of dreams.
(noun) - A small portion left by way of good manners. In some parts of the North it is the custom for the village tailor to work at his customer's house, and to partake of the hospitality of the family board. On these occasions the best fare is invariably provided; at least such was the case when I was a boy; and the tailor to shew that he has had enough, generally leaves a little on his plate, which is called tailor's mense . . . From mense, decency, propriety of conduct, good manners, kindness, hospitality.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(noun) - (1) An officer who heads a procession and clears the way for it. The whifflers in the civic processions at Norwich carry swords, which they wave to and fro before them.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) An officer who preceded a procession, clearing the way and playing a flute.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832
(3) The old term for fifers preceeding the body of archers who cleared the way, but more recently applied to very trifling fellows. From whiff . . . a slight fitful breeze or transcient puff of wind.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, 1867
(noun) - In French newspapers, or others in which the French custom is followed, a portion of one or more pages marked off at the bottom from the rest of the page and appropriated to light literature, criticism, etc. Adopted from French, from feuillet, a diminutive of feuille, leaf. Feuilletonism, aptitude for writing feuilletons; feuilletonist, a writer of feuilletons.
(noun) - (1) A pale brownish-yellow colour; from Isabelle, a princess of this name.
--Charles Annandale's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(2) The archduke Albertus, who had married the infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II, King of Spain, . . . determined to lay siege to Ostend Belgium, then in the possession of the heretics. His pious princess, who attended him in that expedition, made a vow that till it was taken she would never change her clothes.
--Joseph Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosae, 1819
(3) Contrary to expectation, it was three years before the place was reduced, in which time the linen of her highness had acquired a hue which . . . was much admired and adopted by the court fashionables under the name of "Isabella color." It is a whitish yellow, or soiled buff - better imagined that described.
--Frank Stauffer's The Queer, the Quaint, the Quizzical, 1882
(verb) - (1) To sit down. In the biscuit, in the buttocks. "Make one mistake and you get it in the biscuit." Hot in the biscuit, greatly excited; sexually stimulated.
--Hyman Goldin's Dictionary of American Underworld Lingo, 1950
(2) Squeeze the biscuit, to catch the saddlehorn when riding.
--Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
(adjective) - Concentrated, strong. There is an old saying that camp cooks test coffee by dropping an iron wedge into the pot. If the wedge floats, the coffee is too strong. Ozarks.
(noun) - (1) A vacancy in a stack for preserving corns.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(2) A hollow made in a corn-stack, with an opening on the side most exposed to the wind, for the purpose of drying the corn. Scottish form of false and house.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(3) When the corn is in a doubtful state by being too green or wet, the stackbuilder by means of old timber, makes a large apartment in his stack with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind; this he calls a fause-house.
(noun) - A man-servant employ'd by a farmer in all sorts of work he has occasion to set him about . . . He is the lowest servant in the house and is not hired for the plough or the waggon particularly, but to be set about anything.
--Samuel Pegge's Alphabet of Kenticisms, 1735-1736
(adjective) - Of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks. The name of a famous statue of Venus. From Greek kallos, beauty, and pyg, buttocks.
(noun) - (1) The simplicity of ancient manners made it common for men, even of the highest rank, to sleep together; and the term bedfellow implied great intimacy. Lord Scroop is said to have been bedfellow to Henry V as found in Shakespeare's Henry V:
Nay, but the man was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with kingly favours.
After the battle of Dreux, in 1562, the prince of Condé slept in the same bed with the duke of Guise, an anecdote frequently cited to show the magnanimity of the latter, who slept soundly, though so near his greatest enemy, then his prisoner. Letters from noblemen to each other often began with the appellation bedfellow.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of the last century.
--Rev. T.F. Thiselton-Dyer's Folk-Lore of Shakespeare, 1884
(pl. noun) - (1) With anatomists, the muscles of the fingers called lumbricales, from the use they are put to by musicians in playing some instruments.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(2) From fidicen, a harper.
--Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859
(3) Fidicinal, of or pertaining to a player on stringed instruments.
(noun) - A landlady who wished to have a tutting gave notice of her intention to all her female acquaintances, whether married or single. At the hour specified, the visitors were regaled with tea but on the removal of that, the table was replenished with a bowl and glasses and exhilarated with potent punch, when each guest became a new creature. At this time the husbands and sweethearts arrived, paid their half guinea each for the treatment of themselves and partners, joined the revelry, and partook of the amusements. This custom, which was confined to the lower orders, is now very properly almost abandoned.
--J.E. Brogden's Provincial Lincolnshire Words and Expressions, 1866
(noun) - (1) One who participates in a walking match.
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
(2) As soon as the door is opened to such abominations . . . a whole host of similar terms should rush in and try to make a lodgement. Hence no sooner had men's ears become somewhat accustomed to hear a pedestrian called a walkist, than the man whose rifle brought down the largest amount of game became known as a famous shootist.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms: The English of the New World, 1872
(verb) - To excel or exceed in bombast, magniloquence, or violence. From the character of Herod who, in the old miracle plays, was always represented as arrogant.
(noun) - One who sells provisions from door to door; one who buys fowls, butter, eggs, &c. in the country and brings them to town to sell. From higgle, to beat down the price of a thing in a bargain; to sell provisions from door to door. Hence higgledy-piggledy, corrupted from higgle, higglers carrying a confused medley of provisions; in a disorderly manner.
An ale-conner (sometimes aleconner) is an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. There were many different names for this position which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters", gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders", and "ale-conners". Ale-conners were also often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price.
(noun) - The word is used in Yorkshire, and applied especially to dishes made from the viscera of the pig. Christmas was formerly, as now, the principal season for pig-cheer.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
(noun) - (1) A bush of evergreens sometimes substituted for mistletoe at Christmas.
--Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857
(2) The old "kissing bunch" is still hung in some of the old-fashioned cottage houses of Derbyshire and Cornwall - two wooden hoops, one passing through the other, decked with evergreen, in the centre of which is hung a "crown" of rosy apples and a sprig of mistletoe. This is hung from the central beam of the living-room, and underneath it is much kissing and romping. Later on, the carol-singers stand beneath it and sing God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.
(noun) - (1) A day before the exhibition of paintings on which exhibitors may retouch and varnish their pictures already hung. A private view of paintings before public exhibition. From the French word vernis, varnish.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) Varnishing-day, a day before the opening of a picture exhibition, on which exhibitors have the privilege of retouching their pictures on the walls.
(noun) - By the climacteric system, seven years was declared to be the termination of childhood; fourteen the term of puberty; twenty-one of adult age; thirty-five, or five times seven, as the height of physical and bodily strength. At forty-nine the person was said to have reached the height of his mental strength or intellectual powers; at sixty-three, or nine times seven, he was said to have reached the grand climacteric.
(noun) - Error, delusion; deceit; heretic, deceiver c.900-1300; related to Old English dwela, dweola, and dwala, error, heresy, madness. Dwal-kenned, heretical.
(noun) - (1) The comparative situation of a poor fellow whose wife - not satisfied with the mere henpecking of her helpmate - takes care that all the world shall witness the indignities she puts upon him. The expression is also applied to any other similar, if such there be, state of misery.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Harrow, a heavy frame of timber or iron set with iron teeth or tines, which is dragged over ploughed land to break clods.
(noun) - In the 18th century the word was used to describe a plentiful assemblage of hot and cold dishes. When George II and his Queen attended the wedding of their son Frederick there was a "Supper in Ambigu" . . . in which guests were offered forty-five hot dishes and fifteen cold. "Ambo" is the Latin for both, and both temperatures were certainly there to taste. Yet the great "spread" has a title which suggests uncertainty. There was much on the royal tables to invite overeating and nothing to cause intellectual confusion, unless the composition of some of the dishes was mysterious and misleading, and so menacing to those with queasy stomachs. But the title ambigu can hardly have been chosen as an admonition to go carefully. It sounded well; it looked imposing; it made hot and cold look distressingly plebeian. So for a while it was a vogue word and gave joy to those who had acquired it. It may return. Vogues are brief, and perhaps the restaurant which seeks modish customers by announcing its agreeable ambience may now announce the pleasures of an ambigu.
(noun) - Black-eyed peas cooked with hog jowl, the traditional New Year's dinner in many well-to-do families who would not eat such coarse food on any other day . . . In Civil War days, some planters who had nothing to eat but black-eyed peas at a New Year's dinner were lucky enough to regain their fortunes, and later on they somehow connected this good luck with New Year's hoppinjohn . . . It is considered very important in some districts to have black-eyed peas for dinner on New Year's Day. I have known country folk who rode a long way to get these peas for a New Year's dinner, even though they did not care particularly for black-eyed peas, and seldom ate them at any other time.
(noun) - (1) Gallantry, courtship; love, delight; from French drue, a mistress.
--Herbert Coleridge's Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
(2) Love, especially sexual love, love-making, courtship; often, illicit love. A beloved person, sweetheart. A love-token, keepsake, gift. In Scotland, confused with dowery. A beloved, prized, or precious thing; a treasure.
(noun) - It was customary for farmers to leave a portion of their fields uncropped, which was a dedication to the evil spirit and called good man's croft. The Church exerted itself for a long time to abolish this practice, but farmers . . . were afraid to discontinue the practice for fear of ill luck. I remember a farmer as late as 1825 always leaving a small piece of a field uncropped, but then did not know why. At length he gave the right of working these bits to a poor labourer, who did well with it, and in a few years the farmer cultivated the whole himself.
--James Napier's Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, 1879
--Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, 1806
(2) A disease in which the person has a sickly paleness, with a green tinge of the complexion, chiefly confined to unmarried females.
--James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(3) The principal means to be employed in the cure of this disease are gentle exercise in the open air, with nutritious and rather stimulating diet, sea-bathing, and agreeable society.
--Leo de Colange's Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871
(pl. noun) - (1) A bold and gruesome metaphor to describe what can only be carried by extreme measures, and to obtain which one might have to fight to the death.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(2) A person buried for some time is said to have taken a ground-sweat.
--John Nall's Glossary of the Dialect of East Anglia, 1866
On the second Monday of the first term in the year, if the weather be at all favorable, it has been customary from time immemorial to hold a college meeting and petition the president for "Gravel day" . . . The faculty grants this day for the purpose of fostering in the students the habit of physical labor and exercise, so essential to vigorous mental exertion.
--D.A. Wells' Sketches of Williams College, 1847
In old times, when the students were few and rather fonder of work than at the present, they turned out with spades, hoes, and other implements, and spread gravel over the walks to the college grounds. But in later days, they have preferred to tax themselves to a small amount and delegate the work to others, while they spend the day in visiting the Cascade, the Natural Bridge, or others of the numerous places of interest near us.
(adjective) - A man is said to be stale drunk when he has been drunk overnight and has doctored himself with stimulants a little too much in the morning and tried too many of the "hairs of the dog that bit him." If this state of things is long continued, it is often called "same old drunk."
(verb) - (1) To rumble, as when the intestines are distended with wind; generally spoken of the stomach.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) To turn and twist the body, roll or wriggle about, roll over and over; also with about, over, and through. To roll about in walking; to go with an unsteady gait.
(adjective) - (1) Deaf . . . I have no doubt that dunch is Anglo-Saxon . . . It ought not to be forgotten that many words are . . . being arrested by our etymologists in the present advancing age of investigation.
(noun) - (1) A drink made of stale beer or wine, sweeten'd with sugar and milk strained into it from the cow.
--John Kersey's New English Dictionary, 1772
(2) A frothy food to be slapped or slubbered up, prepared by milking from the cow into a vessel containing wine or spirits . . . The word is a corruption of slap-up or slub-up . . . and is the exact equivalent of Low German slabb' ut, Swiss schlabutz, watery food, spoon-meat, explained as to slap, lap or sup up food with a certain noise.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(3) Curds made by milking into vinegar. This word has exercised the etymologists. John Minshew thinks it corrupted from swillingbubbles . . . Henshaw deduces it from the Dutch sulle, a pipe, and buyck, a paunch, because sillabubs are commonly drunk through a spout, out of a jug . . . It seems more probably derived from . . . old English esil a bouc, vinegar for the mouth.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(4) Selibub . . . is good to coole a cholerick stomacke.
(verb) - Grangerisation is the addition of all sorts of things directly and indirectly bearing on the book in question, illustrating it, connected with it or its author, or even the author's family . . . It includes autograph letters, caricatures, prints, broadsheets, biographical sketches, anecdotes, scandals, press notices, parallel passages, and any other sort of matter which can be got together . . . for the matter in hand. The word is from Rev. James Granger.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(noun) - An old phrase signifying the Dutch manner or style, as "to drink upsee-Dutch," to drink in the Dutch manner, that is to drink deeply. From Dutch op-zyn-Deutsch, in the Dutch fashion.
--Daniel Lyons's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(noun) - Toothache; said when more than one tooth gives trouble; same error as exemplified in the British "parcels post" but unlike the proper "attorneys-general"; so called because more than one parcel is carried.
(verb) - To get the goose signifies to be hissed at while on stage. The "big bird," the terror of actors, is simply a metaphor for goose in theatrical slang.
(noun) - An irresistible desire in man to have frequent connexion with females, accompanied by the power of doing so without exhaustion . . . The principal symptoms are: almost constant erection, irresistible and almost insatiable desire for venery, frequent nocturnal pollutions. Cold lotions, the cold bath, a mild diet, active exercise, &c. are the only means that can be adopted for its removal. This medical term is still heard in Britain.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(noun) - Certain qualities, among them immunity from witchcraft and the power to perceive spirits, were ascribed to children born on Sunday, and a "chime-child" could see ghosts and was a natural healer. What constituted a chime-child was understood differently in different parts of the country. In East Anglia, a chime-child was born in the "chime hours," at 8, 10, or 12, but in Somerset, a chime-child was born between 12 and 1 on a Friday.
--Katharine Briggs' Folklore of the Cotswolds, 1974
(noun) - A change from excessive joy . . . to mourning, like that for a child dying after the rejoicings on its being christened. I told my old gardener, as I was returning from a funeral, that the last time I had driven to the same church was on the occasion of a gay wedding. "Ah," he said, "there is always a bacarding."
--Edgerton Leigh's Glossary of the Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
(interjection) - A common expletive, from Dutch almachtig, almighty. Alamatjes and alamopsticks are forms of the word employed by those who have scruples about using the word alamagtig, and salve their consciences by those variations.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
(verb) - To mar butter in the making by handling in summer with hot hands. This turns it to a curd-like substance, with spots and streaks of paler colour, instead of the uniformly smooth consistency and golden hue which it ought to have. Very nice dairy-women use a piece of thin, flat wood instead of the hand. But this requires greater care and more time, so the butter is garled by being made in too much haste. It may come from Anglo-Saxon geare, expedite.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
The first Friday in March is so called from lide, Anglo-Saxon for March. This day is marked by a seriocomic custom of sending a young lad on the highest mound or hillock of the work, and allowing him to sleep there as long as he can, the length of his siesta being the measure of the afternoon nap for the tinners throughout the ensuing twelve months. The weather which usually characterizes Friday in Lide is, it scarcely need be said, not very conducive to prolonged sleep.
In Saxon times, labourers were generally allowed their mid-day sleep, and it has been observed that it is even now permitted to husbandmen in some parts of East Cornwall during a stated portion of the year. Thomas Browne appears to allude to this practice in Devonshire . . . :
Whose pleasing noates the tyred swain have made
To steale a nap at noontide in the shade.
--Rev. T.F. Thiselton-Dyer's British Popular Customs, 1876
(noun) - To take out a dormiat . . . a license to sleep. The licensed person is excused from attending early prayers in the chapel, from a plea of being indisposed. Latin; literally let him sleep.
--Benjamin Hall's Collection of College Words and Customs, 1856
(verb) - (1) In familiar language, to withdraw under compulsion . . . and to apologise.
--Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(2) In allusion to the Shakespeare passage from Henry V, "Hee is come to me, and prings me pread and sault yesterday; looke you, and bid me eate my Leeke."
(verb) - You be blowed, or you go and be blowed, a vulgar form of refusal or dismissal; it probably has a still coarser allusion underlying it, that of being "fly-blown," or rotting - that is, dying.
(adverb) - (1) Rain is said to fall in planets when it falls partially and violently.
--Rev. John Watson's Uncommon Words Used in Halifax, 1775
(2) It rains by planets: this the country people use when it rains in one place and not in another, meaning that the showers are governed by the planets.
--John Ray's English Proverbs, 1670
(3) In changeable weather, the rain and sunshine come and go by planets. A man of unsteady mind acts by planets, meaning much the same as by fits and starts.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) From gloppen, to stare in amazement, to be startled or frightened; to startle, frighten; gloppenedly, in a state of alarm; gloppening, distressed, sorrowful. Also aglopened, forgloppened.
(noun) - A woman who played tricks with timbres, batons of some sort, by throwing them up into the air and catching them upon a single finger; a kind of balance-mistress. Saxon.
--Thomas Tyrwhitt's Glossary of the Poetical Works of Chaucer, 1871
(noun) - (1) A condition in which there are only two suppliers of a certain commodity, service, etc. The domination of a particular market by two firms. Hence duopolist, one member of a duopoly; duopolize, to engross between two.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(2) Special coinage formed from duo, on the analogy of monopolize.
(noun) - Da Backfaeste was an entertainment given by the principal groomsman in return for the wedding festivities to which the best-man contributed nothing.
--Alfred Johnston's Orkney and Shetland Miscellany, 1908
(pl. noun) - (1) These phantom hounds - jet-black and breathing flames . . . frequent bleak and dreary moors on tempestuous nights.
--Elizabeth Wright's Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore, 1914
(2) At Wednesbury . . . the colliers going to their pits early in the morning hear . . . the noise of a "pack of hounds," to which they give the name Gabriel hounds, though the more sober and judicious take them only to be wild geese making this noise in their flight.
--White Kennett's Lansdowne Manuscript of Provincial Words, c.1700
(noun) - (1) A disease or swelling of cervical lymph nodes. Edward the Confessor, king of England reigned 1042-1066 . . . received power from above to cure many diseases, among others the kingsevil, a prerogative that continues.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
(2) Belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs is but a remnant of the long supposed "divine right" of kings to govern, which resulted from the conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities.
--Charles Hardwick's Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, 1872
(pl. noun) - Sermons supposed to be suitable for delivery at Easter. Strange to tell, in the 16th century, these were replete with ludicrous stories and jests designed to provoke "Easter laughter."
(noun) - (1) The cuckoo. John Logan 1748-1788, in his poem To the Cuckoo, calls it the "messenger of spring" . . . Welsh ambassador means that the bird announces the migration of Welsh labourers into England for summer employment.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(2) If, when you hear the cuckoo for the first time, you are standing on grass or any green leaves, you will certainly live to hear the bird next season. But if you are standing on a roadway or the earth, or even upon stone, you will not live to hear the cuckoo when it comes next.
--Marie Trevelyan's Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales, 1909
(noun) - (1) A method of . . . angling for pike, used in the broads and rivers in Norfolk. The fisherman has no rod, but has the usual reel and, by the help of a crotch-stick, throws his bait a considerable distance from him into the water, and then draws it gently towards him. It is much practised by poachers, as there is no rod or pole to betray their intention.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) Piscarie . . . signifieth in our common lawe a libertie of fishing in another man's waters.
--John Cowell's Interpreter of Signification of Words, 1607 (Commenter's note. No, this isn't what I thought it was. Thank goodness).
(pl. noun) - (1) The sixth, eighth, tenth, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, etc. days of a disease, so called because, according to Hippocrates, no crisis occurs on these days, and medicine may be safely administered.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(2) Medicinal hour, medicinal month, times when the administration of medicine was deemed proper.
Annually on the day after Easter in Neston, Cheshire, a curious custom known as Riding the Lord was honored, perhaps for many centuries. Christina Hole's Traditions and Customs of Cheshire (1937) preserved the memory of this properly discarded medieval-sounding ritual: "A man was mounted on a donkey, and rode from the top of High Street to Chester Lane. The assembled people amused themselves by jeering at him and pelting him with rotten eggs and mud all along the route. He was given a sum of money for this unpleasant performance, and we can only hope that the pay was sufficient to make it worthwhile. No explanation seems to have been forthcoming for the singular rite, except the time-honoured one that it had always been done."
(noun) - (1) A company of people, especially a disorderly or vulgar crowd; a mob, rabble; "Such a clanjamphry of thievin' drunken miscreants," from Jane Barlow's Lisconnel (1895). Rubbish; trumpery; odds and ends. Nonsensical talk. Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) The "whole clanjamphrey," the mob; the rabble. Scotland.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - (1) Boys, in repeating their alphabet, would say ". . . X, Y, Z, anparsy." They did not know what it meant, but pointed in their spelling books to the character &, also termed parsy-and.
--M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(2) Anpasty, another name for ampersand. It means and past y.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(noun) - Literally "chase-fowl," one who hunts or chases fowl. A tax-gatherer, an exactor of taxes or imposts c.1050-1650 . . . Since the 16th century at least, a word of contempt.
(noun) - (1) Rubbish. Whether the form here given, or rubbige, be the better, it is neither worth contesting, nor possible to ascertain. Both are Old English and used even by very eminent bishops . . . Mr. Todd has taken the pains to vindicate both from the charge of corruption, facetiously but unfortunately made by Mr. Pegge. If there be any corruption at all, it is rubbish itself.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) From rub, as perhaps meaning, at first, dust made by rubbing.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(3) Provincial English; rubbrish was used in the exact sense of what we now usually call rubble, and the two words rubbish and rubble are closely connected. William Horman in his Vulgaria 1519 says that ". . . great rubbrysshe serveth to fyl up the myddell of the wall."
--Walter Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1879
(verb) - (1) To gnaw. A stronger word than nibble by change of vowel. Mice nibble and rats nabble our victuals.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) To chatter; to gossip; to idle about; nabbler, a gossip, an argumentative captious person; Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire. Hence nabble-trap, the mouth.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun) - (1) One who is despised or disliked; apparently formed arbitrarily to rhyme with darling. The resemblence to Scottish wirling "a wretch; a dwarfish or puny creature" seems to be accidental.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) A word of doubtful origin, occurring in the proverb, "Better to be an old man's darling than a young man's warling." Perhaps coined from war, in imitation of darling, and meaning one often quarreled with.
(noun) - The use of the word navvy for a toiler, principally with a spade, is, I suppose, growing rare . . . Navvy may be deemed a nickname, and so "general labourer" is preferred. But the name navvy still heard in Britain has a history, and might well be a word of pride. It is short for navigator. It is true that this sort of navigator did not hold a master's certificate or stand at the helm on stormy nights; he was a land-animal. But we owe to him some benefits of the waterway, since without him there would have been no internal navigation of Britain . . . Explorers of our often neglected canals will there discover inns called after navigators. In them these brawney fellows, toiling without benefit of bulldozers and trenching Britain with their gruelling handiwork, slaked their thirst. And there the occasional . . . holiday amateur of canal exploration can take his beer still . . . Navvies have no reason to be rid of the abbreviated name, as though it were some term of contempt like the odious slavey and skivvy, once applied with a callousness now fortunately out of date, to women who did the roughest or simplest domestic tasks.
(verb) - (1) An old country phrase, dating back to 1820, for the absence of a wife from her home. To hang out the broom meant that, the good wife being away, the man's friends and cronies might come and make merry in the kitchen.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(2) To sweep broom-field, to inherit the whole property; Eastern England.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(verb) - (1) To leave a situation before the end of the year.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) This is a term of servant-life. In the rural districts, it is customary to "hire" for the year, and servants leaving before the expiration of the twelve-months are said to break the year, which is considered a discreditable thing to do, and loss of "a character" reference may be the penalty.
(noun) - (1) He that comes guest-wise to an inn or house, and lies there the third night, after which he is accounted of that family. And if he offend the king's peace, his host was to be answerable for him. Literally "third night own servant."
--Thomas Blount's Law Dictionary and Glossary, 1717
(verb) - We are said to be drowning the miller when we are pouring in too large a quantity of water among the whisky to be mixed into grog . . . If too much water be let run on a mill, the wheel becomes drowned, as it were, and will not move the machinery.
(noun) - A dastard; a person destitute of spirit . . . Junius considers it as akin to English boobie and buffoon. It is perhaps allied to German Bub, which . . . first signified a boy, then a servant, and at length a worthless fellow.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) He that sings and weeps both together.
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
(2) Name of a French poem of the 13th century addressed to those who sing in this world and shall weep in the next; hence used of a mixture or alteration of joy and sorrow. From French chanter, to sing, and pleurer, to weep. The word has several senses in modern French, "weep-hole," "flood-opening" in a wall, etc. which have not entered into English.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(3) Conformyng them to the chante plure - now to synge and sodaynely to wepe.
(noun) - (1) A letter consisting of several paragraphs, each the contribution of a different person. The name is taken from the Cheddar-cheese manufacture, in which all the dairies contributed their share of fresh cream.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(2) Buckard . . . of milk, soured by keeping too long in the milk-bucket . . . The word is now . . . applied to cheese only, when instead of being solid it has a spongy look and is full of cavities.
--Frederick Elworthy's English Dialects: Devonshire, 1879
(adverb) - I disagree as to the propriety of the usage. It seems to me that one makes a statement under his signature, whatever may be the relative position of statement and signature on the paper, exactly as a soldier fights under a certain flag though he may be on a mountain top and the colors in the valley far below him, or as a man does business under a certain firm name, though his sign may be on the first floor and his shop on the second. Be that as it may, the expression was first used in England, so far as is known.
(noun) - Decorum; propriety. Rather common in English use about the end of the 18th and beginning of 19th centuries. From French bien, well, and séant, past participle of French seoir, to befit . . . Etiquettical, pertaining to etiquette.
(noun) - (1) One who peels garlick for others to eat, who is metaphorically made to endure hardships while others are enjoying themselves at his expense.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) Said originally to mean one whose skin or hair had fallen off from some disease, chiefly a venereal one. But now commonly used by persons speaking of themselves, as "There stood poor pilgarlick," there stood I.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(3) A person dressed shabbily or fantastically.
--W. Hugh Patterson's Glossary of Words of Antrim and Down, 1880
(noun) - (1) One that maintains a mistress, and parts with money generously to her.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
(2) A companion, mate. One who is cheated or imposed upon by a sharper, strumpet, etc. One easily deceived. Much in use in the 17th century . . . Compare Italian coglionare, "to foist, to deceive."
(adverb) - (1) To live by the penny, to be constantly in the habit of purchasing the necessaries of life, as opposed to the old custom of consuming one's own produce.
--Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
(2) Flimp, to hustle, rob. Putting on the flimp, garotte robbery.
--Ducange Anglicus's Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857
(noun) - An old phrase of the days of the portable theatre, and one which still exists in the theatre world of today. It was used as a kind of code. The traveling or fairground theatre of the old days depended for its revenue on the number of shows it could get in during the period of the fair. If, while a performance was proceeding, a queue gathered outside which would fill another house, the showman called out from the door, "Is John Audley here?" This was a hint to the people on the stage to finish quickly and get rid of the audience to make room for those waiting outside.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(adjective) - Quite the cheese means quite the correct thing, especially in the matter of costume or manner . . . This phrase is an adaptation from the word choose, and admits the interpretation, "what I should choose." By a sort of double refinement of this expression we hear things referred to as "that's prime Stilton" or "that's Double Gloucester."
(adjective/adverb) - Used in a variety of expressions. A Hanover job is a disagreeable job. To play Hanover is to do mischief. We also say, "I wonder how the Hanover she done it," and, "Go to Hanover." The origin is no doubt the unpopularity of the Hanover succession beginning in 1714 with England's Prussian-born king, George I which was strongly resented in the eastern counties.
(noun) - The allusion in Hamlet to the current notion that sighs shorten life by drawing blood from the heart. The same notion is found in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "With sighs of love that cost the fresh blood dear".
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
(noun) - This phrase symbolizes a breach in the harmony of friendship, usually of lovers, over a petty matter. As a small crack in a lute tends to make its music dull and discordant, through causing the air to escape in the wrong place, so is the intercourse of friendship or love sometimes strained by trifles, which turn harmony into discord.
(adjective) - In frequent use in various parts of South Africa in the sense of covered with. "The child is full of mud" means the child is covered with mud. It is an imitation of the Dutch idiom.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
æolipile Archaic form of aeolipile. (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 vaporous 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 Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817
(adverb) - (1) Though it has been plausibly suggested that the comparison has reference to the rapid passage of the welkin, or cloud, through the heavens, the last word of the expression is probably a contraction of winking, meaning the time taken to wink the eye. We have, moreover, almost an exact parallel in the French clin d'oeil, and our own expression, in a wink, an abbreviation of twinkle, the opening or shutting of the eye, and again in German Augenblick, a moment.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(2) Like winking, with vigour or persistency; "like anything." So, easy as winking.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(3) Both my legs began to bend like winkin.
--Thomas Hood's Sailor's Apology for Bow-Legs, 1827
(pl. noun) - I cannot help observing one application of the word few, peculiar to the northern counties, for which there seems to be no justifiable reason. When speaking of broth, the common people always say, "Will you have a few broth?" and in commending the broth will add, "They are very good." This is also an appropriation so rigidly confined to broth that they do not say a few ale, a few punch, nor a few milk, a few furmenty, nor a few of any other liquid. I would rather suppose that they hereby mean, elliptically, a few spoonfuls of broth, for broth cannot be considered as one of those hermaphroditical words which are both singular and plural, such as sheep and deer.
--Samuel Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, 1803
(noun) - An ancient mode of confirming a bargain. In a bargain between two Highlanders, each of them wets the ball of his thumb with his mouth and joins them together, esteemed a very binding act. It was customary with these kings, in concluding a peace or striking an alliance, to join their right hands and bind their thumbs together. Immediately, when the blood had diffused itself to the extremities, it was let out by a prick and licked by the contracting parties. Their covenant was henceforth deemed sacred.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - (1) A male jilt; an idler; a scoffer. From jamph, to make a game of; to mock, jeer, sneer; to act the part of a male jilt; to trifle, spend time idly, lounge.
(2) Jamph, to tire, to fatigue. It is frequently used to denote the fatigue caused by continued motion of a shaking kind, as that of riding, especially if the horse be hard in the seat.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(3) Jamphing, making false pretenses of courtship, applied to a male.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(noun/adjective) - At the height of mirth and jollity, the cock, or spigot, being removed and laid on the hoop, and the barrel of ale stumed, as they say in Staffordshire; that is, drunk out without intermission.
(adjective) - (1) Harringay expresses a neighbourhood or district abounding in hares.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
(2) In modern times, "buying the rabbit" means asking or looking for trouble or doing something that will inevitably earn a rebuff. The phrase owes its origin to the fact that one of the old-fashioned meanings of the word rabbit is curse or bother.
(noun) - The possession of two things by which bets are hedged as in the case of a girl who encourages two suitors, or a man who works at two businesses.
(noun) - (1) In law, a fine imposed on an offender, against the king or other lord, who is convicted and therefore stands at the mercy of either. From amerce.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(2) The infliction of a penalty left to the "mercy" of the inflicter. Refashioned from amercement.
(adjective) - (1) Soft and flabby . . . This is the regular word used by butchers to express the condition of meat which will not get solid, a very common fault in warm weather, or if the animal was out of condition when slaughtered.
--Henry Sweet's History of English Sounds, 1876
(2) Flaccid, soft; generally used of meat; Berkshire. Languid, limp, tired; Somerset. Tough; northwest Devonshire. Related to wang, to bend; to yield under a weight, as a plank when walked on; West Somerset. Hence wanged, exhausted, wearied, drowned.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Absence of mind; apparent thought, but real vacuity. The corresponding French expression explains it - sombre réverie. Sombre and brun both mean sad, melancholy, gloomy, dull.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
(4) Very common, even in educated society, but hardly admissible in writing. It is derived . . . from "brow study" and the Old German braun, or aug-braun, an eye-brow.
(adjective) - Signifies the state of one on whom intoxicating liquor begins to operate. It especially denotes the change produced in the expression of the countenance.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(noun) - A leathern pinafore such as is used by shoemakers. The acquisition of one used to be a great object of ambition with Almondbury lads. They regarded it as a kind of toga virilis.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(verb) - (1) This old past tense of "may," now obsolete in England, has been retained in the South, and is very common in all parts of the Union. Until of late years, its use was mainly confined to . . . people in the interior of the New England states. Latterly, however, a spirit of change appears to have revived the popularity of this form. In North Carolina, "perhaps" is almost invariably rendered "it mought be."
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(2) Frequently heard in the South, where the negroes use it almost exclusively. Derived from the ancient verb mowe - the ancestor of may and corresponding to the German mochte - it was once correct.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) To offer or pretend to do kindnesses to one, and then pass him by and do it to another.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(3) Eighteen pence, conceit; show of importance. A consequential person is said to "have eighteen pence around him." Originally the word would apply to people who made arrogant assumption stand in the place of wealth and position.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
a safeguard against fairies’ turning a normal infant into a changeling. Derivative of fulwian, fulliġan (“to baptize”), from *fulwīhan, from ful- + a verb derived from wēoh (“consecrated, holy”).
"Scuttlebutt", meaning rumour or gossip, is derived from "scuttled butt". To "scuttle" a ship is to puncture the hull or open the sea-cocks so that water enters the hull and sinks it. A "butt" is a barrel or cask, so a "scuttled butt" was a barrel with a hole cut in it to allow access to the water inside.
(noun) - (1) The smallest of a brood. Formed like the old word nescook, from the Anglo-Saxon nesc . . . tender, delicate . . . Other derivatives of this word have a similar sense in other provincial dialects. Grose's Provincial Glossary has "Nestling, the smallest bird of the nest or clutch; called also the nestlecock or nestlebub" . . . In Devonshire . . . nestledraft is "the last and weakest child of a family" . . . The least pig of the litter is called a cadma or a whinnock in the southern counties and an anthony pig in Kent.
--G.C. Lewis's Glossary of . . . Words Used in Herefordshire, 1839
(2) The weakest bird of a brood is called neest gulp; the youngest or weakest pig of a litter is called the barra-pig; the youngest of other animals, pitman or pinbasket. In Somerset, according to Jennings, nestle tripe is the "weakest and poorest bird in the nest; applied also to the last born and usually the weakest child of a family; any young, weak, and puny child and bird."
(noun) - (1) The touch of the royal hand for kingsevil.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(2) This belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs . . . resulted from the conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities themselves.
--Charles Hardwick's Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore, 1872
A beautiful headdress was so much the mark of a fashionable lady that gorgias then became an adjective meaning "elegant" or "fond of dress." Borrowed into English as gorgayse and then gorgeous, the word gradually took on the meaning of "beautiful" which it has today.
(noun) - (1) A baleful, destructive, or deadly power or influence. From a fabulous tree . . . with properties so poisonous as to destroy all animal and vegetable life to a distance of 15 or 16 miles around it.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926
(2) Kettish, putrid. It may be said of meat gone too far, "It's very kettish."
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(noun) - A large jug. In 1886, Sunday closing of public-houses came into effect in Wales, mainly through the efforts of Mr. John Roberts, M.P. So an outsized tankard evolved which, it was claimed, would hold sufficient beer to carry thirsty customers over from Saturday night until Monday morning.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(noun) - (1) An assemblage for the hiring of farm and domestic servants . . . regarded by the Sheffield people as one of the most important events of the year.
--Sidney Addy's Sheffield Glossary of Words, 1888
(2) At hiring fairs carters fasten to their hats a piece of whipcord, shepherds a lock of wool, grooms a piece of sponge, etc.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(pl. noun) - A portion of bread and allowance of beer laid out in Winchester School Hall at beever-time. From French boire, Old French boivre to drink. From Italian bevere, whence our beverage. Beever-time, a quarter of an hour's relaxation allowed to the Winchester School boys in the middle of afternoon school in summer to give them an opportunity of disposing of beevers.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
(noun/verb) - (1) A vulgar, scolding, ill-tempered, unchaste woman; an ancient word in common use, though perishing from literature. "A callet of boundless tongue who late hath beat her husband." The Winter's Tale. "A beggar in his drink could not have laid such terms upon his callet." Othello.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(pl. noun) - (1) The strings of a violin or lute, they being formerly made of the intestines of a cat and usually called cat-gut.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) What musick there will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains I know not, but I am sure none, unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
--William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, 1602
In recounting the life of the Elizabethan merchant, John Frampton, Lawrence C. Wroth describes the merchant as, "a young English-man of twenty-five years, decently dressed, ..., wearing a sword, and carrying fixed to his belt something he called a 'bowgett' (or budget), that is, a leathern pouch or wallet in which he carried his cash, his book of accounts, and small articles of daily necessity"
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
(2) Crimpy, inclement weather, which usually aggravates the "crimps," rheumatism, since many of those afflicted with this trouble are more or less deformed, or "crimped."
--Godfrey Irwin's American Tramp and Underworld Slang, 1931
(noun) - (1) A short mass said in great haste for hunters who were eager to start for the chase. Hence used as a phrase for any hurried proceeding. Found in Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) The conjured spirit appeares, which will not be a while after many circumstances, long prayers, and much muttering and murmurings of the conjurers, like a papist prieste dispatching a huntting masse.
One whose knees knock together in walking, as if kneading dough. Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose. Bakers Dozen
(noun) - In the days when executions were public in England, large crowds generally gathered at the scene of the gibbet, and a rare trade was done in food, drink, and amusement. London's principal place of execution was Tyburn, which is in the parish of Paddington.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(verb) - To be fair; to conform to the local ethics. "I aim to tote right with everybody in this county whether they voted for me or not," said a newly-elected sheriff. The phrase tote fair carries the same meaning. Ozarks.
(noun) - A man who travels about for the purpose of obtaining information useful to professional burglars. A man of this description will assume many characters, sometimes ingratiating himself with the master of the house, sometimes with the servants, but all to one end - that of robbery. He rarely or never joins in the actual burglary, his work being simply to obtain full particulars as to how, when, and where, for which he receives his full share of the swag.
(verb) - This is a common expression at wine parties when the bottle does not contain sufficient wine to fill all the glasses. It means "equally divide what is left." The word "buzz" meant anciently "to empty." Perhaps the word "booze" comes from the same root.
(noun) - (1) An astronomical instrument. Astrologian, one who professes to foretell future 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
(2) Astrobolism, sudden paralysis attributed to the malign influence of a planet or star; sunstroke; blasting of planets in the dog-days.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(3) Astrotheology, theology formed on what is known of the heavenly bodies.
(adverb/adjective) - (1) In a proper manner. This curious slang expression originated in the West among New Englanders emigrated from the East. With them, naturally, all that is done in their native land is right, and hence, what they admire they simply call about East.
--Sylva Clapin's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
(2) Down East, in the American's mind, is instinctively placed near the low coast of the Atlantic, as it were down toward the sea and at the same time toward the East. The emigrant who has gone to the West still remembers with delight how they spoke and how they did Down East.
(noun) - The cowman's reference to death. When one died, he was said to have taken the big jump. A good many cowmen were "weighted down with their boots."
--Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1944
(noun) - A Massachusetts term for a cod fish; also called Cape Cod turkey. There are many instances of fish being spoken of as meat; for example, the sturgeon is known in America as Albany beef, while in England, herrings are nicknamed . . . Billingsgate pheasants when fresh, and a Yarmouth bloater rejoices in the euphonious name of "two-eyed steak."
(verb) - To think little of, to disparage . . . Neither of the two great . . . lexicographers, Johnson and . . . Webster, seem to have been cognizant of the word.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(adjective) - (1) Causing cold; a word used in science. From frigorificus, frigus, and facio, Latin. "Frigorific atoms or particles mean those nitrous salts which float in the air in cold weather, and occasion freezing."
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Frigerifick particles, in Philosophy, small particles that are of a matter essentially cold.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1742
(noun) - It is still the custom for children to go about on that day. At Woodsome Hall, a sack of wheat stood at the door, with a pint measure. All comers who chose to take it were served with a pint of wheat, supposed to be for frumenty.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(noun) - A curious name given to the hock end of a ham, the thick end being called the Virginia end. These colloquialisms are current in both the states concerned, and are thought by some to allude to a supposed rough resemblance between the contour line of these states and a ham. Ordinary people, however, will scarcely be able thus to impose upon their imagination.
(pl. noun) - Boys who ramble the country during the Christmas holidays. They are dressed in white, all but one - the "Beelzebub" of the corps. They have a foolish rhyme they repeat and so receive bawbees and pieces two types of coins.
(noun) - (1) A person, such as a cobbler, with breeches breeks so barkened or stiff with dirt that they dunner thunder when struck, like a dried sheepskin; that is to say, makes a noise like distant thunder.
(pl. noun) - What these were, we can only guess . . . They appear to be some kind of shackles imposed upon the loser of a race by the judges. Roger Ascham wrote in The Scholemaster (1570): "Some runners . . . deserve but the hopshackles."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(adjective) - The quality of being too fearful of losing the esteem of others or doing something that may give them a bad opinion. Shamefaced, easily blushing, easily put out of countenance.
(adjective) - In Worcestershire, a betrothed couple are said to be "hanging in the bellropes" during the three weeks which elapse between the first and third calling of their banns of marriage. If the marriage does not come off, then the deserted one was, and still is, said to be "hung in the bellropes."
--Edwin Radford's Unusual Words and How They Came About, 1946
(noun) - (1) A field ploughed in curves ("bows") to suit a curving outline, is said to be ploughed rainbow. Hence, some fields have the name Rainbow Field.
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
(2) Meat-earth, cultivated land. Devonshire.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - (1) Casting mad people into the sea, or immersing them in water until they are well-nigh drowned, have been recommended by high medical authorities as a means of cure.
--James Pettigrew's Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery, 1844
(2) The Cornish call this immersion boossenning, from beuzi or bidhyzi . . . signifying "to dip or drown" . . . A very singular manner of curing madness in the parish of Altarnun was to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was by a sudden blow on the breast tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him. He was then carried to church and certain masses sung over him.
--William Borlase's Antiquities of the County of Cornwall, 1758
(noun) - (1) The interval between death and burial is sometimes spoken of in Suffolk as "lying by the wall." There was a saying, "If one lie by the wall on Sunday, there will be another corpse in the same parish before the week is out."
--Eveline Gurdon's Suffolk County Folklore, 1893
(2) Moleday, burial day.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(noun) - (1) The Anglo-Indian, by his rough-and-ready adaptation of native words and expressions . . . is responsible for the currency today of many popular sayings. Amongst others, such a source has been suggested for the common expression the real cheese, meaning the real thing, quite in fashion, or up to date. There is a Persian and Hindustani word chiz, meaning thing, and a young Anglo-Indian would frequently say, "My new horse is the real chiz," easily corruptible into the English cheese.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(2) Duck's meat, hardened mucous in the corners of the eyes after sleeping.
--William Patterson's Glossary of . . . the Counties of Antrim and Down, 1880
(noun) - Fraud, in the legal sense; falsification of deeds or measures, coining false money, etc. Adaptation of Old French faussoner, to deceive, faus, false.
(noun) - (1) Conbobberation, helliferocious, mollagausauger, to puckerstopple, and peedoddles were actually in use, and seem unbelievably outlandish today only because of their unfamiliarity . . . The "tall talk" of the backwoods, moving ever westward with the frontier, left unmistakable traces in the writings of Mark Twain, John Hay, Bret Hart, and a good many smaller fry.
--Thomas Pyles' Words and Ways of American English, (1952)
(3) Sockdologer, said to be a corruption of doxology, and to have thence derived the meaning of a final argument or a conclusive evidence which closes a debate as decisively as the singing of a doxology ends religious service.
(pl. noun) - Vagabonds, itinerants, men of no settled abode, of a precarious life; wanderers of fortune, such as gypsies, beggars, peddlers, hawkers, mountebanks, fiddlers, country-players, rope-dancers, jugglers, tumblers, showers of tricks, and raree-show-men.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Termes . . . of the Canting Crew, 1699
(contraction) - The phonetically natural and philologically logical shortening of am not, especially in a'n't I? . . . Amn't is ugly; ain't is illiterate and, on other grounds, inferior to a'n't. Note that a'n't I offers only two different stresses of emphasis, whereas am I not affords three.
--Eric Partridge's Book of Usage and Abusage, 1954
(noun) - (1) English coach or cab drivers were given this nickname from, it is said, an original driver whose name was Jarvis. The origin is doubtful, however, and it should be pointed out that the symbol of St. Gervais is a whip.
--Edwin Radford's Unusual Words and How The Came About, 1946
(2) Hove, to take shelter; hence, hovel, a sheltering place.
(noun) - Our ancestors used this word to signify a human being in the abstract. Verstegan says in A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605 very sensibly, "it is a word of necessary use; as, for example, a man beholding some living thing afar off in the field, not well discerning what it is, will say it is either a man or a beast. Now it may be a woman or child, and so not a man, and so he should speak more properly in saying it is either a mensce or a beast."
--Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
(verb) - (1) When a hart or stag breaks herd and draws to the covert, they say he "goes to his harbor," or "taketh his hold," or "he covereth;" and when he cometh out again that he "discovereth himself."
--H.J. Pye's The Sportsman's Dictionary, 1807
(2) Buck ague, nervous excitement felt by an inexperienced hunter at the sight of game; originally deer ague; also "buck fever."
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
(pl. noun) - From cue, the final or catch-word of a speech; a technical term among players, whence cue-fellows means players who act together. The cue among players was derived, doubtless, from the French queue, being literally the tail of a speech. It occurs several times in A Midsummer Night's Dream among rustic actors.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
Leden (noun) - The word not only meant the Latin language, but language in general - even that attributed to birds and beasts. Chaucer's Squire's Tale contained: "She understood well everything that any fouls may in his leden sayne."
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(verb) - To hint to guests that it is time to depart. The custom arose in the English-Scotch borderlands when provisions ran out, for a pair of spurs to be sent to table as a hint that a raid for provisions was desirable.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(noun) - (1) A pretender to importance, probably derived from Dutch hoogmogende, all-powerful, a title of the Dutch states-general. Introduced in Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1663).
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) Celsitude, chiefly as a title with highness, majesty.
--Mairi Robinson's Concise Scots Dictionary, 1985 (Commenter's note: reminds me of Huginn and Muninn, Odin's all-seeing ravens Probably unrelated, but interesting)
(adverb) - (1) "To take time by the forelock," to seize the opportunity as it is offered. Time is traditionally depicted as an old man with a solitary lock of hair in front.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) The joyous time wil not be staid, unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
(2) The widow's budgetted husband is permitted, when the drams are passing, to be considered as a living one . . . She is permitted to cheer her depressed spirits with a double dram - that of her budget-husband and her own. After a full year of this penance with the budget-husband, she is allowed to exchange it for a living one.
Comments by gammerstang
Show previous 200 comments...
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
Gammerstang commented on the word bizz
(noun) - Hair all tossed on end is said to be in a bizz; from the English word frizz.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boatable
(adjective) - Capable of being navigated by boats. The word originated in America but proved so useful that it has found its way into British English dictionaries. "The river is not boatable for several months in the year."
--M. Schlele De Vere's Americanisms: The English of the New World, 1872
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word metheglin
(noun) - (1) A fermented liquor made of honeyed water, obtained by thoroughly washing the "comb," when drained of the honey; in a high class brew the "comb" is sometimes washed in a little "fresh beer" to hasten the fermentation; but the strength of the liquor is dependent upon the quantity of honey it contains. Metheglin, when well made, and refined and matured by age, is a "cordial" of no mean order - a homely "liqueur" of potent quality.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
(2) A spiced or medicated variety of mead, originally peculiar to Wales.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eatenest
(adjective) - I have . . . noticed some of our rather curious superlatives . . . Walking over a ploughed field, a rustic, noticing some spear-grass, said, "It is the eatenest thing that grow" - that is, the most exhausting or devouring of the soil.
--Edward Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, 1823
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lethean
(adjective) - (1) Pertaining to the river Lethe; hence, pertaining to or causing oblivion or forgetfulness of the past.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(2) Oblivious; from Lethe, one of the rivers of hell. From Greek letho, old form of lanthano, to forget.
--Daniel Lyons' American Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(3) Deadly, mortal, pestiferous.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word called to straw
(adjective) - A woman who is called to straw is about to have a baby. I first assumed that it referred to a straw mattress, just as "hit the hay" signifies "go to bed." But many natives, including physicians and midwives at widely separated points in Missouri and Arkansas, assure me that straw means the act of parturition . . . It is sometimes used as a verb, as in, "Mable's a-strawin' right now."
--Vance Randolph's Down in the Holler, 1953
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word algerining
(noun) - The act of prowling about with intent to steal . . . Probably from Algerine, an inhabitant of Algiers. The greatest commerce of the Algerines consists in the merchandize which they obtain by the piratical plunder of Christians over the whole Mediterranean.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word magastromancy
(noun) - (1) A name invented by Gaule for magical astrology; so magastromancer, one who practices magastromancy, magastromantic, pertaining to magastromancy.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(2) Examples of the magastromancer's fatall miseries are too many to be instanc't . . . To what end serve the feigned mirables wonders of nature but to feigne the magastromantick art for the greatest mirable.
--John Gaule's Mag-Astro-Mancer; or, The Magicall-Astrologicall-Diviner Posed and Puzzled, 1652
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word batten
(verb) - (1) To fatten, or grow fat. In Sternberg's Folk Lore and Glossary of Northamptonshire 1851, the local phrase is quoted, "Them pigs batten in the sun."
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(2) Fattening and battening, a toast of a child's fattening and thriving given at its baptism in private, when the bread, cheese and whisky are partaken of.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word munz-watcher
(noun) - One of those sneaks that makes a practice of watching . . . sweethearts on their nightly walks, and if any impropriety is witnessed, demanding hush-money to keep the matter secret. Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Kentucky colonel
(noun) - A bogus colonel. After the American Civil War, it is alleged, nearly every man in Kentucky was either a captain, a colonel, or a general.
--John Sandiland's Western Canadian Dictionary and Phrase-Book, 1913
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clock-faces
n. A favorite name for the small circles of ice formed upon a pool when it begins to freeze over. - Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word butcher's plums
(pl. noun) - Meat. On saying to someone I was visiting, "Who lives next door?" I was answered, "The butcher. That's where we get our butcher's plums."
--Rev. F.M.T. Palgrave's Words and Phrases in Everyday Use by the Natives of Hetton-le-Hole, Durham, Being Words Not Ordinarily Accepted, 1896
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word the squares
(pl. noun) - "How go the squares?" how goes the game? The reference is to the chessboard. Thomas Middleton, Family of Love 1608. Yomenne, "yeomen"; the pawns in the game of chess.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flutter the dovecots
(verb) - To cause a mild excitement in society. Shakespeare, Coriolanus.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word manurement
(noun) - (1) Cultivation; improvement; as in the manurement of wits.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
(2) Manure your heart with diligence, and in it sow good seed.
--Zachary Boyd's Zion's Flowers, 1645
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word anthropotomist
(noun) - (1) One who studies human anatomy.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(2) One who cuts up or dissects a man; from Greek anthropos, man, and tomis or tomeus, one who cuts.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word glossator
(noun) - He that makes a glosse or comment to interpret the hard meaning of words or things.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1598
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word black ox
(noun) - (1) "The black ox has trod on his foot," he has fallen into decay or adversity.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
(2) Black oxen were sacrificed to the Roman gods of the Lower Regions. The c.1546 proverb, "the black ox never trod upon his foot," means he is not married. "The black ox hath trampled on him" is an equivalent of "He is henpecked."
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(3) The black ox is said to tramp on one who has lost a near relation by death.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word philopena
(noun) - Another, and highly reprehensible way of extorting a gift, is to have what is called a philopena with a gentleman. This very silly joke is when a young lady, in cracking almonds, chances to find two kernels in one shell; she shares them with a beau; which ever first calls out "philopena" on their next meeting, is entitled to receive a present from the other; and she is to remind him of it till he remembers to comply. So much nonsense is often talked on the occasion, that it seems to expand into something of importance, and the gentleman thinks he can do no less, than purchase for the lady something very elegant, or valuable; particularly if he has heard her tell of the munificence of other beaux in their philopenas.
--Eliza Leslie's Behaviour Book, 1854
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mi-nabs
(pronoun) - A term used when speaking of a third person who is not present . . . It would appear to be the equivalent of "my lord," or "his lordship," used sarcastically. The word is evidentally derived from the Scottish word knab or nab, which was used derisively for a little laird, or any person of dignity.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word frugiferous
(adjective) - (1) Producing fruit or corn. From Latin fruges, fruits, and fero, to bear.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) Fructiferous. From Latin frugifer, frux, frugis, and voro, to eat.
--John Ridpath's Home Reference Library, 1898
(3) Frugiverous, that which devoureth fruit, corn, &c. From Latin.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word backend
(noun) - (1) They sometimes say the backend of the week, but latter end is more common.
--Rev. Alfred Easther's Glossary of the Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) Late autumn; Cumbria.
--Alexander Gibson's Folk-Speech of Cumberland, 1880
(3) The later part of a season.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(4) Backendish, rough and wintry, generally applied to the weather.
--Rev. M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cow-jockey
(noun) - (1) A beast-dealer; Northern England.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) Jockeyed, cheated; tricked in trade; jockeying, cheating, deceiving in trade.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word holy-dabbies
(pl. noun) - (1) Cakes of shortbread, formerly used as communion-bread.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
(2) Singing-loaf or cake, the Eucharistic wafer, because a psalm was directed to be sung while it was making.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word in blood
(adjective) - To be in blood, to be in good condition, to be vigorous. A term of the chase.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of William Shakespeare, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shill-I-shall-I
(adverb) - A corrupt reduplication of shall I? - the question of a man hesitating. To stand shill-I-shall-I is to continue hesitating and procrastinating.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hippocrene
noun literary
noun: Hippocrene
used to refer to poetic or literary inspiration.
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word one-wheeled coach
(noun) - The young men of a place, when they know that a young man is paying attention to a girl, seize hold of him and place him in a wheelbarrow in which they wheel him up and down until they are tired, when they upset him on the nearest pile or in a pond. To say that a man has "ridden in the one-wheeled coach" is tantamount to the expression that he has gone a-courting.
--Rev. S. Rundle's Transactions of the Penzance Natural History Society, 1886
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nothing's nest
(noun) - A nonentity. "He's a nothing's nest."
--G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word all-sorts
(pl. noun) - (1) The leavings of saloon glasses, poured together and sold cheap.
--Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of Americanisms, 1956
(2) A slang term designating the drippings of glasses in saloons, collected and sold at half-price to drinkers who are not overly particular.
--Sylva Clapin's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word open-verdict
(noun) - A verdict returned by the jury . . . by which it is found that a crime has been committed without specifying the criminal, or that a sudden or violent death has occurred, without assigning any cause.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ronyon
(noun) - (1) From the French rogne, the scab or scurf. A term of contempt, applied to a female, as "scurvy fellow" was similarly applied to a male, and both derived from the same French origin, and neither having particular reference to size. "Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyon cries." Macbeth.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) The male sex organ.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1914
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fairlick
(noun) - A football term used when the ball is fairly caught or kicked beyond bounds. (Harvard University)
--Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word menavelings
(pl. noun) - Odd money remaining after the daily accounts are tallied at a railway booking-office, usually divided amongst the clerks.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word loitersacke
(noun) - (1) A lazy, loitering fellow.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) A lazy, lumpish fellow; from John Lyly's Mother Bombie (1594).
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
(3) Loiter-pegs, an idler; East Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fash
(noun) - (1) Care, trouble, anxiety.
--Robert Willan's Glossary of Words Used in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1811
(2) To take the fash, to take the trouble, to be at the pains.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thruffing
(noun) - (1) The whole matter.
--Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
(2) In the phrase, "to know the whole thruffing of anything," to know all about it. Thruffish, thoroughly well. "Thruffish, thank you." Lincolnshire. Thruffable, open throughout; figuratively, transparently honest and sincere; a person capable of being "seen through." North Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flexanimous
(adjective) - (1) Having power to change the disposition of the mind.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Of a minde easily bent or turned.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
(3) Flexanimousness, flexibleness of mind or disposition.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Yankeese
(noun) - American English; 1800s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word propheciographer
(noun) - One who writes down or records prophecies.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word breklasse
(adjective) - Without breeches; naked; from Old English brek, breeches.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word snool
(verb/noun) - To dispirit by constant chiding; or to depress the energies of life by excess of bodily toil . . . A poor pitiful fellow.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word primpit
(adjective) - (1) Stiffly or primly dressed; stiff, formal, prim.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(2) Affected, prudish; of the mouth, closed primly, pursed up (Scottish); also primped-up.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cothish
(adjective) - (1) Faint, sickly, ailing. A dog is said to be cothy when he is meek and delicate.
--Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dendranthopology
(noun) - Study based on the theory that man had sprung from trees.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pollrumptious
(adjective) - Restive; unruly; foolishly confident.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cappernoited
(adjective) - Intoxicated, giddy, frolicsome.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word genitor
(noun) - (1) One who procreates; a sire; a father.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) A testicle; the testicles; in later use for genitals. Adapted from Old French genitoir. In adjective use as members genitors late 1400s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gleek
(noun) - A joke, a jeer, a scoff. In some of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected with the card-game of gleek; but it was not recollected that the Saxon language supplied the term glig, ludibrium, and doubtless a corresponding verb. Thus glee signifies mirth and jocularity; and gleeman or gligman, a minstrel or joculator. Gleek was therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a scoffing. It does not appear that the phrase to give the gleek was ever introduced in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French and derived from an original of very different import from the word in question . . . To give the minstrel is no more than a punning phrase for giving the gleek. Minstrels and jesters were anciently called gleekmen or gligmen.
--Rev. Alexander Dyce's Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word phlogiston
The existence of phlogiston was denied by Lavoisier in 1775, and though stoutly maintained by Priestley, belief in it was generally abandoned by 1800.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jangle
(noun/verb) - (1) Gossiping, idle talking; to jangle one's time away.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(2) To quarrel, argue angrily. Hence, janglesome, quarrelsome, noisy, boisterous. Northern England, Scotland.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word riding the stang
(noun) - (1) A punishment among the vulgar; inflicted upon fornicators, adulterers, severe husbands, etc. . . . Offenders . . . are mounted astraddle on a long pole, or stang, supported upon the shoulders of their companions.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Stang, a strong piece of wood on which the carcasses of beasts are suspended by the sinews of the hind legs.
--William Carr's Dialect of Craven, 1828
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word rack rides
(pl. noun) - A phrase used when the clouds are driven rapidly by the wind.
--F.T. Dinsdale's Provincial Words Used in Teasdale, Durham, 1849
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word oneirocritick
(noun) - (1) An interpreter of dreams.
--Stephen Jones's Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary, 1818
(2) Oneirocritical, belonging to the interpretation of dreams.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(3) Oneirocriticism, the art of interpreting dreams. Oneirocracy, oneirocriticism. Oneirologist, one versed in oneirology. Oneiromancer, oneiromantist, oneiropolist, one who divines by dreams. Oneiropompist, a sender of dreams.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tailor's mense
(noun) - A small portion left by way of good manners. In some parts of the North it is the custom for the village tailor to work at his customer's house, and to partake of the hospitality of the family board. On these occasions the best fare is invariably provided; at least such was the case when I was a boy; and the tailor to shew that he has had enough, generally leaves a little on his plate, which is called tailor's mense . . . From mense, decency, propriety of conduct, good manners, kindness, hospitality.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word malahack
(verb) - A word ludicrously fabricated which means to cut or carve in an awkward and slovenly manner.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word whiffler
(noun) - (1) An officer who heads a procession and clears the way for it. The whifflers in the civic processions at Norwich carry swords, which they wave to and fro before them.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) An officer who preceded a procession, clearing the way and playing a flute.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Terms, 1832
(3) The old term for fifers preceeding the body of archers who cleared the way, but more recently applied to very trifling fellows. From whiff . . . a slight fitful breeze or transcient puff of wind.
--Admiral William Smyth's Sailor's Word Book, 1867
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cowse
(verb) - (1) To pursue animals; Western England.
--Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857
(2) To wander about idly.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(3) To court, make love to spelled course.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word feuilleton
(noun) - In French newspapers, or others in which the French custom is followed, a portion of one or more pages marked off at the bottom from the rest of the page and appropriated to light literature, criticism, etc. Adopted from French, from feuillet, a diminutive of feuille, leaf. Feuilletonism, aptitude for writing feuilletons; feuilletonist, a writer of feuilletons.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word arle
(2) Arle, money given in confirmation of a bargain . . . when a servant is hired.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word isabelline
(noun) - (1) A pale brownish-yellow colour; from Isabelle, a princess of this name.
--Charles Annandale's Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
(2) The archduke Albertus, who had married the infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II, King of Spain, . . . determined to lay siege to Ostend Belgium, then in the possession of the heretics. His pious princess, who attended him in that expedition, made a vow that till it was taken she would never change her clothes.
--Joseph Taylor's Antiquitates Curiosae, 1819
(3) Contrary to expectation, it was three years before the place was reduced, in which time the linen of her highness had acquired a hue which . . . was much admired and adopted by the court fashionables under the name of "Isabella color." It is a whitish yellow, or soiled buff - better imagined that described.
--Frank Stauffer's The Queer, the Quaint, the Quizzical, 1882
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word park the biscuit
(verb) - (1) To sit down. In the biscuit, in the buttocks. "Make one mistake and you get it in the biscuit." Hot in the biscuit, greatly excited; sexually stimulated.
--Hyman Goldin's Dictionary of American Underworld Lingo, 1950
(2) Squeeze the biscuit, to catch the saddlehorn when riding.
--Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1946
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word detrain
(verb) - Leave, or cause to leave, a train. Like deplane. Why not deboat also?
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word egg-wife-trot
(noun) - An easy jog - such a speed as farmers' wives carry their eggs to the market.
--William Carr's Dialect of Craven, 1828
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word doggerybaw
(noun) - Nonsense.
--Jabez Good's Glossary of East Lincolnshire, 1900
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drum-roll payment
(noun) - Not to pay at all. No soldier can be arrested for debt when on the march.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word condiddle
(verb) - To convey away secretly.
--Walter Skeat's Specimens of English Dialects, Westmoreland, 1879
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shinnicked
(adjective) - Benumbed, paralysed with the cold, especially when accompanied by contraction of the muscles and violent shivering.
--G.M. Story's Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 1982
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wedge-floating
(adjective) - Concentrated, strong. There is an old saying that camp cooks test coffee by dropping an iron wedge into the pot. If the wedge floats, the coffee is too strong. Ozarks.
--Vance Randolph's Down in the Holler, 1953
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fause-house
(noun) - (1) A vacancy in a stack for preserving corns.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(2) A hollow made in a corn-stack, with an opening on the side most exposed to the wind, for the purpose of drying the corn. Scottish form of false and house.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(3) When the corn is in a doubtful state by being too green or wet, the stackbuilder by means of old timber, makes a large apartment in his stack with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind; this he calls a fause-house.
--Robert Burns' Halloween Note, c.1820
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word allworks
(noun) - A man-servant employ'd by a farmer in all sorts of work he has occasion to set him about . . . He is the lowest servant in the house and is not hired for the plough or the waggon particularly, but to be set about anything.
--Samuel Pegge's Alphabet of Kenticisms, 1735-1736
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word callipygian
(adjective) - Of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks. The name of a famous statue of Venus. From Greek kallos, beauty, and pyg, buttocks.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bedfellow
(noun) - (1) The simplicity of ancient manners made it common for men, even of the highest rank, to sleep together; and the term bedfellow implied great intimacy. Lord Scroop is said to have been bedfellow to Henry V as found in Shakespeare's Henry V:
Nay, but the man was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with kingly favours.
After the battle of Dreux, in 1562, the prince of Condé slept in the same bed with the duke of Guise, an anecdote frequently cited to show the magnanimity of the latter, who slept soundly, though so near his greatest enemy, then his prisoner. Letters from noblemen to each other often began with the appellation bedfellow.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) This unseemly custom continued common till the middle of the last century.
--Rev. T.F. Thiselton-Dyer's Folk-Lore of Shakespeare, 1884
Before he became president in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was known to have often slept with his best friend, Joshua Speed, while the two were traveling.
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fidicinales
(pl. noun) - (1) With anatomists, the muscles of the fingers called lumbricales, from the use they are put to by musicians in playing some instruments.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(2) From fidicen, a harper.
--Richard Hoblyn's Medical Dictionary, 1859
(3) Fidicinal, of or pertaining to a player on stringed instruments.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word commorant
(adjective) - Abiding, dwelling, resident. Of water, standing, not running away. Adapted from Latin commorantem, to tarry, abide.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lime-juicers
(pl. noun) - A nickname current among seafaring men for the sailors of the British merchant marines. Now limey.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dog-Latin
(noun) - (1) Barbarous Latin, such as was formerly used by lawyers in their pleadings. Now applied to "medical Latin."
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(2) Also kitchen-, bog-, garden-, or apothecaries'-Latin.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dildrums
(pl. noun) - (1) Childhood nonsense. "To tell Doldrums," to talk wildly.
--Walter Skeat's Specimens of English Dialects, Westmoreland, 1879
(2) Dildrams, strange tales; especially in the phrase to tell dildrams. Lancashire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bastard-scurvey
(noun) - A kind of leprosy.
--John Brand's Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth and Caithness, 1883
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tutting
(noun) - A landlady who wished to have a tutting gave notice of her intention to all her female acquaintances, whether married or single. At the hour specified, the visitors were regaled with tea but on the removal of that, the table was replenished with a bowl and glasses and exhilarated with potent punch, when each guest became a new creature. At this time the husbands and sweethearts arrived, paid their half guinea each for the treatment of themselves and partners, joined the revelry, and partook of the amusements. This custom, which was confined to the lower orders, is now very properly almost abandoned.
--J.E. Brogden's Provincial Lincolnshire Words and Expressions, 1866
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word animadversion
(noun) - (1) Serious consideration or observation.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(2) A taking notice of a fault with some degree of anger, severity, or dispatch.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(3) An observation made upon a book after duly examining into the merits of it.
--Thomas Dyche's New General English Dictionary, 1740
(4) Reproof; severe censure.
--John Walker's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, 1835
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word walkist
(noun) - (1) One who participates in a walking match.
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
(2) As soon as the door is opened to such abominations . . . a whole host of similar terms should rush in and try to make a lodgement. Hence no sooner had men's ears become somewhat accustomed to hear a pedestrian called a walkist, than the man whose rifle brought down the largest amount of game became known as a famous shootist.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms: The English of the New World, 1872
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word outherod
(verb) - To excel or exceed in bombast, magniloquence, or violence. From the character of Herod who, in the old miracle plays, was always represented as arrogant.
--Edward Lloyd's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word higgler
(noun) - One who sells provisions from door to door; one who buys fowls, butter, eggs, &c. in the country and brings them to town to sell. From higgle, to beat down the price of a thing in a bargain; to sell provisions from door to door. Hence higgledy-piggledy, corrupted from higgle, higglers carrying a confused medley of provisions; in a disorderly manner.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ale-connor
An ale-conner (sometimes aleconner) is an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. There were many different names for this position which varied from place to place: "ale-tasters", gustatores cervisiae, "ale-founders", and "ale-conners". Ale-conners were also often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price.
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word davered
(adjective) - (1) Wandering in mind; silly, senseless. Davering, riding or walking in a dazed condition. Scotland, Northern England.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) Thy heart is like the daver'd rose.
--Edward Capern's Poems, 1864
(3) Daverdly, dowdy, unkempt.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pig-cheer
(noun) - The word is used in Yorkshire, and applied especially to dishes made from the viscera of the pig. Christmas was formerly, as now, the principal season for pig-cheer.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kissing-bunch
(noun) - (1) A bush of evergreens sometimes substituted for mistletoe at Christmas.
--Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857
(2) The old "kissing bunch" is still hung in some of the old-fashioned cottage houses of Derbyshire and Cornwall - two wooden hoops, one passing through the other, decked with evergreen, in the centre of which is hung a "crown" of rosy apples and a sprig of mistletoe. This is hung from the central beam of the living-room, and underneath it is much kissing and romping. Later on, the carol-singers stand beneath it and sing God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.
--Peter Ditchfield's Old English Customs, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Bristol man's gift
(noun) - (1) A present of something which the giver pronounces to be of no use or of no value to himself.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vernissage
(noun) - (1) A day before the exhibition of paintings on which exhibitors may retouch and varnish their pictures already hung. A private view of paintings before public exhibition. From the French word vernis, varnish.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) Varnishing-day, a day before the opening of a picture exhibition, on which exhibitors have the privilege of retouching their pictures on the walls.
--William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word indignagger
(verb) - To argue with a master.
--Morris Marples' University Slang, 1950
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word climacteric
(noun) - By the climacteric system, seven years was declared to be the termination of childhood; fourteen the term of puberty; twenty-one of adult age; thirty-five, or five times seven, as the height of physical and bodily strength. At forty-nine the person was said to have reached the height of his mental strength or intellectual powers; at sixty-three, or nine times seven, he was said to have reached the grand climacteric.
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dwale
(noun) - Error, delusion; deceit; heretic, deceiver c.900-1300; related to Old English dwela, dweola, and dwala, error, heresy, madness. Dwal-kenned, heretical.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gubbertushed
Related to gubbed, rough, misshapen; Hampshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dashel
a brush for sprinkling holy water; 1500s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dashelled
(adjective) - (1) Beaten about and wetted by bad weather.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(2) Related to dashel, a brush for sprinkling holy water; 1500s.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crazelty
(adjective) - (1) Infirm or dilapidated. It is said of a sick person or one out of sorts; a gate ready to fall is crazelty.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) Crazling, a person affected with a craze or mania.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word toad-under-a-harrow
(noun) - (1) The comparative situation of a poor fellow whose wife - not satisfied with the mere henpecking of her helpmate - takes care that all the world shall witness the indignities she puts upon him. The expression is also applied to any other similar, if such there be, state of misery.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Harrow, a heavy frame of timber or iron set with iron teeth or tines, which is dragged over ploughed land to break clods.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ambigu
(noun) - In the 18th century the word was used to describe a plentiful assemblage of hot and cold dishes. When George II and his Queen attended the wedding of their son Frederick there was a "Supper in Ambigu" . . . in which guests were offered forty-five hot dishes and fifteen cold. "Ambo" is the Latin for both, and both temperatures were certainly there to taste. Yet the great "spread" has a title which suggests uncertainty. There was much on the royal tables to invite overeating and nothing to cause intellectual confusion, unless the composition of some of the dishes was mysterious and misleading, and so menacing to those with queasy stomachs. But the title ambigu can hardly have been chosen as an admonition to go carefully. It sounded well; it looked imposing; it made hot and cold look distressingly plebeian. So for a while it was a vogue word and gave joy to those who had acquired it. It may return. Vogues are brief, and perhaps the restaurant which seeks modish customers by announcing its agreeable ambience may now announce the pleasures of an ambigu.
--Ivor Brown's Ring of Words, 1967
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hoppinjohn
(noun) - Black-eyed peas cooked with hog jowl, the traditional New Year's dinner in many well-to-do families who would not eat such coarse food on any other day . . . In Civil War days, some planters who had nothing to eat but black-eyed peas at a New Year's dinner were lucky enough to regain their fortunes, and later on they somehow connected this good luck with New Year's hoppinjohn . . . It is considered very important in some districts to have black-eyed peas for dinner on New Year's Day. I have known country folk who rode a long way to get these peas for a New Year's dinner, even though they did not care particularly for black-eyed peas, and seldom ate them at any other time.
--Vance Randolph's Ozark Superstitions, 1947
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word benedict
(noun) - A married man. From Benedict, the husband of Beatrice, in Much Ado About Nothing.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lycanthropia
(noun) - (1) A variety of melancholy in which the person believes himself to be changed into a wolf, and imitates the voice and habits of that animal.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
(2) A madness proceeding from the bite of a mad wolf, whence men imitate the howling of wolves.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
(3) Unlycanthropize, to change a man turned into a wolf back into a man again.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drury
(noun) - (1) Gallantry, courtship; love, delight; from French drue, a mistress.
--Herbert Coleridge's Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
(2) Love, especially sexual love, love-making, courtship; often, illicit love. A beloved person, sweetheart. A love-token, keepsake, gift. In Scotland, confused with dowery. A beloved, prized, or precious thing; a treasure.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word good man's croft
(noun) - It was customary for farmers to leave a portion of their fields uncropped, which was a dedication to the evil spirit and called good man's croft. The Church exerted itself for a long time to abolish this practice, but farmers . . . were afraid to discontinue the practice for fear of ill luck. I remember a farmer as late as 1825 always leaving a small piece of a field uncropped, but then did not know why. At length he gave the right of working these bits to a poor labourer, who did well with it, and in a few years the farmer cultivated the whole himself.
--James Napier's Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland, 1879
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mallemarocking
(noun) - (1) The visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships.
--William Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book, 1867
(2) Formed on Dutch mallemarok, a foolish woman, tomboy; from mal, foolish, and marok, adaptation of French marotte, an "object of foolish affection."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word green-sickness
(noun) - (1) A disease incident to virgins.
--Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, 1806
(2) A disease in which the person has a sickly paleness, with a green tinge of the complexion, chiefly confined to unmarried females.
--James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(3) The principal means to be employed in the cure of this disease are gentle exercise in the open air, with nutritious and rather stimulating diet, sea-bathing, and agreeable society.
--Leo de Colange's Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word adulter
(verb) - (1) To commit adultery with another; a word not classical.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Holer, adulterer; libertine; from French holier.
--Herbert Coleridge's Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word carfuddle
(verb) - To discompose; to rumple. Synonymous with carfuffle, to disorder.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word graveyard issues
(pl. noun) - (1) A bold and gruesome metaphor to describe what can only be carried by extreme measures, and to obtain which one might have to fight to the death.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(2) A person buried for some time is said to have taken a ground-sweat.
--John Nall's Glossary of the Dialect of East Anglia, 1866
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gravel day
On the second Monday of the first term in the year, if the weather be at all favorable, it has been customary from time immemorial to hold a college meeting and petition the president for "Gravel day" . . . The faculty grants this day for the purpose of fostering in the students the habit of physical labor and exercise, so essential to vigorous mental exertion.
--D.A. Wells' Sketches of Williams College, 1847
In old times, when the students were few and rather fonder of work than at the present, they turned out with spades, hoes, and other implements, and spread gravel over the walks to the college grounds. But in later days, they have preferred to tax themselves to a small amount and delegate the work to others, while they spend the day in visiting the Cascade, the Natural Bridge, or others of the numerous places of interest near us.
--Boston Daily Evening Traveller, July 12, 1854
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word petrified kidneys
(pl. noun) - Kidney-shaped stones formerly used to pave the footpaths, and even now to be met with in remote villages.
--G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stale drunk
(adjective) - A man is said to be stale drunk when he has been drunk overnight and has doctored himself with stimulants a little too much in the morning and tried too many of the "hairs of the dog that bit him." If this state of things is long continued, it is often called "same old drunk."
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gizzen
(verb) - (1) To grin audibly.
--C. Clough Robinson's Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire, 1876
(2) Gizzum, the mouth.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wamble
(verb) - (1) To rumble, as when the intestines are distended with wind; generally spoken of the stomach.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) To turn and twist the body, roll or wriggle about, roll over and over; also with about, over, and through. To roll about in walking; to go with an unsteady gait.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dowsabell
(noun) - (1) A common name in sixteenth-century poetry for a sweetheart, especially for an unsophisticated country girl.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(2) The name means "sweet and beautiful," from French douce et belle.
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dunch
(adjective) - (1) Deaf . . . I have no doubt that dunch is Anglo-Saxon . . . It ought not to be forgotten that many words are . . . being arrested by our etymologists in the present advancing age of investigation.
--James Jennings' Dialect of Somersetshire, 1869
(2) Undeaf, to cure of deafness.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word out-pick-pick
(noun) - The kind of pick-pick a fish from whose bones the flesh is easily picked that is caught further out to sea than the ordinary one.
--Alan Ross's Pitcairnese Language, 1964
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chirology
(noun) - The art of conversing with the hands and fingers.
--Joseph Worcester's Dictionary of the English Language, 1881
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lucubrator
(noun) - A person who studies by night, or by candlelight.
--Leo de Colange's Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word twistin'-in
(noun) - A term applied by the Luddites in 1812 in Lancashire to the swearing-in of a new member of their secret society.
--Francis Taylor's Folk-Speech of South Lancashire, 1901
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sillabub
(noun) - (1) A drink made of stale beer or wine, sweeten'd with sugar and milk strained into it from the cow.
--John Kersey's New English Dictionary, 1772
(2) A frothy food to be slapped or slubbered up, prepared by milking from the cow into a vessel containing wine or spirits . . . The word is a corruption of slap-up or slub-up . . . and is the exact equivalent of Low German slabb' ut, Swiss schlabutz, watery food, spoon-meat, explained as to slap, lap or sup up food with a certain noise.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(3) Curds made by milking into vinegar. This word has exercised the etymologists. John Minshew thinks it corrupted from swillingbubbles . . . Henshaw deduces it from the Dutch sulle, a pipe, and buyck, a paunch, because sillabubs are commonly drunk through a spout, out of a jug . . . It seems more probably derived from . . . old English esil a bouc, vinegar for the mouth.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(4) Selibub . . . is good to coole a cholerick stomacke.
--Thomas Cogan's Haven of Health, 1584
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word grangerise
(verb) - Grangerisation is the addition of all sorts of things directly and indirectly bearing on the book in question, illustrating it, connected with it or its author, or even the author's family . . . It includes autograph letters, caricatures, prints, broadsheets, biographical sketches, anecdotes, scandals, press notices, parallel passages, and any other sort of matter which can be got together . . . for the matter in hand. The word is from Rev. James Granger.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word anabrochismus
(noun) - An operation for removing the eyelashes by means of a hair knotted around them.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quanked
(adjective) - (1) Overpowered by fatigue. From Anglo-Saxon cwanian, to be weary or faint, and cwencan, to quench.
--John Akerman's Provincial Words and Phrases in Wiltshire, 1842
(2) Quank, to overcome, subdue; hence quanker, a settler.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word upsee-Dutch
(noun) - An old phrase signifying the Dutch manner or style, as "to drink upsee-Dutch," to drink in the Dutch manner, that is to drink deeply. From Dutch op-zyn-Deutsch, in the Dutch fashion.
--Daniel Lyons's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1897
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word applaudity
(noun) - Clapping of hands for joy.
--Henry Cockeram's Interpreter of Hard English Words, 1623
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word teethache
(noun) - Toothache; said when more than one tooth gives trouble; same error as exemplified in the British "parcels post" but unlike the proper "attorneys-general"; so called because more than one parcel is carried.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word doffed
Doffed, stripped or unclothed. "The lads ran across the field doffed."
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word odds fish
(noun) - (1) A corruption of "God's flesh," or body of Christ. A favorite expression of Charles II.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word get the goose
(verb) - To get the goose signifies to be hissed at while on stage. The "big bird," the terror of actors, is simply a metaphor for goose in theatrical slang.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word satyriasis
(noun) - An irresistible desire in man to have frequent connexion with females, accompanied by the power of doing so without exhaustion . . . The principal symptoms are: almost constant erection, irresistible and almost insatiable desire for venery, frequent nocturnal pollutions. Cold lotions, the cold bath, a mild diet, active exercise, &c. are the only means that can be adopted for its removal. This medical term is still heard in Britain.
--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word acyrology
(noun) - Improper speech, or a speaking improperly.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chime-child
(noun) - Certain qualities, among them immunity from witchcraft and the power to perceive spirits, were ascribed to children born on Sunday, and a "chime-child" could see ghosts and was a natural healer. What constituted a chime-child was understood differently in different parts of the country. In East Anglia, a chime-child was born in the "chime hours," at 8, 10, or 12, but in Somerset, a chime-child was born between 12 and 1 on a Friday.
--Katharine Briggs' Folklore of the Cotswolds, 1974
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word celibataire
(noun) - (1) A bachelor.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
(2) One who is vowed to celibacy. From French célibat, celibate.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(3) Celibaterian, a person who is unmarried.
--John Ogilvie's Comprehensive English Dictionary, 1865
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bachelor's fare
(noun) - Bread, cheese, and kisses.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word backwarding
(noun) - A change from excessive joy . . . to mourning, like that for a child dying after the rejoicings on its being christened. I told my old gardener, as I was returning from a funeral, that the last time I had driven to the same church was on the occasion of a gay wedding. "Ah," he said, "there is always a bacarding."
--Edgerton Leigh's Glossary of the Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word alamagtig
(interjection) - A common expletive, from Dutch almachtig, almighty. Alamatjes and alamopsticks are forms of the word employed by those who have scruples about using the word alamagtig, and salve their consciences by those variations.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word garle
(verb) - To mar butter in the making by handling in summer with hot hands. This turns it to a curd-like substance, with spots and streaks of paler colour, instead of the uniformly smooth consistency and golden hue which it ought to have. Very nice dairy-women use a piece of thin, flat wood instead of the hand. But this requires greater care and more time, so the butter is garled by being made in too much haste. It may come from Anglo-Saxon geare, expedite.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word minnock
(verb) - To affect delicacy; to ape the manners of one's superiors.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 16, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lide
The first Friday in March is so called from lide, Anglo-Saxon for March. This day is marked by a seriocomic custom of sending a young lad on the highest mound or hillock of the work, and allowing him to sleep there as long as he can, the length of his siesta being the measure of the afternoon nap for the tinners throughout the ensuing twelve months. The weather which usually characterizes Friday in Lide is, it scarcely need be said, not very conducive to prolonged sleep.
In Saxon times, labourers were generally allowed their mid-day sleep, and it has been observed that it is even now permitted to husbandmen in some parts of East Cornwall during a stated portion of the year. Thomas Browne appears to allude to this practice in Devonshire . . . :
Whose pleasing noates the tyred swain have made
To steale a nap at noontide in the shade.
--Rev. T.F. Thiselton-Dyer's British Popular Customs, 1876
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dormiat
(noun) - To take out a dormiat . . . a license to sleep. The licensed person is excused from attending early prayers in the chapel, from a plea of being indisposed. Latin; literally let him sleep.
--Benjamin Hall's Collection of College Words and Customs, 1856
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word eat the leek
(verb) - (1) In familiar language, to withdraw under compulsion . . . and to apologise.
--Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
(2) In allusion to the Shakespeare passage from Henry V, "Hee is come to me, and prings me pread and sault yesterday; looke you, and bid me eate my Leeke."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word power of the keys
(noun) - Power of "binding and loosing" - that is, of excluding from or admitting into Paradise - claimed by the Pope in his character as St. Peter's successor, grounded on Mathew, 16:19 "And I will give onto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on the earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on the earth shall be loosed in heaven". The power or authority to administer the discipline of the Church, and to communicate or withhold its privileges.
--Rev. James Stormonth's Dictionary of the English Language, 1884
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ebony optics
(pl. noun) - Black eyes. Ebony optics albonized, black eyes painted white, an art much practised by pugilists. Pugilists' cant.
--Ducange Anglicus's Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vitativeness
(noun) - Love of life as such; unwillingness to die.
--O.S. Fowler's Phrenology Proved, Illustrated, and Applied, 1855
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word walt
(adjective) - The ship is walt, that is, wants ballast.
--Capt. John Smith's Sea-Man's Grammar and Dictionary, 1640
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word be blowed
(verb) - You be blowed, or you go and be blowed, a vulgar form of refusal or dismissal; it probably has a still coarser allusion underlying it, that of being "fly-blown," or rotting - that is, dying.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beef-witted
(adjective) - (1) Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating beef.
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
(2) Beef-headed; beef-brained; hence beef-wittedness.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pay in cats and dogs
(verb) - To "pay in cats and dogs" is to pay, not in cash, but in inconvenient or useless commodoties.
--Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clepsammia
from Greek klepto, to hide, and ammos, sand.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word muckinder
(noun) - A handkerchief. Also muckender, muckinger.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word englottogaster
(noun) - (1) One who speaks from his belly; a ventriloquist.
--W. Turton's Medical Glossary . . . Deduced from Original Languages, 1802
(2) Related to glother, to use flattering terms; to gloze. Engastrimyth, one who appears to speak in the belly; a ventriloquist.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word in planets
(adverb) - (1) Rain is said to fall in planets when it falls partially and violently.
--Rev. John Watson's Uncommon Words Used in Halifax, 1775
(2) It rains by planets: this the country people use when it rains in one place and not in another, meaning that the showers are governed by the planets.
--John Ray's English Proverbs, 1670
(3) In changeable weather, the rain and sunshine come and go by planets. A man of unsteady mind acts by planets, meaning much the same as by fits and starts.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blacksheep
(verb) - To take another person's job; West Virginia; noted 1925.
--Harold Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary, 1944
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gloppened
(2) From gloppen, to stare in amazement, to be startled or frightened; to startle, frighten; gloppenedly, in a state of alarm; gloppening, distressed, sorrowful. Also aglopened, forgloppened.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word copulatives
(pl. noun) - (1) Persons intending to marry; Twelfth Night.
--C.H. Herford's Glossary of the Works of Shakespeare, 1902
(2) "I presse in heere sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives."
--William Shakespeare's As You Like It, c.1600
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word timbestere
(noun) - A woman who played tricks with timbres, batons of some sort, by throwing them up into the air and catching them upon a single finger; a kind of balance-mistress. Saxon.
--Thomas Tyrwhitt's Glossary of the Poetical Works of Chaucer, 1871
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word duopoly
(noun) - (1) A condition in which there are only two suppliers of a certain commodity, service, etc. The domination of a particular market by two firms. Hence duopolist, one member of a duopoly; duopolize, to engross between two.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(2) Special coinage formed from duo, on the analogy of monopolize.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word curglaff
(noun) - (1) The shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1879
(2) Curgloft, panic-struck. Banffshire.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
(3) Curgloft, confounded and bumbaz'd,
On east and west by turns he gazed.
As ship that's tost with stormy weather,
Drives on, the pilot knows not whither.
--William Meston's Poetical Works, 1767
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word back-feast
(noun) - Da Backfaeste was an entertainment given by the principal groomsman in return for the wedding festivities to which the best-man contributed nothing.
--Alfred Johnston's Orkney and Shetland Miscellany, 1908
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tablespread
(noun) - A tablecloth.
--Sylva Clapin's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beck
(verb) - (1) To curtzy by a female, as contradistinguished from bowing in the other sex. From Icelandic beiga, to bow.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) Of a horse, to nod or jerk the head.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(3) To make a mute signal, as by nodding, shaking the forefinger, etc.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Gabriel's hounds
(pl. noun) - (1) These phantom hounds - jet-black and breathing flames . . . frequent bleak and dreary moors on tempestuous nights.
--Elizabeth Wright's Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore, 1914
(2) At Wednesbury . . . the colliers going to their pits early in the morning hear . . . the noise of a "pack of hounds," to which they give the name Gabriel hounds, though the more sober and judicious take them only to be wild geese making this noise in their flight.
--White Kennett's Lansdowne Manuscript of Provincial Words, c.1700
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word kingsevil
(noun) - (1) A disease or swelling of cervical lymph nodes. Edward the Confessor, king of England reigned 1042-1066 . . . received power from above to cure many diseases, among others the kingsevil, a prerogative that continues.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
(2) Belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs is but a remnant of the long supposed "divine right" of kings to govern, which resulted from the conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities.
--Charles Hardwick's Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, 1872
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Easter-sermons
(pl. noun) - Sermons supposed to be suitable for delivery at Easter. Strange to tell, in the 16th century, these were replete with ludicrous stories and jests designed to provoke "Easter laughter."
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word escritoir
(noun) - (1) A box with all implements necessary for writing.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) In early use, often one of a portable size; more recently, chiefly applied to a larger piece of furniture; a bureau or secretary.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word limotherapy
(noun) - (1) The treatment of disease by abstinence; from Greek limos, hunger.
--Richard Hoblyn's Dictionary of Medicine, 1859
(2) The "hunger cure."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quizzification
(noun) - A hoax.
--T. Lewis Davies' Supplementary English Glossary, 1881
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jink
(verb) - To trick; to give the jink, to elude . . . John Jamieson derives the word from the Swedish dwink-a and the German schwinken, to move quickly.
--Charles Mackay's Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, 1888
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Welsh ambassador
(noun) - (1) The cuckoo. John Logan 1748-1788, in his poem To the Cuckoo, calls it the "messenger of spring" . . . Welsh ambassador means that the bird announces the migration of Welsh labourers into England for summer employment.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(2) If, when you hear the cuckoo for the first time, you are standing on grass or any green leaves, you will certainly live to hear the bird next season. But if you are standing on a roadway or the earth, or even upon stone, you will not live to hear the cuckoo when it comes next.
--Marie Trevelyan's Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales, 1909
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pantofles
(pl. noun) - Slippers; to be upon one's pantofles, to stand upon one's dignity.
--A.V. Judges' Elizabethan Underworld, 1930
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word systema
Greek word, systema, meaning "organized body," or "whole."
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word crotch-trolling
(noun) - (1) A method of . . . angling for pike, used in the broads and rivers in Norfolk. The fisherman has no rod, but has the usual reel and, by the help of a crotch-stick, throws his bait a considerable distance from him into the water, and then draws it gently towards him. It is much practised by poachers, as there is no rod or pole to betray their intention.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) Piscarie . . . signifieth in our common lawe a libertie of fishing in another man's waters.
--John Cowell's Interpreter of Signification of Words, 1607 (Commenter's note. No, this isn't what I thought it was. Thank goodness).
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word medicinal days
(pl. noun) - (1) The sixth, eighth, tenth, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, etc. days of a disease, so called because, according to Hippocrates, no crisis occurs on these days, and medicine may be safely administered.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(2) Medicinal hour, medicinal month, times when the administration of medicine was deemed proper.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cruckle
(verb) - To sink down. "He cruckled to the floor."
--Ammon Wrigley's Lancashire Words and Sayings, 1940
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Riding the Lord
Annually on the day after Easter in Neston, Cheshire, a curious custom known as Riding the Lord was honored, perhaps for many centuries. Christina Hole's Traditions and Customs of Cheshire (1937) preserved the memory of this properly discarded medieval-sounding ritual: "A man was mounted on a donkey, and rode from the top of High Street to Chester Lane. The assembled people amused themselves by jeering at him and pelting him with rotten eggs and mud all along the route. He was given a sum of money for this unpleasant performance, and we can only hope that the pay was sufficient to make it worthwhile. No explanation seems to have been forthcoming for the singular rite, except the time-honoured one that it had always been done."
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clanjamphry
(noun) - (1) A company of people, especially a disorderly or vulgar crowd; a mob, rabble; "Such a clanjamphry of thievin' drunken miscreants," from Jane Barlow's Lisconnel (1895). Rubbish; trumpery; odds and ends. Nonsensical talk. Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) The "whole clanjamphrey," the mob; the rabble. Scotland.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word circudrie
(noun) - Arrogance, conceit; Anglo-Norman.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word anparsy
(noun) - (1) Boys, in repeating their alphabet, would say ". . . X, Y, Z, anparsy." They did not know what it meant, but pointed in their spelling books to the character &, also termed parsy-and.
--M.C.F. Morris's Yorkshire Folk-Talk, 1892
(2) Anpasty, another name for ampersand. It means and past y.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word catchpoule
(noun) - Literally "chase-fowl," one who hunts or chases fowl. A tax-gatherer, an exactor of taxes or imposts c.1050-1650 . . . Since the 16th century at least, a word of contempt.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word rubbage
(noun) - (1) Rubbish. Whether the form here given, or rubbige, be the better, it is neither worth contesting, nor possible to ascertain. Both are Old English and used even by very eminent bishops . . . Mr. Todd has taken the pains to vindicate both from the charge of corruption, facetiously but unfortunately made by Mr. Pegge. If there be any corruption at all, it is rubbish itself.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) From rub, as perhaps meaning, at first, dust made by rubbing.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(3) Provincial English; rubbrish was used in the exact sense of what we now usually call rubble, and the two words rubbish and rubble are closely connected. William Horman in his Vulgaria 1519 says that ". . . great rubbrysshe serveth to fyl up the myddell of the wall."
--Walter Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1879
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lifelode
(noun) - (1) The leading of one's life; Middle English.
--Ernest Weekley's English Language, 1929
(2) Obsolete form of livelihood.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nabble
(verb) - (1) To gnaw. A stronger word than nibble by change of vowel. Mice nibble and rats nabble our victuals.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
(2) To chatter; to gossip; to idle about; nabbler, a gossip, an argumentative captious person; Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire. Hence nabble-trap, the mouth.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word warling
(noun) - (1) One who is despised or disliked; apparently formed arbitrarily to rhyme with darling. The resemblence to Scottish wirling "a wretch; a dwarfish or puny creature" seems to be accidental.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) A word of doubtful origin, occurring in the proverb, "Better to be an old man's darling than a young man's warling." Perhaps coined from war, in imitation of darling, and meaning one often quarreled with.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word overmirth
(noun) - Insult.
--Herbert Coleridge's Oldest Words in the English Language, 1863
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word snickersneeze
(verb) - A term without meaning used to frighten children. "I'll snickersneeze you if you don't."
--R.E.G. Cole's Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire, 1886
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word step-and-fetch-it
(noun) - A person that drags one leg in walking . . . A favorite nickname for a tall girl, quick and decisive in her movements.
--G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word navvy
(noun) - The use of the word navvy for a toiler, principally with a spade, is, I suppose, growing rare . . . Navvy may be deemed a nickname, and so "general labourer" is preferred. But the name navvy still heard in Britain has a history, and might well be a word of pride. It is short for navigator. It is true that this sort of navigator did not hold a master's certificate or stand at the helm on stormy nights; he was a land-animal. But we owe to him some benefits of the waterway, since without him there would have been no internal navigation of Britain . . . Explorers of our often neglected canals will there discover inns called after navigators. In them these brawney fellows, toiling without benefit of bulldozers and trenching Britain with their gruelling handiwork, slaked their thirst. And there the occasional . . . holiday amateur of canal exploration can take his beer still . . . Navvies have no reason to be rid of the abbreviated name, as though it were some term of contempt like the odious slavey and skivvy, once applied with a callousness now fortunately out of date, to women who did the roughest or simplest domestic tasks.
--Ivor Brown's Words in Our Time, 1958
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gommacks
(pl. noun) - (1) Tricks; mischief; foolery. From Gaelic guaineach, giddy, sportive, frolicking.
--John Nall's Glossary of the Dialect of East Anglia, 1866
(2) To cut up didoes, to play mischief.
--Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word puissant
potent, powerful at arms.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flurrigigs
(pl. noun) - Useless finery; Northamptonshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hang out the broom
(verb) - (1) An old country phrase, dating back to 1820, for the absence of a wife from her home. To hang out the broom meant that, the good wife being away, the man's friends and cronies might come and make merry in the kitchen.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
(2) To sweep broom-field, to inherit the whole property; Eastern England.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word break the year
(verb) - (1) To leave a situation before the end of the year.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
(2) This is a term of servant-life. In the rural districts, it is customary to "hire" for the year, and servants leaving before the expiration of the twelve-months are said to break the year, which is considered a discreditable thing to do, and loss of "a character" reference may be the penalty.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lunarian
(noun) - (1) An inhabitant of the moon.
--Richard Coxe's Pronouncing Dictionary, 1813
(2) When it is what we call new moon, we shall appear as a full moon to the Lunarians.
--George Adams' Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, 1794
(3) One who observes or describes the moon; one who used the lunar method in finding longitude.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hogenhine
(noun) - (1) He that comes guest-wise to an inn or house, and lies there the third night, after which he is accounted of that family. And if he offend the king's peace, his host was to be answerable for him. Literally "third night own servant."
--Thomas Blount's Law Dictionary and Glossary, 1717
(2) From awn hine, "third night."
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word realm-bounding
(noun) - Fixing and marking the boundaries of a kingdom.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drown the miller
(verb) - We are said to be drowning the miller when we are pouring in too large a quantity of water among the whisky to be mixed into grog . . . If too much water be let run on a mill, the wheel becomes drowned, as it were, and will not move the machinery.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bowbard
(noun) - A dastard; a person destitute of spirit . . . Junius considers it as akin to English boobie and buffoon. It is perhaps allied to German Bub, which . . . first signified a boy, then a servant, and at length a worthless fellow.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blatteration
(noun) - Senseless roar; from Latin blatteratio. Blatent, bellowing, as a calf.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word live dictionary
(noun) - A schoolteacher; a talkative woman.
--Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1944
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bawker
(noun) - A roguish player in a bowling-alley who has confederates in the crowd.
--A.V. Judges' Elizabethan Underworld, 1930
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word slonk
(noun) - A ditch; a deep, wet hollow in a road.
--Hugh Patterson's Glossary of Antrim and Down, 1880
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word peezy-weezies
(pl. noun) - It is said of a person who is sulky, or is in the dumps, that he has the peezy-weezies or the hansy-janzies.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cum thank
(verb) - Peculiarly used in the expression, still frequently heard, "I cum ye no thank," I acknowledge no thanks to you.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883 (Commenter's note...I don't advice using this, ever, haha)
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word holiday speeches
(pl. noun) - Choice language; Shakespeare's I Henry IV (1597).
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chantepleur
(noun) - (1) He that sings and weeps both together.
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
(2) Name of a French poem of the 13th century addressed to those who sing in this world and shall weep in the next; hence used of a mixture or alteration of joy and sorrow. From French chanter, to sing, and pleurer, to weep. The word has several senses in modern French, "weep-hole," "flood-opening" in a wall, etc. which have not entered into English.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
(3) Conformyng them to the chante plure - now to synge and sodaynely to wepe.
--John Lydgate's Chronicle of Troy, 1430
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cheddar-letter
(noun) - (1) A letter consisting of several paragraphs, each the contribution of a different person. The name is taken from the Cheddar-cheese manufacture, in which all the dairies contributed their share of fresh cream.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
(2) Buckard . . . of milk, soured by keeping too long in the milk-bucket . . . The word is now . . . applied to cheese only, when instead of being solid it has a spongy look and is full of cavities.
--Frederick Elworthy's English Dialects: Devonshire, 1879
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hart royall
(noun) - If the King or Queene doe hunt or chase him, and he the hart escape away alive, then . . . he is called a hart royall.
--John Manwood's Treatise of the Lawes of the Forrest, 1598
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word over a signature
(adverb) - I disagree as to the propriety of the usage. It seems to me that one makes a statement under his signature, whatever may be the relative position of statement and signature on the paper, exactly as a soldier fights under a certain flag though he may be on a mountain top and the colors in the valley far below him, or as a man does business under a certain firm name, though his sign may be on the first floor and his shop on the second. Be that as it may, the expression was first used in England, so far as is known.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word granch
(verb) - (1) To grind the teeth. Grizbile, to gnash the teeth.
--J. Drummond Robertson's Glossary of Archaic Words from Gloucester, 1890
(2) Grandge, a grinding with the teeth, as when biting through celery.
--Ammon Wrigley's Lancashire Words and Sayings, 1940
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cucumber-time
(noun) - (1) A taylers' holiday, when they have leave to play, and cucumbers are in season. From cucumbers, taylers.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
(2) The dull session of the year; from the German phrase, "die saure gerkin-zeit," the pickled cucumber-time.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(3) Cucumber season summer?.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1893
January 15, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word exust
(verb) - To burn; from Latin exustus, burned.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word smittlish
(adjective) - (1) Infectious; contagious.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
(2) From the old Saxon smittan, to spot or infect; whence our word smut.
--John Ray's Collection of English Words, 1674
(3) "Get thy saddles off, lad, and come in; 'tis a smittle night for rheumatics."
--Henry Kingsley's Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn, 1859
(4) Smittleness, infection; smittral, infectious; smittock, a particle.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word four-went
(adjective) - Only used in four-went-way, a point where four roads meet.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word let squizzle
(verb) - To fire a gun.
--Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of Americanisms, 1956
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bienseance
(noun) - Decorum; propriety. Rather common in English use about the end of the 18th and beginning of 19th centuries. From French bien, well, and séant, past participle of French seoir, to befit . . . Etiquettical, pertaining to etiquette.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pilgarlick
(noun) - (1) One who peels garlick for others to eat, who is metaphorically made to endure hardships while others are enjoying themselves at his expense.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) Said originally to mean one whose skin or hair had fallen off from some disease, chiefly a venereal one. But now commonly used by persons speaking of themselves, as "There stood poor pilgarlick," there stood I.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
(3) A person dressed shabbily or fantastically.
--W. Hugh Patterson's Glossary of Words of Antrim and Down, 1880
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boracic
(noun) - Don't give me the old boracic, don't tell me tall yarns.
--Paul Tempest's Lag's Lexicon: A Dictionary of the English Prison, 1950
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word pigsty-doors
(pl. noun) - (1) Trousers buttoned breeches-fashion, having the flap instead of fly-fronts.
--G.F. Northall's Warwickshire Word-Book, 1896
(2) Barn-door breeches, the old-fashioned trousers still worn by country people in some places, which opened by a flap extending from hip to hip.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word frout
(verb) - Of animals, to take fright. "My horse frouted and ran away."
--George Dartnell's Glossary of Words Used in Wiltshire, 1893
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jack-o'-the-clock
(noun) - In old clocks, a figure which struck the bell to mark the hours.
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cully
(noun) - (1) One that maintains a mistress, and parts with money generously to her.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
(2) A companion, mate. One who is cheated or imposed upon by a sharper, strumpet, etc. One easily deceived. Much in use in the 17th century . . . Compare Italian coglionare, "to foist, to deceive."
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word aporrhipsis
(noun) - An insane dislike to clothes.
--John Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ruttier
(noun) - (1) An old traveler acquainted with roads; from route, French routier.
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
(2) A set of instructions for finding one's course at sea; a marine guide to the routes, tides, etc.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1909
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word by the penny
(adverb) - (1) To live by the penny, to be constantly in the habit of purchasing the necessaries of life, as opposed to the old custom of consuming one's own produce.
--Thomas Sternberg's Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851
(2) Flimp, to hustle, rob. Putting on the flimp, garotte robbery.
--Ducange Anglicus's Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857
Penny Foolish
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word squiddled
(adjective) - Cheated; wheedled; Western England.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word John Audley
(noun) - An old phrase of the days of the portable theatre, and one which still exists in the theatre world of today. It was used as a kind of code. The traveling or fairground theatre of the old days depended for its revenue on the number of shows it could get in during the period of the fair. If, while a performance was proceeding, a queue gathered outside which would fill another house, the showman called out from the door, "Is John Audley here?" This was a hint to the people on the stage to finish quickly and get rid of the audience to make room for those waiting outside.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gutterblood
(noun/adjective) - (1) One whose ancestors have been in the same town or city for some generations; brought up in the same rank of life.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
(2) Persons are said to be gutterblood who have been brought up in the immediate neighborhood of each other.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bossack
(noun) - Of an ailment, acute pain, or discomfort. "That give me the bossacks."
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quadrageminus
(noun) - Quadrageminus day, the fortieth day of fever; the latest period an acute disease was supposed capable of reaching.
--John Redman Coxe's Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beneplaciture
(noun) - (1) Choice.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) Hang-choice, the position of a person who is compelled to choose between two evils. Scotch.
--William Whitney's Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1889
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word quite the cheese
(adjective) - Quite the cheese means quite the correct thing, especially in the matter of costume or manner . . . This phrase is an adaptation from the word choose, and admits the interpretation, "what I should choose." By a sort of double refinement of this expression we hear things referred to as "that's prime Stilton" or "that's Double Gloucester."
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bisque
(noun) - (1) A fault at tennis.
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
(2) A stroke handicap allowed to a weaker player.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1749
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Hanover
(adjective/adverb) - Used in a variety of expressions. A Hanover job is a disagreeable job. To play Hanover is to do mischief. We also say, "I wonder how the Hanover she done it," and, "Go to Hanover." The origin is no doubt the unpopularity of the Hanover succession beginning in 1714 with England's Prussian-born king, George I which was strongly resented in the eastern counties.
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spendthrift sigh
(noun) - The allusion in Hamlet to the current notion that sighs shorten life by drawing blood from the heart. The same notion is found in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "With sighs of love that cost the fresh blood dear".
--John Phin's Shakespeare Cyclopædia and New Glossary, 1902
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word couch a hogshead
(verb) - (1) To lye downe and sleepe. Peddelar's Frenche.
--Thomas Harman's Caveat, or Warening, for Common Cursetors, 1567
(2) To go to bed.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ebolition
(noun) - A particular method of smoking. William Gifford says, "We may conjecture that it means a forcible and rapid ejection of smoke."
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word snaffling-lay
(noun) - The trade of a highwayman.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1919
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word rift in the lute
(noun) - This phrase symbolizes a breach in the harmony of friendship, usually of lovers, over a petty matter. As a small crack in a lute tends to make its music dull and discordant, through causing the air to escape in the wrong place, so is the intercourse of friendship or love sometimes strained by trifles, which turn harmony into discord.
--J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word full of
(adjective) - In frequent use in various parts of South Africa in the sense of covered with. "The child is full of mud" means the child is covered with mud. It is an imitation of the Dutch idiom.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word æolipile
æolipile Archaic form of aeolipile. (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 vaporous 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 Philadelphia Medical Dictionary, 1817
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cerulifick
(adjective) - Having the power to produce blue colour . . . Lutarious, the colour of mud.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word like winkin
(adverb) - (1) Though it has been plausibly suggested that the comparison has reference to the rapid passage of the welkin, or cloud, through the heavens, the last word of the expression is probably a contraction of winking, meaning the time taken to wink the eye. We have, moreover, almost an exact parallel in the French clin d'oeil, and our own expression, in a wink, an abbreviation of twinkle, the opening or shutting of the eye, and again in German Augenblick, a moment.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(2) Like winking, with vigour or persistency; "like anything." So, easy as winking.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(3) Both my legs began to bend like winkin.
--Thomas Hood's Sailor's Apology for Bow-Legs, 1827
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word few broth
(pl. noun) - I cannot help observing one application of the word few, peculiar to the northern counties, for which there seems to be no justifiable reason. When speaking of broth, the common people always say, "Will you have a few broth?" and in commending the broth will add, "They are very good." This is also an appropriation so rigidly confined to broth that they do not say a few ale, a few punch, nor a few milk, a few furmenty, nor a few of any other liquid. I would rather suppose that they hereby mean, elliptically, a few spoonfuls of broth, for broth cannot be considered as one of those hermaphroditical words which are both singular and plural, such as sheep and deer.
--Samuel Pegge's Anecdotes of the English Language, 1803
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word englifier
(noun) - One who renders a work into English; a translator.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word thumb-licking
(noun) - An ancient mode of confirming a bargain. In a bargain between two Highlanders, each of them wets the ball of his thumb with his mouth and joins them together, esteemed a very binding act. It was customary with these kings, in concluding a peace or striking an alliance, to join their right hands and bind their thumbs together. Immediately, when the blood had diffused itself to the extremities, it was let out by a prick and licked by the contracting parties. Their covenant was henceforth deemed sacred.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tumbies
(pl. noun) - (1) Ablutions; tubbing.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
(2) To do one's tumbies, to have a bath. Possibly a corruption of tubbing. Oxford.
--Morris Marples' University Slang, 1950
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word downhaggered
(adjective) - (1) Disconsolate.
--Edward Slow's Words Used by the Peasantry in the Neighbourhood of Salisbury, c.1900
(2) Tizzy, common short form for Elizabeth.
--R.E.G. Cole's Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire, 1886
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jampher
(noun) - (1) A male jilt; an idler; a scoffer. From jamph, to make a game of; to mock, jeer, sneer; to act the part of a male jilt; to trifle, spend time idly, lounge.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
(2) Jamph, to tire, to fatigue. It is frequently used to denote the fatigue caused by continued motion of a shaking kind, as that of riding, especially if the horse be hard in the seat.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
(3) Jamphing, making false pretenses of courtship, applied to a male.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cock on hoop
(noun/adjective) - At the height of mirth and jollity, the cock, or spigot, being removed and laid on the hoop, and the barrel of ale stumed, as they say in Staffordshire; that is, drunk out without intermission.
--Elisha Coles' English Dictionary, 1713
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word still hunting
(noun) - Walking noiselessly through woods . . . and searching for game.
--James Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1884
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word back and edge
(adverb) - Completely, entirely; the back and edge being nearly the whole of some instruments.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ground bridge
(noun) - The "corduroy road" on the bottom of a stream to facilitate fording.
--Gilbert Tucker's American English, 1921
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word harringay
(adjective) - (1) Harringay expresses a neighbourhood or district abounding in hares.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
(2) In modern times, "buying the rabbit" means asking or looking for trouble or doing something that will inevitably earn a rebuff. The phrase owes its origin to the fact that one of the old-fashioned meanings of the word rabbit is curse or bother.
--J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
(3) Fud, a tail; still applied to the tail of a hare or rabbit.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bewivered
(adjective) - Lost to one's self; bewildered; confounded; bewrayed; Exmoor.
--Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1811
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word summerfolds
pl. noun) - Summer freckles.
--J. Drummond Robertson's Glossary of Dialect and Archaic Words Used in the County of Gloucester, 1890
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word two strings to one's bow
(noun) - The possession of two things by which bets are hedged as in the case of a girl who encourages two suitors, or a man who works at two businesses.
--J.B. Lippincott's Everyday Phrases Explained, 1913
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blackberry baby
(noun) - An illegitimate child; also blackberry patch baby; Missouri, Arkansas; 1907.
--Harold Wentworth's American Dialect Dictionary, 1944
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word backgone
(adjective) - (1) Having declined in health.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
(2) Sickly, pining away; usually applied to a so-called "changeling." Ireland.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word amerciament
(noun) - (1) In law, a fine imposed on an offender, against the king or other lord, who is convicted and therefore stands at the mercy of either. From amerce.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
(2) The infliction of a penalty left to the "mercy" of the inflicter. Refashioned from amercement.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word autum
(noun) - (1) A church. Autum-bawler, a parson. Autumed, married. Autum-cove, a married man. Autum-cackler, a married woman.
--George Matsell's Vocabulum; or, The Rogue's Lexicon, 1859
(2) Autem-divers, pickpockets who practise in churches; also church-wardens and overseers of the poor. Autem-mort, a married woman.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word wangery
(adjective) - (1) Soft and flabby . . . This is the regular word used by butchers to express the condition of meat which will not get solid, a very common fault in warm weather, or if the animal was out of condition when slaughtered.
--Henry Sweet's History of English Sounds, 1876
(2) Flaccid, soft; generally used of meat; Berkshire. Languid, limp, tired; Somerset. Tough; northwest Devonshire. Related to wang, to bend; to yield under a weight, as a plank when walked on; West Somerset. Hence wanged, exhausted, wearied, drowned.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brownstudy
(noun) - (1) Gloomy meditation.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Absence of mind; apparent thought, but real vacuity. The corresponding French expression explains it - sombre réverie. Sombre and brun both mean sad, melancholy, gloomy, dull.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
(3) Serious reverie; thoughtful absent-mindedness.
--Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
(4) Very common, even in educated society, but hardly admissible in writing. It is derived . . . from "brow study" and the Old German braun, or aug-braun, an eye-brow.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bleezed
(adjective) - Signifies the state of one on whom intoxicating liquor begins to operate. It especially denotes the change produced in the expression of the countenance.
--John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, 1808
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word leatherdick
(noun) - A leathern pinafore such as is used by shoemakers. The acquisition of one used to be a great object of ambition with Almondbury lads. They regarded it as a kind of toga virilis.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word swacker
(noun) - Something huge; a bulky and robust person. Figuratively, a great lie.
--Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word byblow
(noun) - An illegitimate child.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word livercolour
(noun) - Dark red.
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word boutefeu
noun) - Literally "to set fire." An incendiary, firebrand, agitator; from French.
--C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1892
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cold coffee
(noun) - (1) Misfortune; sometimes varied to "cold gruel." Sea slang.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
(2) A hoax, a trumpery affair; Oxford University . . . An unpleasant return or snub for a proffered kindness.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1891
(3) Jubbity, a difficulty, misfortune. "He's had some jubbities."
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word encrampish
(verb) - To cramp, hamper; after words like impoverish.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 190
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mought
(verb) - (1) This old past tense of "may," now obsolete in England, has been retained in the South, and is very common in all parts of the Union. Until of late years, its use was mainly confined to . . . people in the interior of the New England states. Latterly, however, a spirit of change appears to have revived the popularity of this form. In North Carolina, "perhaps" is almost invariably rendered "it mought be."
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
(2) Frequently heard in the South, where the negroes use it almost exclusively. Derived from the ancient verb mowe - the ancestor of may and corresponding to the German mochte - it was once correct.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms, 1872
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word billingsgatry
(noun) - Abusive language employed by those who are unable to come to an
amicable understanding as to the proper price of the fish about which
they are negotiating. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word couvrefu
a chimney, literally meaning “cover the fire”
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sceamul
A sturdy bench on which butchers displayed the meat of slaughtered animals
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nose-swelling
(noun/adjective) - (1) To make a person's nose swell, to make him jealous of a rival; found in John Ray's 1678 collection of proverbs.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) To offer or pretend to do kindnesses to one, and then pass him by and do it to another.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1908
(3) Eighteen pence, conceit; show of importance. A consequential person is said to "have eighteen pence around him." Originally the word would apply to people who made arrogant assumption stand in the place of wealth and position.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word buggarty
(adjective) - Timid, skittish; of horses.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hung on wires
(adjective) - An American expression for one suffering from "nerves" - a nervous or fidgety person.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word draw-gloves
(noun) - (1) A sort of game . . . between lovers.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) At draw-gloves we'l play,
And prethee, let's lay
A wager, and let it be this:
Who first to the summe
Of twenty shall come
Shall have for his winning a kisse.
--Robert Herrick's Hesperides, 1648
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fulluht
a safeguard against fairies’ turning a normal infant into a changeling. Derivative of fulwian, fulliġan (“to baptize”), from *fulwīhan, from ful- + a verb derived from wēoh (“consecrated, holy”).
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word vampyrarchy
a derogatory term from the 1820's used to describe a bloodsucking group of politicians.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word toonioperty
a whimsical version of the many early forms of opportune, now obsolete
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word toad-eater
A servant who had to do something unpleasant on behalf of
his master. (16th century)
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word smell-feaste
one given to finding out and getting invited to good feasts : parasite, sponger.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scuttled-butt
"Scuttlebutt", meaning rumour or gossip, is derived from "scuttled butt". To "scuttle" a ship is to puncture the hull or open the sea-cocks so that water enters the hull and sinks it. A "butt" is a barrel or cask, so a "scuttled butt" was a barrel with a hole cut in it to allow access to the water inside.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scrynne
A reinforced chest, often containing precious materials or
valuables. (17th century)
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word scaramouch
A lazy, swaggering coward. (16th century)
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word piggesnye
An old term of endearment for one's sweetheart, literally "a darling pig's eye."
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brune
(noun) - A dark girl or woman. The same as brunette, though properly a brune should be darker than a brunette. From French brun, brown.
--C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases, 1892
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Cornish hug
(noun) - (1) The Cornish men were famous wrestlers, and tried to throttle their antagonists with a particular lock called the Cornish hug.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
(2) Figuratively, a treacherous "throw," or injury, done by a pretended friend.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lovedayes
A day of arbitration when disputes were settled. (17th
century)
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word niscal
(noun) - (1) The smallest of a brood. Formed like the old word nescook, from the Anglo-Saxon nesc . . . tender, delicate . . . Other derivatives of this word have a similar sense in other provincial dialects. Grose's Provincial Glossary has "Nestling, the smallest bird of the nest or clutch; called also the nestlecock or nestlebub" . . . In Devonshire . . . nestledraft is "the last and weakest child of a family" . . . The least pig of the litter is called a cadma or a whinnock in the southern counties and an anthony pig in Kent.
--G.C. Lewis's Glossary of . . . Words Used in Herefordshire, 1839
(2) The weakest bird of a brood is called neest gulp; the youngest or weakest pig of a litter is called the barra-pig; the youngest of other animals, pitman or pinbasket. In Somerset, according to Jennings, nestle tripe is the "weakest and poorest bird in the nest; applied also to the last born and usually the weakest child of a family; any young, weak, and puny child and bird."
--Edward Moor's Suffolk Words and Phrases, 1823
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word king's stroke
(noun) - (1) The touch of the royal hand for kingsevil.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
(2) This belief in the supernatural authority of monarchs . . . resulted from the conviction that they could trace their pedigrees back to the deities themselves.
--Charles Hardwick's Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore, 1872
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gorgayse
A beautiful headdress was so much the mark of a fashionable lady that gorgias then became an adjective meaning "elegant" or "fond of dress." Borrowed into English as gorgayse and then gorgeous, the word gradually took on the meaning of "beautiful" which it has today.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blood-guilty
(adjective) - Guilty of bloodshed, or responsible for bloodshed or murders.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word upas
(noun) - (1) A baleful, destructive, or deadly power or influence. From a fabulous tree . . . with properties so poisonous as to destroy all animal and vegetable life to a distance of 15 or 16 miles around it.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926
(2) Kettish, putrid. It may be said of meat gone too far, "It's very kettish."
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word John Roberts
(noun) - A large jug. In 1886, Sunday closing of public-houses came into effect in Wales, mainly through the efforts of Mr. John Roberts, M.P. So an outsized tankard evolved which, it was claimed, would hold sufficient beer to carry thirsty customers over from Saturday night until Monday morning.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word gander-moon
ganˈder moon or ganˈder month noun (old US dialect) The month of a wife s lying in, confinement to bed prior to childbirth
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word stattis
(noun) - (1) An assemblage for the hiring of farm and domestic servants . . . regarded by the Sheffield people as one of the most important events of the year.
--Sidney Addy's Sheffield Glossary of Words, 1888
(2) At hiring fairs carters fasten to their hats a piece of whipcord, shepherds a lock of wool, grooms a piece of sponge, etc.
--Ebenezer Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word beevers
(pl. noun) - A portion of bread and allowance of beer laid out in Winchester School Hall at beever-time. From French boire, Old French boivre to drink. From Italian bevere, whence our beverage. Beever-time, a quarter of an hour's relaxation allowed to the Winchester School boys in the middle of afternoon school in summer to give them an opportunity of disposing of beevers.
--William Cope's Glossary of Hampshire Words and Phrases, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word forswunke
(for•SWUNK)
Adjective:
Exhausted after physical exertion.
From Middle English past participle of forswinke
Used in a sentence:
"I'm positively forswunke after tea with the bridge club splatherdabs."
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hoddypeke
(noun) - A term of reproach synonymous with cuckold.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word billy-go-nimbles
(noun) - A comic name for an imaginary disease.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dog's-nose
(noun) - (1) A cordial composed of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg; mentioned in Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
(2) A name given to a liquor compounded of beer and gin, or of ale and rum.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1897
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word but and
(conjunction) - Likewise; and. Old Scottish. Lord Maxwell's Goodnight (c.1610) contains "Adieu, madame, my mother dear, but and my sisters three."
--Alexander Gibson's Folk-Speech of Cumberland, 1880
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word callet
(noun/verb) - (1) A vulgar, scolding, ill-tempered, unchaste woman; an ancient word in common use, though perishing from literature. "A callet of boundless tongue who late hath beat her husband." The Winter's Tale. "A beggar in his drink could not have laid such terms upon his callet." Othello.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
(2) To scold, as a calleting housewife.
--John Ray's Words Not Generally Used, 1691
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ezel
Dutch for donkey, origin word for easel.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cachpule
The ancestral name for tennis or a tennis court.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word catlings
(pl. noun) - (1) The strings of a violin or lute, they being formerly made of the intestines of a cat and usually called cat-gut.
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
(2) What musick there will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains I know not, but I am sure none, unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
--William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, 1602
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chessiker
(noun) - An unpleasant surprise.
--R.L. Abbott's manuscript collection of Nottingham words
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chuffy
(adjective) - (1) Haughty, proud, puffed up; fat and fleshy. In some parts, clownish.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) Chuffle-headed, foolish, stupid. West Yorkshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tucket
(noun) - (1) A flourish in music; a voluntary; from Italian tocato, a touch.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
(2) A flourish on a trumpet or a drum. Boute-selle, a French trumpet-call bidding horse-soldiers saddle their horses. Literally "set-saddle."
--C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words, 1892
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bowgett
In recounting the life of the Elizabethan merchant, John Frampton, Lawrence C. Wroth describes the merchant as, "a young English-man of twenty-five years, decently dressed, ..., wearing a sword, and carrying fixed to his belt something he called a 'bowgett' (or budget), that is, a leathern pouch or wallet in which he carried his cash, his book of accounts, and small articles of daily necessity"
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clicketing
(noun) - (1) Copulation of foxes; sometimes used waggingly for that of men and women.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
(2) A fox is said to go a-clicketing when he is desirous of copulation.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1742
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word elritch
(adjective) - Wild; hideous; uninhabited, except by imaginary ghosts.
--Glossary to Allan Ramsay's play, The Gentle Shepherd, 1751
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word drawky
(adjective) - (1) Of the weather, rainy, drizzly.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
(2) Crimpy, inclement weather, which usually aggravates the "crimps," rheumatism, since many of those afflicted with this trouble are more or less deformed, or "crimped."
--Godfrey Irwin's American Tramp and Underworld Slang, 1931
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word clearstarcher
(noun) - One who washes fine linen.
--Thomas Browne's Union Dictionary, 1810
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hunter's mass
(noun) - (1) A short mass said in great haste for hunters who were eager to start for the chase. Hence used as a phrase for any hurried proceeding. Found in Copley's Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
(2) The conjured spirit appeares, which will not be a while after many circumstances, long prayers, and much muttering and murmurings of the conjurers, like a papist prieste dispatching a huntting masse.
--King James I's Dæmonologie, 1597
(3) Equivalent to German Jagermesse.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dry smoke
(noun) - When without tobacco, an inveterate smoker will sometimes pull at an empty pipe. This is known as a dry smoke.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word baker-knee'd
One whose knees knock together in walking, as if kneading dough. Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose. Bakers Dozen
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Pedlar's French
(noun) - (1) The jargon used by thieves, tramps, etc. "Frenchman" was formerly a synonym for a foreigner.
--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 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Paddington Fair
(noun) - In the days when executions were public in England, large crowds generally gathered at the scene of the gibbet, and a rare trade was done in food, drink, and amusement. London's principal place of execution was Tyburn, which is in the parish of Paddington.
--Edwin Radford's Encyclopædia of Phrases and Origins, 1945
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word angnaegl
Anglo-Saxon word which meant a corn that was so painful as to feel like you've stepped on an iron nail. Eventually became hangnail.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word re-raw
(adjective) - On the re-raw, out getting drunk. Scammered, drunk.
--Ducange Anglicus's Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word tote right
(verb) - To be fair; to conform to the local ethics. "I aim to tote right with everybody in this county whether they voted for me or not," said a newly-elected sheriff. The phrase tote fair carries the same meaning. Ozarks.
--Vance Randolph's Down in the Holler, 1953
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word putter up
(noun) - A man who travels about for the purpose of obtaining information useful to professional burglars. A man of this description will assume many characters, sometimes ingratiating himself with the master of the house, sometimes with the servants, but all to one end - that of robbery. He rarely or never joins in the actual burglary, his work being simply to obtain full particulars as to how, when, and where, for which he receives his full share of the swag.
--John Hotten's Slang Dictionary, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bludget
(noun) - A female thief who decoys her victims into alley-ways or other dark places for the purpose of robbing them.
--George Matsell's Vocabulum; or, The Rogue's Lexicon, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word buzz the bottle
(verb) - This is a common expression at wine parties when the bottle does not contain sufficient wine to fill all the glasses. It means "equally divide what is left." The word "buzz" meant anciently "to empty." Perhaps the word "booze" comes from the same root.
--Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable, 1889
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word full chisel
(adverb) - (1) At full speed; a modern New England vulgarism.
--John Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1849
(2) With the greatest violence or impetuosity; also full split.
--John Farmer's Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904
(3) Full drive, rapid driving; full butt and full smack are synonyms.
--Alfred Elwyn's Glossary of Supposed Americanisms, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word astrobolism
sudden paralysis attributed to the malign influence of a planet or star; sunstroke; blasting of planets in the dog-days.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word astroscope
(noun) - (1) An astronomical instrument. Astrologian, one who professes to foretell future 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
(2) Astrobolism, sudden paralysis attributed to the malign influence of a planet or star; sunstroke; blasting of planets in the dog-days.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
(3) Astrotheology, theology formed on what is known of the heavenly bodies.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1895
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fuffle
(noun) - A word applied to an abundance of clothing. A woman with too many flounces or ribbons would be said to have "too much fuffle" about her.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word by trading
(adverb) - To live by trading, by prostitution. "They live by trading."
--R.E.G. Cole's Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire, 1886
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word nadgers
(adjective) - An expression used when a coin, in tossing, falls upon its edge - neither head nor tail up.
--R. Pearse Chope's Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire, 1891
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word opscheplooper
(noun) - One who sponges upon his friends for his meals. From Dutch opscheppen, to serve up, and looper, a runner.
--Charles Pettman's Africanderisms: A Glossary of South African Colloquial Words and Phrases, 1913
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ordural
A privy.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word About East
(adverb/adjective) - (1) In a proper manner. This curious slang expression originated in the West among New Englanders emigrated from the East. With them, naturally, all that is done in their native land is right, and hence, what they admire they simply call about East.
--Sylva Clapin's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
(2) Down East, in the American's mind, is instinctively placed near the low coast of the Atlantic, as it were down toward the sea and at the same time toward the East. The emigrant who has gone to the West still remembers with delight how they spoke and how they did Down East.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms, 1872
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word moon-eyed
(adjective) - (1) Having eyes affected by the moon; suffering from moon-eye.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
(2) When folks are moon-eyed, they have to gleg at you (look askance) out of the corner of the eye.
--R.E.G. Cole's Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire, 1886
(3) Owl-eyed, that can see better at night than by day.
--Edward Phillips's New World of Words, 1706
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word big jump
(noun) - The cowman's reference to death. When one died, he was said to have taken the big jump. A good many cowmen were "weighted down with their boots."
--Ramon Adams's Western Words: A Dictionary of the Range, Cow Camp, and Trail, 1944
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word to-year
(noun/adverb) - This year, after the fashion of to-day, to-night, and to-morrow. "It's very serious for farmers to-year." Also to-month.
--R.E.G. Cole's Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire, 1886
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mifflin
(adjective) - Useless. "I'm as mifflin as the newborn babe," I'm as useless as a baby.
--Appleton Morgan's Study in the Warwickshire Dialect, 1900
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word croozle
(verb) - To make a low, whispering noise, like an infant just on the point of waking.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Devonshire Words, 1896
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word chowp
(verb) - To prattle, chatter. Chowper, a prattler, a "little chowper." Said of a child.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lashigillavery
(noun) - Plenty of meat and drink; probably from lavish.
--John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word marblehead turkey
(noun) - A Massachusetts term for a cod fish; also called Cape Cod turkey. There are many instances of fish being spoken of as meat; for example, the sturgeon is known in America as Albany beef, while in England, herrings are nicknamed . . . Billingsgate pheasants when fresh, and a Yarmouth bloater rejoices in the euphonious name of "two-eyed steak."
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 1889
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lant
(verb/noun) - To put urine into ale to make it strong.
--John Ray's Words Not Generally Used, 1691
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word flurn
(verb) - To think little of, to disparage . . . Neither of the two great . . . lexicographers, Johnson and . . . Webster, seem to have been cognizant of the word.
--Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word frigerifick
(adjective) - (1) Causing cold; a word used in science. From frigorificus, frigus, and facio, Latin. "Frigorific atoms or particles mean those nitrous salts which float in the air in cold weather, and occasion freezing."
--Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
(2) Frigerifick particles, in Philosophy, small particles that are of a matter essentially cold.
--Nathaniel Bailey's Etymological English Dictionary, 1742
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bluffer
(noun) - A host, innkeeper, or victualler; to look bluff, to look big, or like bull-beef. Rum-bluffer, a jolly host, innkeeper or victualler.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew, 1699
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Christmas-book
(noun) - A book in which people were accustomed to keep an account of the Christmas presents they received.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Thomassing
(noun) - It is still the custom for children to go about on that day. At Woodsome Hall, a sack of wheat stood at the door, with a pint measure. All comers who chose to take it were served with a pint of wheat, supposed to be for frumenty.
--Alfred Easther's Dialect of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word placeparted
(adjective) - Sent out of the world in peace.
--Noah Webster's Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, 1806
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word brother of the string
(noun) - (1) A fiddler or musician.
--George Matsell's Vocabulum; or, The Rogue's Lexicon, 1859
(2) "Like a fiddler's elbow" means going in and out.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Maryland end
(noun) - A curious name given to the hock end of a ham, the thick end being called the Virginia end. These colloquialisms are current in both the states concerned, and are thought by some to allude to a supposed rough resemblance between the contour line of these states and a ham. Ordinary people, however, will scarcely be able thus to impose upon their imagination.
--John Farmer's Americanisms Old and New, 188
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word locomobile
(adjective) - Having the power to change place, partially or entirely; whence locomobility, the faculty of being locomobile.
--The Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 1889
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hull cheese
(noun) - A strong ale for which the town of Hull was at one time famous. To "eat Hull cheese" was to get incontinently drunk.
--Trench Johnson's Phrases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word blarge
(verb) - To kick a ball vigorously.
--Michael Traynor's English Dialect of Donegal, 1953
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Yule-boys
(pl. noun) - Boys who ramble the country during the Christmas holidays. They are dressed in white, all but one - the "Beelzebub" of the corps. They have a foolish rhyme they repeat and so receive bawbees and pieces two types of coins.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dunnerbreeks
(noun) - (1) A person, such as a cobbler, with breeches breeks so barkened or stiff with dirt that they dunner thunder when struck, like a dried sheepskin; that is to say, makes a noise like distant thunder.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
(2) Tonitruade, to thunder.
--Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary, 1713
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shrammed
(adjective) - (1) Benumbed, or shrunk up with cold.
--W.H. Long's Dictionary of the Isle of Wight Dialect, 1886
(2) Cummer'd, hands are said to be so when benumbed with cold.
--John Mactaggart's Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hopshackles
(pl. noun) - What these were, we can only guess . . . They appear to be some kind of shackles imposed upon the loser of a race by the judges. Roger Ascham wrote in The Scholemaster (1570): "Some runners . . . deserve but the hopshackles."
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word Pitt's picture
(noun) - A window stopt up on the inside examples of which can still be seen to save the tax imposed in that gentleman's William Pitt's administration. Party wit.
--Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word shame-faced
(adjective) - The quality of being too fearful of losing the esteem of others or doing something that may give them a bad opinion. Shamefaced, easily blushing, easily put out of countenance.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word water-wolf
(noun) - In drinking out of a stream, a man is said to "swallow a water-wolf" which, it is said, lives and grows in his stomach.
--Sidney Addy's Glossary of . . . Sheffield Yorkshire, 1888
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word browns
(pl. noun) - Copper money.
--Ducange Angelicus's The Vulgar Tongue: Two Glossaries of Slang, Cant, and Flash Words and Phrases, 1857
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word hung in the bellropes
(adjective) - In Worcestershire, a betrothed couple are said to be "hanging in the bellropes" during the three weeks which elapse between the first and third calling of their banns of marriage. If the marriage does not come off, then the deserted one was, and still is, said to be "hung in the bellropes."
--Edwin Radford's Unusual Words and How They Came About, 1946
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word ploughed rainbow
(noun) - (1) A field ploughed in curves ("bows") to suit a curving outline, is said to be ploughed rainbow. Hence, some fields have the name Rainbow Field.
--Edward Gepp's Essex Dialect Dictionary, 1923
(2) Meat-earth, cultivated land. Devonshire.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word bowssening
(noun) - (1) Casting mad people into the sea, or immersing them in water until they are well-nigh drowned, have been recommended by high medical authorities as a means of cure.
--James Pettigrew's Superstitions Connected with Medicine and Surgery, 1844
(2) The Cornish call this immersion boossenning, from beuzi or bidhyzi . . . signifying "to dip or drown" . . . A very singular manner of curing madness in the parish of Altarnun was to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was by a sudden blow on the breast tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him. He was then carried to church and certain masses sung over him.
--William Borlase's Antiquities of the County of Cornwall, 1758
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word trollibags
(pl. noun) - (1) The intestines. Norfolk. Still known in Northern England.
--William Holloway's Dictionary of Provincialisms, 1838
(2) An exclamation of surprise: "Oh my tripes and trolly-bags!"
--William Dickinson's Glossary of Cumberland, 1881
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word lying by the wall
(noun) - (1) The interval between death and burial is sometimes spoken of in Suffolk as "lying by the wall." There was a saying, "If one lie by the wall on Sunday, there will be another corpse in the same parish before the week is out."
--Eveline Gurdon's Suffolk County Folklore, 1893
(2) Moleday, burial day.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word court-holy-water
(noun) - Insincere complimentary language.
--James Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1855
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word snow-bones
(pl. noun) - Remnants of snow after a thaw. Northern England.
--Samuel Pegge's Supplement to the Provincial Glossary of Francis Grose, 1814
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word real cheese
(noun) - (1) The Anglo-Indian, by his rough-and-ready adaptation of native words and expressions . . . is responsible for the currency today of many popular sayings. Amongst others, such a source has been suggested for the common expression the real cheese, meaning the real thing, quite in fashion, or up to date. There is a Persian and Hindustani word chiz, meaning thing, and a young Anglo-Indian would frequently say, "My new horse is the real chiz," easily corruptible into the English cheese.
--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895
(2) Duck's meat, hardened mucous in the corners of the eyes after sleeping.
--William Patterson's Glossary of . . . the Counties of Antrim and Down, 1880
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word upputting
(noun) - (1) Lodging, entertainment for man or beast. Scotland, Northamptonshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) You, who have free upputting - bed, board, and washing.
--Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering, 1815
(3) The action of erecting or setting up.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1926
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word fauxonry
(noun) - Fraud, in the legal sense; falsification of deeds or measures, coining false money, etc. Adaptation of Old French faussoner, to deceive, faus, false.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1901
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word behopes
(pl. noun) - (1) Hope, expectation. Ireland, Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
(2) In good behopes, hopeful.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word conbobberation
(noun) - (1) Conbobberation, helliferocious, mollagausauger, to puckerstopple, and peedoddles were actually in use, and seem unbelievably outlandish today only because of their unfamiliarity . . . The "tall talk" of the backwoods, moving ever westward with the frontier, left unmistakable traces in the writings of Mark Twain, John Hay, Bret Hart, and a good many smaller fry.
--Thomas Pyles' Words and Ways of American English, (1952)
(2) Conbobberation, a disturbance.
--My Forgotten English calendar doesn't give a source for this. O_o
(3) Sockdologer, said to be a corruption of doxology, and to have thence derived the meaning of a final argument or a conclusive evidence which closes a debate as decisively as the singing of a doxology ends religious service.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms, 1872
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word milkscore
(noun) - (1) Account of milk owed for, scored on a board.
--Richard Coxe's Pronouncing Dictionary, 1813
(2) Zythogala, a word used . . . to signify a mixture of beer and milk.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word strowlers
(pl. noun) - Vagabonds, itinerants, men of no settled abode, of a precarious life; wanderers of fortune, such as gypsies, beggars, peddlers, hawkers, mountebanks, fiddlers, country-players, rope-dancers, jugglers, tumblers, showers of tricks, and raree-show-men.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Termes . . . of the Canting Crew, 1699
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sabberday
(noun) - (1) A corruption of "Sabbath day," erroneously used for Sunday.
--Richard Thornton's American Glossary, 1912
(2) Sabbaday-houses, formerly . . . houses near a church or meeting-houses, used as places of recess by worshippers coming from long distances.
--Sylva Clapin's Dictionary of Americanisms, 1902
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word a'n't
(contraction) - The phonetically natural and philologically logical shortening of am not, especially in a'n't I? . . . Amn't is ugly; ain't is illiterate and, on other grounds, inferior to a'n't. Note that a'n't I offers only two different stresses of emphasis, whereas am I not affords three.
--Eric Partridge's Book of Usage and Abusage, 1954
"Amn't I" is still heard in parts of Scotland and Ireland, and is more correct than "aren't I," just as "I are late" is incorrect.
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word jarvey
(noun) - (1) English coach or cab drivers were given this nickname from, it is said, an original driver whose name was Jarvis. The origin is doubtful, however, and it should be pointed out that the symbol of St. Gervais is a whip.
--Edwin Radford's Unusual Words and How The Came About, 1946
(2) Hove, to take shelter; hence, hovel, a sheltering place.
--Edgerton Leigh's Dialect of Cheshire, 1877
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word rabbit's-kiss
(noun) - A penalty in the game of "forfeits" in which a man and a woman have each to nibble the same piece of straw until their lips meet.
--Alexander Warrack's Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word mensce
(noun) - Our ancestors used this word to signify a human being in the abstract. Verstegan says in A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605 very sensibly, "it is a word of necessary use; as, for example, a man beholding some living thing afar off in the field, not well discerning what it is, will say it is either a man or a beast. Now it may be a woman or child, and so not a man, and so he should speak more properly in saying it is either a mensce or a beast."
--Eliezer Edwards' Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word satisfy colon
(verb) - To satisfy one's hunger; also pacify colon.
--Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word padinoddy
(noun) - (1) Embarrassment.
--Alfred Easther's Glossary of Almondbury and Huddersfield, 1883
(2) Pungled, embarrassed, perplexed.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word go to harbor
(verb) - (1) When a hart or stag breaks herd and draws to the covert, they say he "goes to his harbor," or "taketh his hold," or "he covereth;" and when he cometh out again that he "discovereth himself."
--H.J. Pye's The Sportsman's Dictionary, 1807
(2) Buck ague, nervous excitement felt by an inexperienced hunter at the sight of game; originally deer ague; also "buck fever."
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cue-fellows
(pl. noun) - From cue, the final or catch-word of a speech; a technical term among players, whence cue-fellows means players who act together. The cue among players was derived, doubtless, from the French queue, being literally the tail of a speech. It occurs several times in A Midsummer Night's Dream among rustic actors.
--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word catching-time
(noun) - (1) It is called catchin' time when in a wet season they catch every minute of favourable weather for field work.
--Georgina Jackson's Shropshire Word-Book, 1879
(2) Apricity, the warmeness of the sunne in winter.
--Henry Cockeram's Interpreter of Hard English Words, 1623
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word leden
Leden (noun) - The word not only meant the Latin language, but language in general - even that attributed to birds and beasts. Chaucer's Squire's Tale contained: "She understood well everything that any fouls may in his leden sayne."
--William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word dish up the spurs
(verb) - To hint to guests that it is time to depart. The custom arose in the English-Scotch borderlands when provisions ran out, for a pair of spurs to be sent to table as a hint that a raid for provisions was desirable.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word cut the painter
(verb) - To dissociate oneself from . . . A naval metaphor.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word agnominate
(verb) - To nickname.
--Thomas Blount's Glossographia, 1656
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word huggins & muggins
(noun) - (1) A pretender to importance, probably derived from Dutch hoogmogende, all-powerful, a title of the Dutch states-general. Introduced in Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1663).
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) Celsitude, chiefly as a title with highness, majesty.
--Mairi Robinson's Concise Scots Dictionary, 1985 (Commenter's note: reminds me of Huginn and Muninn, Odin's all-seeing ravens Probably unrelated, but interesting)
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word frootery
(noun) - Superstitious observances; Shetland and Orkney Islands.
--Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word sherry-fug
(verb) - (1) To spend the afternoon indoors drinking sherry; university slang.
--Albert Barrère's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant, 1897
(2) Bristol-milk, sherry.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Termes . . . of the Canting Crew, 1699
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word spadiers
(pl. noun) - (1) Men that dig in tin mines in Cornwall.
--John Kersey's New English Dictionary, 1772
(2) Catchers, the leavings of a tin mine.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary Supplement, Spurious Words, 1933
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word by the forelock
(adverb) - (1) "To take time by the forelock," to seize the opportunity as it is offered. Time is traditionally depicted as an old man with a solitary lock of hair in front.
--Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
(2) The joyous time wil not be staid, unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.
--Edmund Spenser's Amœrtti, 1595
January 14, 2018
Gammerstang commented on the word budget-husband
(noun) - (1) A bundle of clothes representing a deceased American Indian husband; from budget, a pouch or bag.
--William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940
(2) The widow's budgetted husband is permitted, when the drams are passing, to be considered as a living one . . . She is permitted to cheer her depressed spirits with a double dram - that of her budget-husband and her own. After a full year of this penance with the budget-husband, she is allowed to exchange it for a living one.
--Timothy Flint's Memoirs of Daniel Boone, 1833
January 14, 2018
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