Chapter V Archaic Literary Words in the Dialects
The linguistic importance of the dialect-vocabulary for the study of our English language and literature in its earlier periods cannot be over-estimated, for herein is preserved a wealth of historical words familiar to us in our older literature, but lost to our standard speech. Numbers of words used by Chaucer and the early Middle English poets, by Shakespeare, and by the translators of the Bible, which are now treated as archaisms to be explained in footnotes and appendices to the text, still live and move and have their being among our rural population to-day. Take for illustration this line from the Middle English alliterative poem, Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (l. 2003):
Þe snawe snitered ful snart, þat snayped þe wylde.
‘Attercop’ and ‘Bairn’
The three principal words have disappeared from the literary language, and to give an exact rendering of these two brief sentences we should have to paraphrase them something like this: The snow, full keenly cold, blew on the biting blast, which pinched the deer with frost. But if we turn to the dialects, there we find all three: snitter (Sh.I. Yks.), to snow, sb. a biting blast; snar, snarry (Cum. Yks.), cold, piercing; snape (n.Cy. Dur. Lakel. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der. Lin. War. Shr.), to check, restrain, &c. The difference between snart and snar is accounted for by the fact that it is a Norse word. An adjective in Norse takes a t in the neuter, and this t not being recognized on these shores as an inflexional ending was sometimes adopted into English as if it belonged to the stem of the word, as for example in the literary words scant, want, athwart, cp. Icel. snarr, swift, keen, neut. snart. Many a delightful old word which ran away from a public career a century or two ago, and left no address, may thus be discovered in its country retreat, hale and hearty yet, though hoary with age. It is hard to make a choice among so many, especially where the chosen must be few, but the following may perhaps serve as representatives of the remainder: attercop (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Wil.), a spider. This was in Old English attorcoppe, a spider, from ātor, attor, poison, and coppe, which probably means head, the old idea being that spiders were poisonous insects. In the M.E. poem The Owl and the Nightingale (c. 1225), the owl taunts the nightingale with eating ‘nothing but attercops, and foul flies, and worms’. Wyclif (1382) has: ‘The eiren [eggs] of edderes thei tobreeken, and the webbis of an attercop thei wouen,’ Isaiah lix. 5. Bairn or barn (Sc. Irel. and all the n. counties to Chs. Der. Lin.), a child, O.E. bearn, a child, a son or daughter, M.E. barn or bern. Owing to its use among educated Scotch people, this word has gained some footing in our colloquial speech, and it has always had a place in poetical diction, but its real stronghold is Scotland and the North. Perhaps no other word breathes such a spirit of human love and tenderness as this does. How infinitely superior is the barns to our commonplace the kids; or a bit bairn, or bairnie to that objectionable term a kiddie! Pillow-bere (Irel. n.Cy. Yks. Chs. Der. Lin. Shr. e.An. Ken. Sus. Som. Cor.), a pillow-case. We read of Chaucer’s ‘gentil Pardoner’ that:
... in his male he hadde a pilwebeer,
Which that, he seide, was oure lady veyl.
Prologue, ll. 694, 695.
The word also occurs in several of the wills published in Wells Wills, by F. W. Weaver, 1890, as, for instance, in that of Juliane Webbe, of Swainswick, dated Jan. 11, 1533: ‘Julian Woodman vj shepe, a cowe &c. a salteseller, a knede cover, a stand, my ijⁿᵈ apparell of my body, a flockebed &c. ij pelowberys.’ Char, or chare (many dials.), an errand, a turn of work, an odd job, O.E. cerr, a turn, temporis spatium. We retain the word in the compound charwoman, and in a disguised form in ajar, which literally means on the turn. An old proverbial saying (1678) runs: ‘That char is char’d, as the goodwife said when she had hanged her husband.’ Shakespeare has the word in:
the maid that milks
And does the meanest chares.
Ant. & Cleop. IV. xv. 75.
Charming the Bees
Charm (gen. use in midl. and s. counties), a confused intermingled song or hum of birds or bees, e.g. Ow the birds bin singin’ this mornin’, the coppy’s all on a charm. It is also used of the sound of many voices. A Herefordshire farmer’s wife writing to me about her five children under seven years of age, added: ‘You can guess what a charm they make.’ The O.E. form was cierm, a noise, with a verb cierman, to make a noise. Palsgrave (1530) has: ‘I chitter, I make a charme as a flock of small byrdes do when they be together.’ But we know the word best in Milton’s lines:
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds.
Par. Lost, iv. 641.
The phrase to charm or cherm bees belongs here, and has no connexion with the ordinary word charm, of French origin. To charm bees is to follow a swarm of bees, beating a tea-tray, or ringing a stone against a spade or watering-can. This music is supposed to cause the bees to settle; but another object in doing thus is to let the neighbours know who owns the bees, if they should chance to settle on adjacent property. Har, or harr (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. also Mid. e.An. Hmp. Wil. Som.), the upright part of a gate or door to which the hinges are fastened, O.E. heorr, a hinge. Chaucer, in describing the ‘Mellere’, tells us:
Ther nas no dore that he nolde heve of harre,
Or breke it at a rennyng with his heed.
Prol. ll. 550, 551.
Hulk (n.Cy. Nhb. Nhp.), a cottage, a temporary shelter in a field for the shepherd during the lambing season, O.E. hulc, tugurium. The ‘lodge in a garden of cucumbers’, Isaiah i. 8, is in Wyclif’s Bible: ‘an hulke in a place where gourdis wexen.’ Marrow (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. and n. counties to Chs. Der.), a match, equal, a mate, spouse, &c. The word is found in the Promptorium Parvulorum (c. 1440): ‘Marwe, or felawe yn trauayle, socius, sodalis, compar.’ We are chiefly familiar with it in the ballad of The Braes of Yarrow, which begins:
Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride,
Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow.
Mommet (n.Cy. Wm. Yks. Lan. War. Wor. Shr. Hrf. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), an image, effigy, a scarecrow, &c., M.E. mawmet, an idol, O.Fr. mahummet, mahommet, ‘idole en général,’ La Curne; Mahumet, one of the idols of the Saracens. It is the same word as Mahomet, Arab. Muhammed. The form in Shakespeare is mammet:
a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet.
Rom. & Jul. III. v. 185.
Words used for marshy places
In Wyclif’s Bible it is mawmet: ‘And thei maden a calf in tho daies, and offriden a sacrifice to the mawmet,’ Acts vii. 41; ‘My little sones, kepe ȝe ȝou fro maumetis,’ 1 John v. 21. Quag (gen. dial. use in Sc. and Eng.), a quagmire. This word occurs in The Pilgrim’s Progress, in the description of the Valley of the Shadow of Death: ‘behold, on the left hand there was a very dangerous Quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he finds no bottom for his foot to stand on: Into that Quag King David once did fall, and had, no doubt, therein been smothered, had not he that is able plucked him out.’ Immediately afterwards the same ‘Quag’ is called a ‘Mire’: ‘when he sought, in the Dark, to shun the Ditch on the one hand, he was ready to tip over into the Mire on the other.’ Mire, a bog, a swamp, is common in the Lake District and Devonshire. Yet another word with the same meaning is mizzy (n.Cy. Lan.), used by the Lancashire author of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (c. 1360) in one of the most picturesque passages in the whole poem, the account of Sir Gawayne’s ride through the forest on Christmas Eve:
Þe hasel & þe haȝ-þorne were harled al samen,
With roȝe raged mosse rayled ay-where,
With mony bryddeȝ vnblyþe vpon bare twyges,
Þat pitosly þer piped for pyne of þe colde.
Þe gome [man] vpon Gryngolet glydeȝ hem vnder,
Þurȝ mony misy & myre, mon al hym one.
ll. 744-9.
Words used by Middle English Poets
Rise (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), a branch, twig, O.E. hrīs, a twig. ‘Cherries in the ryse’ is an old London Street Cry, as we know from Lydgate’s poem entitled London Lyckpeny:
Then vnto London I dyd me hye,
Of all the land it beareth the pryse:
Hot pescodes, one began to crye,
Strabery rype, and cherryes in the ryse.
Stanza ix.
Another instance of the use of the word may be taken from the old carol The Flower of Jesse (c. 1426):
Of lily, of rose of ryse,
Of primrose, and of fleur-de-lys,
Of all the flowers at my device,
That Flower of Jesse yet bears the price
As most of heal,
To slake our sorrows every deal.
Stanza vii.
Steven (Cum. w.Yks.), a gathering; an appointment. Hence, to set the steven, a phrase meaning to agree upon the time and place of meeting, O.E. stefn, a voice. The phrase ‘at unset stevene’ occurs in Chaucer’s Knightes Tale, l. 666, and in other early poems. In the Cokes Tale we read concerning ‘Perkin Revelour’ and his friends:
And ther they setten steven for to mete
To pleyen at the dys in swich a strete.
ll. 19, 20.
Shep (Cum. Lin. Som. Dev.), a shepherd. This form is familiar to us as occurring in the opening lines of Piers Plowman:
In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne,
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were.
Toll-booth (Sc. Yks.), a place where tolls are paid, a town or market hall. Matthew, according to Wyclif (1388), was ‘sittynge in a tolbothe’, Matt. ix. 9. Thwittle (n.Cy. Cum. Yks. Lan.), a large knife. Simkin, the miller of Trumpington, had one:
A Sheffield thwitel baar he in his hose.
Reves Tale, l. 13.
The word is a derivative of thwite (Sc. n.Cy. Lan. Der. Shr. Dev.), to pare wood, to cut with a knife, O.E. þwītan, to cut, shave off.
Survivals of old Substantives
‘Hit were to tore [hard] for to telle of þe tenþe dole’ of these old substantives still surviving in the dialects, but I will add just a few more in a list: ask (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. to Chs. and n.Lin.), a newt, lizard, O.E. āðexe, cp. Germ. Eidechse; bree (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Chs.), the eyelid, the eyebrow, O.E. brǣw, the eyelid; cloam (Pem. Nrf. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), crockery, earthenware, O.E. clām, clay; dig (Irel. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a duck, cp. ‘Here are doves, diggs, drakes’ Chester Plays, c. 1400, Deluge, 189, ‘anette, a duck, or dig,’ Cotgrave; gavelock (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Der. Not. Lin. Nrf. Suf.), an iron crowbar, O.E. gafeluc, a spear; holster (Som. Dev. Cor.), a hiding-place, O.E. heolster, a place of concealment; ham (Not. Nhp. Glo. Sus. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev.), flat, low-lying pasture, land near a stream or river, O.E. hamm, a pasture or meadow inclosed with a ditch; haffet (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Wm.), the temple, the side of the face, O.E. healf-hēafod, the front part of the head; heugh (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks.), a crag, cliff, precipice, O.E. hōh, a promontory, lit. a hanging (precipice); hull (in gen. dial. use in Sc. and Eng.), a husk, a pod, also used as a verb, to remove the outer husk of any vegetable or fruit, O.E. hulu, husk, cp. ‘Take Whyte Pesyn, and hoole hem in þe maner as men don Caboges,’ Cookery Book, c. 1430; hoar-stone (Sc. Lan. Oxf.), a boundary stone, O.E. hār stān (lit. a hoar stone, i.e. a grey or ancient stone), often occurs in Charters in the part describing the boundary line; haysuck (Wor. Glo.), hedge-sparrow, O.E. hegesugge; hobbleshow (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan.), a tumult, disturbance, &c. ‘An hubbleshowe, tumultus’, Levins, Manipulus Vocabulorum, 1570; litten (Brks. Sus. Hmp. Wil. Som.), a churchyard, a cemetery, O.E. līctūn, an enclosure in which to bury people; lide (w.Cy. Wil. Cor.), the month of March, O.E. hlȳda; lave (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks.), the remainder, O.E. lāf; leap (many dials.), a large basket, seed-lip (gen. dial. use in Yks. Midl. e. s. and w. counties from Lei.), a basket used to hold the seed when sowing, O.E. sǣdlēap; oly-praunce (Nhp.), a merry-making, M.E. olipraunce, vanity, fondness for gay apparel; pollywig, pollywiggle (Sc. Lan. Lei. Nhp. e.An. Hmp. Dev.), a tadpole, cp. ‘Polewigges, tadpoles, young frogs,’ Florio, 1611, ‘Polwygle, wyrme,’ Promptorium Parvulorum; porriwiggle, porwiggle (n.Cy. Yks. Lei. e.An. Sur.), a tadpole, cp. ‘that which the ancients called gyrinus, we a porwigle or tadpole,’ Sir Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors, 1646; preen (Sc. Nhb. Lakel. Yks.), a pin, O.E. prēon; rake (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Lin.), a track, path, &c., cp. O.E. racu, a hollow path; ridder (Oxf. Hrt. Mid. e.Cy. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Cor.), a sieve for sifting grain, O.E. hrīdder; rivlin (Sh. & Or.I.), a kind of sandal made of undressed skin with the hair outside, O.E. rifeling; ream (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. Cum. Yks. Lan. Dev. Cor.), cream, O.E. rēam; rother (n.Cy. Lan. War. Wor. Hrf. Sus.), horned cattle, M.E. rother, an ox; sax (Sh.I. Lin. Brks. w.Cy. Som. Dev. Cor.), a knife, O.E. seax; seal (Sc. Chs. e.An.), time, season—the seal of the day to you is a friendly salutation; to give a person the seal of the day is to give him a passing salutation—O.E. sǣl, time, season, &c.; shippen (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a cow-house, a cattle-shed, O.E. scypen, scipen, a stall, a fold for cattle or sheep; slade (many dials.), a valley, a grassy plain between hills, O.E. slæd; souter (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Nhp.), a shoemaker, O.E. sūtere, from Lat. sutor; soller (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Shr. Hrf. e.An. s.Cy. Cor.), an upper chamber or loft, O.E. solor, a loft, upper room, from Lat. solarium; singreen (Wor. Shr. Bck. Ken. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil.), the house-leek, O.E. singrēne, the houseleek, lit. evergreen; snead (in gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), the handle of a scythe, O.E. snǣd; whittle (Irel. Dur. Lei. War. Pem. Glo. Oxf. Suf. Sus. Hmp. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), a cape, a shawl, &c., O.E. hwītel, a cloak, a blanket; wogh (Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der.), a wall, O.E. wāg, wāh; yelm (War. Glo. Bdf. Mid.), straw laid ready for thatching, O.E. gelm, a handful, a sheaf.
It would be possible to produce samples of these retired English words categorized under each of the various parts of speech, but it will be sufficient here to keep to the most important categories, namely, nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Not but what many interesting words will thus perforce stand neglected, for even the humble adverb is often worth a glance. Take for example the modest form tho (Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), then, at that time. This is the regularly developed lineal descendant of O.E. þā, and Chaucer’s tho in the line:
To don obsequies, as was tho the gyse.
Knightes Tale, l. 135.
The common dialect adverb nobbut, only, nothing but, lit. not but, occurs in Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. When Sir Gawayne is looking for ‘þe grene chapelle’, to his disgust he finds that it consists of a hollow mound, ‘nobot an old caue,’ where, he says:
... myȝt about mid-nyȝt,
Þe dele his matynnes telle!
ll. 2187, 2188.
Adjectives now disused in Standard English
But to come to our second category, namely, old adjectives now disused in standard English, examples are: argh (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Yks. Lin.), timorous, apprehensive, O.E. earh (earg), cowardly (cp. Germ. arg), ‘His hert arwe as an hare,’ Rob. of Gloucester, Chron., c. 1300; brant (Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Lin.), steep, high, also erect, and hence proud, pompous, e.g. as brant as a besom, O.E. brant, bront. Brantwood on the eastern margin of Coniston Lake, the residence of Ruskin, was so called from the brant, or steep wood which rises behind it. Dern (Sc. Nhb. Chs.), secret, obscure, also dreary, dark, O.E. dyrne, derne, cp. ‘For derne love of thee lemman, I spille,’ Milleres Tale, l. 92; elenge (Ken. Sur. Sus.), solitary, lonely, tedious, O.E. ǣlenge, tedious, tiresome, lit. very long; fremd (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Lin. Nhp.), strange, foreign, not of kin, O.E. fremde, foreign, cp. Germ. fremd. In M.E. this word is often coupled with sibb, which latter word has the opposite meaning of related, akin, as for example in the lines from the Moral Ode, c. 1200:
Wis is þat him seolue biþenkþ þe hwile he mot libbe,
Vor sone willeþ him for-yete þe fremede and þe sibbe.
ll. 34, 35.
‘Sib’ and ‘Lief’
This too remains in the dialects as sib (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Nhp. War. Wor.), closely related, akin, e.g. Oor Marmaduke’s sib to all the gentles in th’ cuntry, though he hes cum doon to leäd coäls. Fenny (Ken. Hmp. Wil.), mouldy, mildewed, also in the form vinny (Glo. Brks. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), O.E. fynig, used by Ælfric in translating Joshua ix. 5, of the Gibeonites’ bread; hettle(Sc. Nhb. Dur. Yks.)-tongued, foul-mouthed, irascible in speech, O.E. hetol, full of hate, malignant. Lief, dear, beloved, is obsolete as an adjective even in the dialects, but as an adverb it is common throughout the country, so too is the comparative form liefer, more willingly, rather, M.E. me were lever, I had rather, a phrase familiar to us in the description of the Clerk of Oxenford:
For him was levere have at his beddes heede
Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reede,
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Then robes riche, or fithele, or gay sawtrie.
Prologue, ll. 293-6.
Piping hot (gen. dial. and colloquial use) is a phrase also found in Chaucer:
And wafres, pyping hote out of the glede.
Milleres Tale, l. 193.
Punch (Sc. n.Cy. Yks.), short, fat, occurs in Pepys’s Diary, April 30, 1669, ‘I... did hear them call their fat child punch, which pleased me mightily, that word being become a word of common use for all that is thick and short.’ Rathe (Sc. Irel. Yks. Hrf. Gmg. Pem. Glo. Brks. Hrt. e.An. Ken. Sus. Hmp. I.W. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev.), adj. and adv. early, soon, quick, O.E. hræð, adj. quick, swift, hræðe, adv. quickly, soon, recalls Milton’s line:
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.
Lycidas, l. 142.
Familiar Miltonic Words
In many of the dialects the word is found in the compound rathe-ripe, coming early to maturity, for the use of which we have evidence as far back as the seventeenth century, in an epitaph on two little children who died in 1668 and 1670:
Such early fruites are quickly in their prime,
Rathe ripes we know are gathered in betime;
Such Primroses by Death’s impartiall hand
Are cropped, and landy’d up at Heaven’s command.
Another familiar Miltonic word is scrannel (Yks. Lan. Not. Nhp. War.), lean, thin; of the voice: weak, piping.
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.
Lycidas, ll. 123, 124.
Sackless (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan.) is a word which has fallen from its high estate, just like the standard English word silly, which originally meant blessed, happy (cp. Germ. selig). O.E. saclēas signified free from accusation, innocent, but in the modern English dialects the usual meaning is lacking common sense, foolish, stupid, or weak in body or mind, feeble, helpless, e.g. She leuk’d sackless and deead-heeaded, an we put her intiv a gain-hand garth te tent her, i.e. she [the cow] looked helpless and hung her head, and we put her into an adjoining enclosure to look after her. Span-new (gen. dial. and colloquial use in Sc. and Eng.), quite new, M.E. spannewe, occurs in The Lay of Havelok the Dane, c. 1280:
Þe cok bigan of him to rewe,
And bouthe him cloþes, al spannewe.
ll. 967, 968.
It is originally a Norse form, O.N. spān-nȳr, literally, new as a chip of wood, the vowel of spān having become short in M.E., and the O.N. nȳr replaced by the native equivalent newe. Spān is the O.N. cognate of our word spoon, O.E. spōn, an article made out of wood when it first took shape. Tickle (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), insecure, unstable, &c., is used by Chaucer in the Milleres Tale:
This world is now ful tikel, sikerly.
l. 240.
‘Tickle’, ‘Nesh’, and ‘Lear’
A word of almost the same meaning is wankle (Sc. n. and midl. counties to Wor. Shr. Hrf.), insecure, tottering, also weak, delicate, O.E. wancol, used in the same senses. Swipper (Sc. n.Cy. Lan.), quick, nimble, is recorded in the Promptorium Parvulorum, ‘Swypyr, or delyvyr, agilis.’ Nesh, meaning soft, brittle, delicate, &c., O.E. hnesce; and rear, used of meat, eggs, &c., half-cooked, underdone, O.E. hrēr, are still in common use all over England. Lear, empty, hungry, O.E. lǣre (cp. Germ. leer), is found in almost all the Midland, Southern, and South-western counties. A curious relic of an obsolete verb is the participle forwoden (n.Cy. Yks.), in a state of dirt, desolation, and waste, generally caused by vermin, overrun, e.g. Oor apple cham’er is fair forwoden wi’ rattens and meyce. It is the same word as O.E. forworden, undone, perished, the past participle of forweorþan, to perish, a compound of the prefix for- expressing destruction, and weorþan, to become, which remains to us in the Biblical phrase, ‘Woe worth the day!’ Ezek. xxx. 2, and the dialect wae worth, or wa worth (Sc. n.Cy. Dur. Lakel. Wm. Yks. Lan. Der.), used as an imprecation, or as an exclamation of dismay on hearing fearful tidings.
Time-honoured Verbs
This brings us to the third category, the time-honoured verbs, and truly their name is legion. Dow (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Shr. e.An.), to thrive, prosper, to be good for something, &c., O.E. dugan, to be strong, to avail (cp. Germ. taugen), M.E. dowen:
Ȝif me be dyȝt a destyné due to haue,
What dowes me þe dedayn, oþer dispit make?
Patience, ll. 49, 50, c. 1360.
This verb contains the stem from which comes the adjective doughty:
If doughty deeds my lady please,
Right soon I’ll mount my steed.
But even this is now archaic, and the verb has wholly disappeared from the standard speech, whilst it remains in various forms and meanings in the dialects. It is a saying in Yorkshire that: They never dow that strange dogs follow. Another current expression, ‘He’ll never dow, egg nor bird,’ occurs amongst Ray’s Proverbs, 1678. Dow occurs as a substantive meaning worth, value, in several phrases, as: to do no dow, to be of no use or value, e.g.
A whussling lass an’ a bellering cow
An a crowing hen’ll du nea dow.
Dree (Sc. Nhb. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der.), to endure, suffer, O.E. drēogan, M.E. dreyen, drien. In a description of the building of the Tower of Babel, given in the Cursor Mundi (c. 1300), are the lines:
Wid corde and plumbe þai wroght so hy,
Þat hete of sune might þai nohut dry.
ll. 2247, 2248.
To dree one’s weird, to endure one’s fate, is a phrase now practically confined to Scotland, though this was not the case in the earlier periods of the language. It occurs, for instance, in Cleanness, a poem probably written by the author of Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, who was a Lancashire man:
& bede þe burne [King Zedekiah] to be broȝt to babyloyn þe riche,
& þere in dongoun be don to dreȝe þer his wyrdes.
ll. 1223, 1224.
Flite (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Der. Lin.), to scold, find fault, O.E. flītan, to strive, chide, M.E. flīten, to quarrel, contend:
hou we shule flyten
ant to gedere smiten.
King Horn, ll. 855, 856, c. 1300.
‘Heal’ and ‘Healer’
Heal (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), to hide, conceal, keep secret, O.E. helan, str. vb. and helian, wk. vb., to conceal, M.E. helen:
Seynt Gregorie was a gode pope, and had a gode forwit,
Þat no priouresse were prest, for þat he ordeigned.
Þei had þanne ben infamis [betrayer of confession] þe firste day, þei can so yuel hele conseille.
Piers Plowman, B. v. ll. 166-8, c. 1377.
A healer is a receiver of stolen goods, a common word in the proverb: the healer’s as bad as the stealer. The verb is also used in the sense of to cover, to wrap up, to tuck up with bed-clothes. The allied verb hill (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der. Not. Lin. Lei. Nhp. War. Wor. Shr. Oxf. Wil.), to wrap, cover with clothes, is a Scandinavian loan-word, O.N. hylja, to cover (cp. Goth. huljan):
Hile me vnder schadou ofe þi wenges twa.
Rich. Rolle of Hampole, Ps. xvi. 10, c. 1330.
Another verb of the same meaning is hap (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. and n. counties to Der. Not. Lin.), which also occurs in our early literature:
I pray þe Marie happe hym warme.
York Plays, c. 1400. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, p. 144.
Hish (Sc. War. Nrf.), to make a hissing noise to hound on a dog, occurs in Wyclif’s Bible, ‘The Lord... ȝaf hem in to stiryng, and in to perischyng, and in to hisshing,’ 2 Chron. xxviii. 8. Lout (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Yks. Hmp.), to stoop, bend, bow, O.E. lūtan, M.E. louten:
Knelynge, conscience to þe kynge louted,
To wite what his wille were, and what he do shulde.
Piers Plowman, B. iii. ll. 115, 116.
Latch (n.Cy. Dur. Yks. Lan. Der. e.An.), to catch, lay hold of, O.E. læccan, M.E. lacchen, to catch, seize. In a poem called Patience, written by the same author as Cleanness and Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, the word occurs in a striking and curiously realistic description of Jonah inside the whale: ‘Lorde! colde watȝ his cumfort & his care huge.... How fro þe bot in-to þe blober [bubbling waves] watȝ with [by] a best lacched.’ Lathe (n.Cy. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), to bid, ask, invite, especially to invite to a funeral or wedding, O.E. laðian, M.E. laðien:
þe king...
... sende his sonde,
oueral his kine-lond,
and lette laþien him to,
alle his enihtes.
Laȝamon’s Brut, ll. 6667-73, c. 1275.
‘Nim’ and ‘Nimble’
Nim (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Stf. Der. Not. Lin. Nhp. Lei. War. Ken. Som. Dev.), to catch up quickly, to take or catch up on the sly, to steal, O.E. niman, to take, M.E. nimen:
Noe on anoþer day nymmeȝ efte þe dovene.
Cleanness, l. 481, c. 1360.
In this sense the verb is obsolescent in the dialects, but it is still used in the sense of to walk with quick, short steps, to walk briskly and lightly, or mincingly. Probably this meaning is a development of the earlier uses of the verb in the phrase ‘to take one’s way’, and hence simply, to go, cp.:
Rys radly, he says, & rayke forth euen,
Nym þe way to nynyue, wyth-outen oþer speche.
Patience, ll. 65, 66, c. 1360.
ðanne he nimeð to kirke.
Bestiary, l. 93, c. 1250.
The standard adjective nimble is related to this old verb, so too is that apparently meaningless word nim in the old nursery rhyme said or sung to a baby on one’s knee:
The ladies they ride nim, nim, nim;
The gentlemen they ride trim, trim, trim;
The farmers they ride trot for trot;
An’ the hinds they ride clot for clot;
But the cadgers ride creels an’ aa, creels an’ aa.
Nhb. Version.
One is glad to give a local habitation and a name to a friend of such tender associations! Quop (Lei. Wor. Hrf. Glo. Oxf. Brks.), to palpitate, throb with pain, M.E. quappen, occurs in Chaucer’s Troilus and Creseyde (c. 1374): ‘So that his herte gan to quappe,’ Bk. III, l. 57, and also in Wyclif’s Bible: ‘And he [Tobie] wente out for to wasshen his feet; and lo! a gret fish wente out for to deuouren hym. Whom dredende Tobie criede out with a gret vois, seiende, Lord, he asaileth me. And the aungil seide to hym, Cach his fin, and draȝ it to thee. The whiche thing whan he hadde do, he droȝ it in to the drie, and it began to quappe befor his feet,’ Tobit vi. 2-5. Ream (Sc. Dur. Cum. Yks. Lan. Lin. Nhp. Shr.), to shout, cry aloud, to weep, bewail, O.E. hrēman, M.E. rēmen:
A longeyng heuy me strok in swone,
& rewfully þenne I con to reme.
Pearl, ll. 1180, 1181, c. 1360.
Speer (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Nhp. Som.), to search out, to ask, inquire, O.E. spyrian, M.E. spürien, speren, spiren:
My will, myn herte and al my witt
Ben fully set to herkne and spire
What eny man wol speke of hire.
Gower, Confessio Amantis, Bk. VIII, ll. 1998-2000, c. 1400.
Shale (Dur. w.Yks. Nhp. e.An. Wil. Dor.), to walk crookedly or awkwardly, to shamble:
Schouelle-fotede was that schalke, and schaylande hyme semyde,
With schankez vn-schaply, schowande to-gedyrs.
Morte Arthure, ll. 1098, 1099, c. 1420.
Chaucerian Survivals
Snib (Sc. Irel. Rut. Lei. Nhp. Bdf.), to check, restrain, rebuke, M.E. snibben:
Him wolde he snybbe scharply for the nones.
Chaucer, Prologue, l. 523.
Swink (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. War. Hrf. Ken.), to work hard, labour, toil, O.E. swincan, M.E. swinken:
Or swynke with his handes, and laboure.
Prologue, l. 186.
The form swinked, oppressed, tired, also occurs, reminding us of Milton’s:
... what time the labour’d ox
In his loose traces from the furrow came,
And the swink’t hedger at his supper sate.
Comus, ll. 291-3.
Thole (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Stf. Der.), to bear, suffer, endure, O.E. þolian, M.E. tholien, tholen:
Ne sal nafre eft crist þolien deað for [to] lesen hem of deaðe.
Ænes drihten helle brac his frend he ut brohte
Him self he þolede deað for hem wel diere he hes bohte.
Moral Ode, ll. 184-6, c. 1170.
Development of standard English ‘Wont’
Won (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Lan. Chs. Der.), to dwell, live, O.E. wunian, M.E. wunien, wunen, and wonen, with o written for u as in N.E. come, love, &c.
A Schipman was ther, wonying fer by weste.
Prologue, l. 388.
But in many districts this is said to be obsolescent in the dialects of to-day. The past participle of this verb, O.E. wunod, M.E. wuned, early came to be used in the sense of accustomed, for instance:
She never was to swiche gestes woned.
Clerkes Tale, l. 339.
Cp. ‘Wunt, or vsyed: assuetus,’ Promptorium Parvulorum. From this was developed the standard English form wont, which ought to be pronounced wunt, but the graphic o has been taken for an original o, and the spelling has influenced the pronunciation. Wont occurs in a few of the Midland dialects as a verb meaning to familiarize, to domesticate, accustom, e.g. If you tek the cat, you’ll hev to butter her feet to wont her, an’ then it’s chanch if shay doon’t coom back ’ere agen (Lei.). Welk (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Hrf. Bdf. Hrt. e.An. Ken.), to wither, to fade, M.E. welken:
An oðer drem cam him bi-foren,
vii eares wexen fette of coren,
On an busk, ranc and wel tidi,
And vii lene rigt ðor-bi,
Welkede, and smale.
Genesis and Exodus, ll. 2103-7, c. 1250.
Another verb with the same meaning is wellow (Yks.), which occurs in Wyclif’s Bible: ‘The reed and the resshe shal welewen,’ Isaiah xix. 6. Yawl (Sc. Cum. Yks. Lan. Lin. Lei. Nhp. War. e.An. Som.), to howl, to bawl, is found in Sir Gawayne:
He [the boar] hurteȝ of þe houndeȝ, & þay
Ful ȝomerly ȝaule & ȝelle.
ll. 1452, 1453.
The more common verb in this sense is yowl (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), cp. ‘Y shal weile and ȝoule,’ Wyclif, Micah i. 8.
Wealth of old Verbs still surviving
The majority of the verbs given above are of such frequent occurrence in Old and Middle English, that to give just one quotation, chosen more or less at random, is apt to be misleading, yet space forbids any more exhaustive treatment. There are hundreds of these verbs still existing in the dialects, which could be illustrated from our older literature down the course of several centuries before they disappeared from the standard language. A few further examples are: greet (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Der.), to cry, weep, O.E. grǣtan; heald (Sh.I. n.Cy. Yks.), to lean, incline, O.E. hieldan; kythe (Sc. n.Cy. Nhb. Dur. Yks.), to make known, show, display, O.E. cȳðan; lofe (Sc. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. War. Shr.), to offer, offer at a price, O.E. lofian, to praise, to appraise, set a price on; pote (Sc. n.Cy. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Shr. Hrf. Glo. Som. Dev. Cor.), to kick, push with the hands or feet, O.E. potian; reese (I.W. Cor.), of grain: to drop out of the ear from over-ripeness, O.E. hrēosan, to fall down; lease (many dials.), to pick out, to glean, &c., O.E. lesan, to gather, collect; mint (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Lin. Nhp. e.An.), to purpose, intend, &c., O.E. myntan; retch (gen. dial. use in Sc. and Eng.), to stretch, extend, fig. to exaggerate, lie, O.E. reccan, to stretch, extend; sam (Wm. Yks. Lan. Der. Wor.), to gather or scrape together, to collect, O.E. samnian; smoor (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Lakel. Yks. Lan. Der. Lin. Lei. Nhp. e.An.), to smother, suffocate, O.E. smorian; tend (n.Cy. Wm. Lan. Chs. Stf. Nhp. Wor. Shr. Oxf. Som. Dev. Cor.), to kindle, light, set fire to, O.E. on-tendan; umbethink, or unbethink (Nhb. Lakel. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Shr. Dev.), to bethink oneself, to recollect, O.E. ymbeðencen, to think about, consider; walt (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Shr. Suf.), to totter, to lean to one side, O.E. wealtan, to roll, stagger.
Dialect Survivals in the Authorized Version
It is interesting to note how many of the archaic words of our Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) can be found remaining in the dialects. For example: blain (Sc. Dur. Yks. Lan. e.An.), a sore, an ulcer, O.E. blegen; bolled (Lin. Lei.), of corn or flax: ripe, in pod, in seed; botch (Yks.), a breaking-out on the skin; brickle (Yks. Lan. Chs. Nhp. Wor. Shr. Suf. Sur. Hmp. Dor. Som.), brittle, easily broken: ‘This man that of earthly matter maketh brickle vessels,’ Wisdom xv. 13; chanel-bone (Lin. Som.), the collar-bone, Job xxxi. 22, marginal note; charger (Yks. Chs. Sus.), a large platter, or meat-dish, A.Fr. chargeour; chest (Sc. Nhb. Suf.), to put into the coffin: ‘he [Jacob] dieth and is chested,’ Gen. 1, chapter heading; clout (var. dial. uses in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), a patch, a rag; cocker (Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin.), to indulge, pamper: ‘Cocker thy child, and he shall make thee afraid,’ Ecclus. xxx. 9; coney (Yks. Lin. e.An. Ken. Sus. Wil. Cor.), a rabbit; daysman (Sc. n.Cy. Nhb.), an arbitrator, an umpire; ear (n.Cy. Yks. Lei. Hrf. Ken. Wil. Som.), to till or plough land; fitches (gen. dial. use in Sc. Irel. Eng.), vetches; leasing (Sc. Nhb. Yks.), lying, falsehood; let (Irel. Wm. Yks. Chs. Der. Lin. War. sw.Cy.), to hinder, impede; magnifical (Som.), grand, fine; marish (Sc. Irel. Yks. Chs.), a marsh, O.Fr. mareis; mote (Sc. Irel. Yks. I.W. sw.Cy.), an atom, a minute splinter of wood, or particle of straw; pill (Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der. Not. Lin. Midl. Shr. e.An. Som.), to peel, strip off the outer bark; tabor (Chs. Stf. Lei. Nhp. War. Wor. Shr. Glo.), to rap, tap lightly; wist (Nhb. Yks.), knew, and known, in the phrase had I wist (Nhb. Yks. Lan.), had I known, cp.:
For feare of foole had I wist cause thee to waile,
let fisgig be taught to shut doore after taile.
Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, 1580.
Wrought (Sc. Irel. n.Cy. Der. Suf.), preterite of to work: worked, laboured. Some of these old words and expressions have become so common that they must now be counted as colloquialisms, as, for instance, the phrase away with, meaning to endure, put up with: ‘The calling of assemblies I cannot away with,’ Isaiah i. 13, cp. ‘I can nat away with my wyfe, she is so heedy, je ne puis poynt durer auecques ma femme, elle est si testue,’ Palsgrave, c. 1530. Another now commonplace word is ado, which has been immortalized by Shakespeare’s use of it in the title of one of his plays. It occurs in Mark v. 39: ‘Why make ye this ado, and weep?’ cp. ‘Ado or gret bysynesse, sollicitudo,’ Prompt. Parv.
Shakesperian Words in the Dialects
In the same way most of the obsolete Shakespearian words can still be traced in the dialects. The Shakespeare-Bacon theory, if not too dead and gone to be worth further combat, could easily be completely overthrown by any one who chose to array against it the convincing mass of evidence which proves Shakespeare’s intimate acquaintance with the Warwickshire dialect. Numbers of the words and phrases which Shakespeare used, and which we have since lost, still exist in his native county, and in the other counties bordering on Warwickshire. Some of them were at that date part and parcel of the standard vocabulary, and might be put by Shakespeare into the mouths of his highest personages; others again must even then have been regarded by him as dialect, and natural only to the speech of lower folk. It is Corporal Nym who says shog for move, jog: ‘Will you shog off?’ Hen. V, II. i. 47; ‘Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton,’ Hen. V, II. iii. 47. It is a serving-man who uses the phrase to sowl by the ears: ‘He’ll go, he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears,’ Cor. IV. v. 213; and it is Mistress Quickly, the hostess of a tavern, who calls herself a ‘lone woman’ when she means she is a widow: ‘A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear,’ 2 Hen. IV, II. i. 35. But to classify after this sort all the old words in Shakespeare would entail a classification of all the characters in the plays, and would thus be outside the scope of this book. I cannot therefore do more than give examples massed together irrespective of the question whether they were literary words or not in Shakespeare’s time:
Bavin, a bundle of brushwood, a faggot, cp.:
In stacking of bauen, and piling of logs,
Make under thy bauen a houell for hogs.
Tusser.
Bawcock, a semi-mocking term of endearment, a foolish person; biggin, a nightcap without a border:
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night.
2 Hen. IV, IV. v. 26-8.
Biggin, Bolter, Blouze
The word also denoted a child’s cap, hence: From the biggin to the nightcap, signifies from childhood to old age. It is worth noting that this is the meaning which Dr. Johnson assigns to the word—cp. ‘Biggin... A child’s cap’—and he gives as the sole illustration the above quotation from Shakespeare. Bolter, used of snow, dirt, &c., means to cohere, form into lumps: ‘blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me,’ Macb. IV. i. 123; blouze, a fat, red-faced wench, a coarse, untidy woman, also termed a blossom: ‘Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure,’ Tit. And. IV. ii. 72; codger, a shoemaker: ‘Ye squeak out your cozier’s catches,’ Twelfth N. II. iii. 97; day-woman, a dairymaid; dowl, down, soft feathers; drumble, to be sluggish and slow in movement; cowl, a large tub: ‘Go take up these clothes here quickly. Where’s the cowl-staff? look, how you drumble! Carry them to the laundress in Datchet-mead; quickly, come,’ Merry Wives, III. iii. 156; fettle, to prepare, make ready; fill-horse, the shaft-horse; firk, to beat; flap-jack, a pancake; gaberdine, a loose garment or smock-frock: ‘Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows,’ Temp. II. ii. 40; flaw, a sudden gust or blast of wind:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!
Ham. V. i. 238, 239.
Gallow, to frighten; geck, a fool; grize, a step; haggle, to hack, mangle; inch-meal, little by little; inkle, an inferior, coarse kind of tape: ‘He hath ribbons of all the colours i’ the rainbow,... inkles, caddisses, cambrics, lawns,’ Wint. Tale, IV. iv. 208. As a simple word, inkle is dying out now, but the compound inkle-weaver is very common in the phrase: As thick as inkle-weavers, very friendly or intimate together. Insense, to cause to understand, to explain, inform, literally to put sense into. The word is usually spelt incense in Shakespeare editions, so that it becomes mixed up with incense, to enrage, incite, but insense is clearly the right spelling in such a passage as:
Sir, I may tell it you, I think I have
Incensed the lords o’ the council that he is—
For so I know he is, they know he is—
A most arch-heretic.
Hen. VIII, V. i. 42-5.
Jance, to knock about, expose to circumstances of fatigue; kam, crooked, awry, e.g. It’s clean kam, an’ nowt else (Lan.), cp. ‘This is clean kam,’ Cor. III. i. 304; kecksies, hemlock, and similar hollow-stalked plants; keech, a lump of congealed fat:
I wonder
That such a keech can with his very bulk,
Take up the rays o’ the beneficial sun.
Hen. VIII, I. i. 54-6.
Cp. ‘Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly?’ 2 Hen. IV, II. i. 101; kibe, a chilblain, a crack in the skin: ‘The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe,’ Ham. V. i. 153. An Irish recipe for the cure of kibes is as follows: The person suffering from kibes must go at night to some one’s door and knock. When any one asks ‘Who’s there?’ the person who knocked must run away calling, ‘Kibey heels, take that.’ Then the kibes will leave the person who has them, and pass to the one who called ‘Who’s there?’ Knoll, to toll; malkin, a slattern; mammock, to break or cut to pieces, tear, mangle; mated, confused, bewildered, e.g. I be reg’lar mated (Oxf.), cp. ‘My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight,’ Macb. V. i. 86; mazzard, the head or face; milch or melch, warm, soft, and moist, in the modern dialects applied chiefly to the weather, e.g. Ther’s a deäl of foäks is badly, an’ its all thruf this melch weather (Lin.), cp. ‘Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,’ Ham. II. ii. 540. The word is connected with Du. malsch, tender, soft, E.Fris. malsk, and has probably nothing to do with milch, milk-giving. Minikin, small, delicate, effeminate; moble, to muffle the head and shoulders in warm wraps:
First Play.
But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen—
Ham.
The mobled queen?
Pol.
That’s good; mobled queen is good.
Ham. II. ii. 524-7.
Moble, Muss, Nook-shotten
Muss, a disturbance, uproar, squabble; neeze, to sneeze:
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear.
Mid. N. D. II. i. 55, 56.
Cp. ‘By his neesings a light doth shine,’ Job xli. 18; nook-shotten, shot into a corner, used in Cheshire of cheese put aside from the rest as inferior:
... but I will sell my dukedom
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
Hen. V, III. v. 12-14.
Nay-word, a by-word; orts, remnants, scraps, especially of food; peat, a term of endearment, a pet; pick-thank, a flatterer, a tale-bearer, a mischief-maker; plash, a puddle, a small pool; pink, adj. and vb. small, to make small, to contract, especially to contract the eyes: ‘Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne,’ A. and C. II. vii. 121; poach, potch, to poke, especially with the fingers, to thrust; pomewater, a large kind of apple; quat, a pimple; rack, flying clouds, thin broken clouds driven by the wind:
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face.
Sonn. xxxiii. 5, 6.
Reechy, smoky, begrimed with smoke, dirty; reneague, renege, to refuse, deny; rivelled, wrinkled, puckered; shive, a slice of anything edible, especially of bread; skillet, a small metal vessel used for boiling liquids: ‘Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,’ Oth. I. ii. 273; sleeveless, useless, bootless, especially in the phrase a sleeveless errand, cp. Troil. and Cr. V. iv. 9; squinny, to squint, look askance; stover, winter fodder for cattle:
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch’d with stover, them to keep.
Temp. IV. i. 62, 63.
Tetchy, peevish, irritable; trash, a cord used in checking dogs, a long slender rope fastened to the collar of a young pointer or setter if headstrong and inclined to run in:
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.
Oth. II. i. 312-14.
Trencher-man, a term applied to a person with a good, hearty appetite; urchin, a hedgehog; utis, noise, confusion: ‘By the mass, here will be old utis,’ 2 Hen. IV, II. iv. 22; yare, ready, prepared; yerk, to strike hard, to beat.
Shakespearian Phrases in the Dialects
Among interesting expressions of Shakespeare’s date still existing in the dialects are: to burn daylight, to light candles before they are wanted; figuratively, to waste time:
Mercutio.... Come, we burn daylight, ho!
Rom.
Nay, that’s not so.
Mer.
I mean, Sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Rom. and Jul. I. iv. 43-5.
Make a coil, Be in a taking
To make a coil, to make a stir, confusion, or fuss: ‘I am not worth this coil that’s made for me,’ King John, II. i. 165; come your ways, come here, Ham. I. iii. 135, Troil. and Cres. III. ii. 44; pass, condition, state, in phrases: ‘What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?’ Lear, III. iv. 65, ‘Till I be brought to such a silly pass,’ T. Shrew, V. ii. 124; to one’s head, to one’s face, e.g. I told him to his head that I wouldn’t have such goings on in my house any more (Sus.):
... he shall bring you
Before the duke, and to the head of Angelo
Accuse him home and home.
Meas. for Meas. IV. iii. 146-8.
To be helped up, used ironically: to be in a difficulty, e.g. What with the missis bad, and him out of work, they’re well helped up (War.). You’re prettily holp up, is a common expression of derision, cp.:
A man is well holp up that trusts to you;
I promised your presence and the chain;
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
Com. of Errors, IV. i. 22-4.
To be in a taking (gen. colloq. use), a state of excitement, grief, or perplexity; a fit of petulance or temper, cp. ‘What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket,’ Mer. Wives, III. iii. 191; a hole in the coat, a flaw or blemish in character or conduct, cp. ‘If I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind,’ Hen. V, III. vi. 87; to make the door, to shut or fasten the door: ‘Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement,’ A. Y. L. I. IV. i. 162; to stand one on, to be incumbent on, to be to one’s interest, cp.:
... For my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate.
Lear, V. i. 68, 69.
A thing of nothing, a trifle, next to nothing, e.g. He bought a lot o’ taters for his cows, and got ’em for a thing o’ nothing (Chs.), cp.: Ham. The king is a thing— Guil. A thing, my lord? Ham. Of nothing, Ham. IV. ii. 30-32. Beside this exists also the parallel expression ‘a thing of naught’, in the dialects now, a thing of nowt: ‘You must say “paragon”: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught,’ Mids. N. D. IV. ii. 14, cp. ‘They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought,’ Isaiah xli. 12. Worth a Jew’s eye, of great value, e.g. Hoo mays a rare weife, hoo’s wo’th a Jew’s eye (Chs.), cp.:
There will come a Christian by,
Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.
M. of Ven. II. v. 42, 43.
Shakespeare’s Knowledge of Dialect
The Quartos and Folios read ‘a Jewes eye’, which is now considered the better reading. The expression the varsal world only differs by a normal change in pronunciation from Shakespeare’s ‘versal world’: ‘I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world,’ Rom. and Jul. II. iv. 220. Opinions differ as to the precise meaning of the second element in cock-shut, twilight, the close of the day, used also in the phrase cock-shut time:
Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,
Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop
Went through the army.
Rich. III, V. iii. 69-71.
The corresponding term for daybreak is cock-light. More sacks to the mill is a game played in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It is a rough-and-tumble boys’ game, in which as many boys as possible are heaped together, one above another. As each successive boy is added to the heap the boys shout: More sacks to the mill! cp.:
More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!
Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish.
L. L. L. IV. iii. 81, 82.
The ancient game of loggats has died out, but the term is still used to denote the small sticks or pieces of wood used in playing trunket and other games. Cp. ‘Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em? mine ache to think on’t,’ Ham. V. i. 100. Another Shakespearian game is the Nine Men’s Morris, also known as Merills: ‘The boyish game called Merils or five-penny Morris; played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns or men made of purpose and tearmed Merelles,’ Cotgrave, cp. ‘The nine men’s morris is fill’d up with mud,’ Mids. N. D. II. i. 98. Hunt’s up is an old pipe tune especially used by the waits on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning:
Hunsep through the wood, Hunsep through the wood,
Merrily goes the day, sir;
Get up old wives and bake your pies,
To-morrow is Christmas Day, sir.
Cp. ‘Hunting thee hence with hunt’s up to the day,’ Rom. and Jul. III. v. 34. From the derived sense of tumult, outcry, has been developed a verb used in the Lake District in the meaning of to scold, rate, abuse, e.g. He’ll hunsip thi fer thi pains. But, lest this list become wearisomely long, it shall close with the time-worn interjectional phrase: Adone, cease, leave off, cp. ‘Therefore ha’ done with words,’ T. Shrew, III. ii. 118.
Dr. Johnson’s Testimony
Dr. Johnson bears his testimony to Shakespeare’s knowledge of dialect and colloquial speech in the Preface to the Dictionary: ‘If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.’ But the Dictionary ‘was intended primarily to furnish a standard of polite usage, suitable for the classic ideals of the new age’ (v. Six Essays on Johnson, by Walter Raleigh, p. 82). Johnson, therefore, though he incorporated this ‘diction of common life’, did not hesitate to sit in judgment upon it when he thought fit. Take for example the phrase to make bold, which appears in the Dictionary thus: ‘to make bold. To take freedoms: a phrase not grammatical, though common. To be bold is better; as, I was bold to speak.
I have made bold to send to your wife;
My suit is, that she will to Desdemona
Procure me some access. Shakesp. Othello.’
Johnson’s Dictionary
(This—it may be mentioned in passing—is one of the cases where Johnson is quoting from memory, rather than from a printed text, as is shown by slight verbal inaccuracies, v. Oth. III. i. 35.) Or again: ‘To have rather. [This is, I think, a barbarous expression of late intrusion into our language, for which it is better to say will rather.]’ It is a very common phrase in Shakespeare, though Johnson does not here cite his authority.
Johnson’s Dialect
In the early days of Dictionaries a lexicographer impressed his work with the stamp of his own personality in a way which is impossible in modern times when Dictionary-making ranks among the abstract sciences. Johnson’s Dictionary is pre-eminently personal, betraying the author’s character and opinions at every turn; indeed, certain definitions, such as those of ‘lexicographer’, ‘grubstreet’, ‘pension’, ‘excise’, &c., have become the hackneyed illustrations wherever Johnson’s life and writings are discussed. It is not surprising, therefore, if we find in his treatment of dialect words some points of biographical interest. Certain of his views with regard to literature and language are plainly given in his Preface to the Dictionary: ‘I soon discovered that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve the labour of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty desarts of barren philology.’ Speaking of the difficulty of collecting words, he says: ‘the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of living speech.... That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner’s language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, or easy inquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting living information, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.’ But even a cursory glance through the pages of the Dictionary show that where the ‘living information’ was his own knowledge of the dialect words of his native county it was a ‘labour’ of love to glean them up and place them among his ‘verdure and flowers’, above the region of ‘boundless chaos’. Just as it can be shown from the internal evidence of their respective Dictionaries that Skinner belonged to Lincolnshire, Levins to Yorkshire, and Cotgrave to Cheshire, so it could be proved that Johnson belonged to Staffordshire, even if we had no other testimony outside his Dictionary. Some of the most striking of these evidences are as follows: ‘Lich.... A dead carcase; whence lichwake, the time or act of watching by the dead; lichgate, the gate through which the dead are carried to the grave; Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. Salve magna parens.’ ‘Kecksy. n.s. [commonly kex, cigue, French; cicuta, Latin. Skinner.] Skinner seems to think kecksy or kex the same as hemlock. It is used in Staffordshire both for hemlock, and any other hollow jointed plant.’ ‘Shaw.... A thicket; A small wood. A tuft of trees near Lichfield is called Gentle shaw.’ ‘Tup. n.s. [I know not of what original.] A ram. This word is yet used in Staffordshire, and in other provinces.’ In other cases, though he does not mention his own native county, he seems to be so familiar with the word in question, as belonging to rustic speech, that, with the evidence of its existence in the Midland dialects of to-day, we may safely assume that it was current in the Staffordshire dialect of his time. For example: ‘Huff. n.s. [from hove, or hoven, swelled: he is huffed up by distempers. So in some provinces we still say the bread huffs up, when it begins to heave or ferment: huff, therefore, may be ferment. To be in a huff is then to be in a ferment, as we now speak],’ cp. huff (Sh.I. Yks. Lei. Nhp. War.), to swell, puff up; to rise in baking, generally used with up. ‘Clees, n.s. The two parts of the foot of beasts which are cloven-footed. Skinner. It is a country word, and probably corrupted from claws,’ cp. clee (gen. dial. use in Eng.), claw. It represents O.E. clēa, the nom. form of the substantive which in the oblique cases has given Eng. claw. ‘Fleet. v.a.... 3. [In the country.] To skim milk; to take off the cream: whence the word fleeting dish,’ cp. fleet (Cum. w.Yks. Lan. Hrt. e.An. Suf. Ken.), to skim, take off the surface, especially to take off the cream from milk; fleeting-dish, a flat dish used in skimming cream from milk. ‘Gleed. n.s.... A hot glowing coal. A provincial and obsolete word,’ cp. gleed (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Chs. Stf. Der. Not. Lei. Nhp. War. Wor. Shr. Glo.), a spark, ember, red hot-coal, &c. ‘To Pound, v.a. [punian, Sax. whence in many places they use the word pun].’ The form pun still exists in the following counties: n.Cy. w.Yks. s.Chs. Der. Not. Lei. War. Wor. Shr. Hrf. Glo. ‘Rear. adj.... 1. Raw; half roasted; half sodden. 2. Early. A provincial word.
O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,
Then why does Cuddy leave his cot so rear? Gay.’
Cp. rear (gen. dial. use in Eng.), of meat, eggs, &c.: half-cooked, underdone, O.E. hrēr, not thoroughly cooked, lightly boiled. ‘Soe. n.s. [sae, Scottish]. A large wooden vessel with hoops, for holding water; a cowl. A pump grown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason full you may fetch up as many soe-fills. More.’ Cp. soa (n.Cy. Nhb. Stf. Lin. Bdf. e.An.), a large round tub, gen. with two ears; used for brewing or carrying water, O.N. sār, gen. sās, a large cask. ‘Suds. n.s.... 1. A lixivium of soap and water. 2. To be in the Suds. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.’ The same phrase is still extant in n.Lin. and s.Wor. ‘To Toot. v.n.... To pry; to peep; to search narrowly and slily. It is still used in the provinces, otherwise obsolete.
I cast to go a shooting,
Long wand’ring up and down the land,
With bow and bolts on either hand,
For birds and bushes tooting. Spenser’s Past.’
Johnson’s Scottish Assistants
Cp. toot (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Rut. Lei. Nhp. War.), to peep, and pry about; to spy, O.E. tōtian, to peep out. ‘To Trape. v.a. [commonly written to traipse: probably of the same original with drab]. To run idly and sluttishly about. It is used only of women,’ cp. trape (Cum. Wm. Lin. Nrf. Suf.), to walk in a slovenly manner, especially with the dress trailing; and trapes (gen. dial. and colloq. use in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), used in the same sense. One striking example of accurate knowledge of a word belonging only to a very limited locality is the entry: ‘Sarn. n.s. A British word for pavement, or stepping stones, still used in the same sense in Berkshire and Hampshire,’ cp. sarn (Shr. Brks. Hmp.), a culvert; a pavement; stepping stones, cp. Wel. sarn, pauimentum. The word atter Johnson introduces on the authority of Skinner: ‘Atter. n.s.... Corrupt matter, A word much used in Lincolnshire. Skinner.’ It is used to-day only in certain northern counties, and in East Anglia. The information concerning words then current ‘in the northern counties, and in Scotland’, was probably supplied by Johnson’s assistants. Out of his six amanuenses, five were Scots.1 A few examples of these words are: ‘Fain. adj.... 1. Glad; merry; chearful; fond. It is still retained in Scotland in this sense.’ ‘Flit. v.n.... 2. To remove; to migrate. In Scotland it is still used for removing from one place to another at quarter-day, or the usual term.’ ‘Grout. n.s. [... In Scotland they call it groats.] 1. Coarse meal.’ ‘Haver is a common word in the northern counties for oats: as, haver bread for oaten bread.’ ‘Kirk. n.s.... An old word for a church, yet retained in Scotland.’ ‘To Lout. v.n.... In Scotland they say, a fellow with lowtan or luttan shoulders; that is, one who bends forwards; his shoulders or back,’ cp. looting, ppl. adj. stooping, bending, now occurring in Sc. dialects only. ‘Leverook. n.s.... This word is retained in Scotland, and denotes the lark. The smaller birds have their seasons; as, the leverook. Walton’s Angler. If the lufft faa ’twill smoore aw the leverooks. Scotch Prov.’ This proverbial saying is still found in Sc. dialects, used in speaking to those who expect unlikely evils to befall them. Other examples of extant Scottish words noted by Johnson are Ambry, Bannock, Jannock, Lyart, Lope, Piggin, Sark, Skep, Thrapple, Throdden. Numbers of modern dialect words are to be found in Johnson’s Dictionary stigmatized by him as ’low’. Without making a complete collection of them, and submitting them to careful linguistic study, it is impossible to say definitely in each case why he thus marked them off from polite speech. One is, however, tempted to think that he sometimes thus disposed of a word simply because he did not happen to know it in his own dialect; for some of his ’low’ words have no worse history than others which he admits as ‘provincial’. For example: ‘To dag. v.a.... To daggle; to bemire; to let fall in the water,’ is given as ‘a low word’, while the synonymous ‘To daggle’ is admitted without comment; cp. dag, to trail in the dew, wet, or mire, to bedraggle, now essentially a Midland word, and daggle (n.Cy. Yks. Chs. Lei. Nhp. War. Oxf. e.An. Suf.), with the same meaning. Others of his ‘low’ words yet current are: ‘To Collogue, v.n.... To wheedle; to flatter; to please with kind words’; ‘A Clutter, n.s.... A noise; a bustle; a busy tumult; a hurry; a clamour’; ‘To dizen. v.a.... To dress; to deck; to rig out.’ On the other hand, modern usage confirms Johnson’s opinion in the case of: ‘Souse. adv. With sudden violence. A low word’; ‘To Swop. v.a. [Of uncertain derivation.] To change; to exchange one thing for another. A low word’; and so with many other words, which are to the present day, not dialect, but colloquial and slang expressions that have never worked their way up into ‘polite usage’, as has been the better fortune of: ‘To budge’; ‘To coax’; ‘Quandary’; ‘Touchy’; and a few more, which were once also under the ban of Johnson’s opprobrium, and were each branded with his stern, judicial dictum, ‘a low word’.
The Survival of Rare Words
We have already seen that numbers of familiar words which we were wont to look upon as dead bodies embalmed in the prose or verse of bygone centuries, are yet alive and active in the dialects of to-day. But not only have the familiar words been thus preserved, but also, sometimes, the rare and unfamiliar. Where scholars have been unable to discern the true meaning, or where the sense has been merely deduced from the context, the discovery of the living word in some rustic dialect has supplied the missing clue, or turned vague conjecture into well-grounded certainty. There exists in Sussex and Hampshire the word crundel, used to denote a ravine, or a strip of covert dividing open country, always in a dip, usually with running water in the middle. In the Codex Diplomaticus edited by Kemble, more than sixty crundels are mentioned, but the meaning of the word had always remained a puzzle. Sweet, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, defines it as a cavity, a chalk-pit(?), a pond(?); Bosworth-Toller as a barrow, a mound raised over graves to protect them; Leo as a spring or well; Kemble as a sort of watercourse, or a meadow through which a stream flows. It was the discovery of the existence of the word in the dialects which placed the correct meaning beyond doubt. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, occurs the following passage: Ofer þǣm hongiað hrinde bearwas, Over which [lake] hang... woods. The question as to the meaning of hrinde has formed the subject of frequent discussion, and various translations have been suggested, e.g. barky, rustling, placed in a ring or circle, standing in a ring, or gnarled(?), v. Beowulf, by W. J. Sedgefield, Litt.D., 1910. Dr. Richard Morris, however, proved fairly conclusively that the right meaning should be rimy, frosty. The word hrinde was taken to be a corrupt form of O.E. hrīmge, rimy, covered with hoar-frost, and this amended reading was adopted in subsequent editions of the text. Now the word for hoar-frost in several northern dialects is rind, and from a philological point of view, it is quite possible to connect the two words, and justify the retention of the MS. reading, whilst corroborating the accepted translation.
Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight
About the middle of the fourteenth century were produced four remarkable poems, Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, a romantic story of the adventures of an Arthurian knight; Pearl, a Vision; Cleanness; and Patience, stories taken from the Bible. We know nothing of the life of the author, we do not even know his name. Perhaps the little ‘Marjory’ who ‘lyfed not two yer in our thede [country]’ was the poet’s own daughter, and the Pearl the In Memoriam outpouring of his life’s sorrow. If so, it is the only shred of his biography which we possess, and some scholars would rob us even of that, by affirming that the lost ‘Pearl’ was purely a poetic creation. We can only guess at the man through his works. Judged by them, he appears to have been a literary country gentleman, born and bred in Lancashire, a man equally at home in his study, pen in hand, describing armed knights, and embattled castles, the tumultuous surgings of the Deluge, and the woes of Jonah in the ‘maw’ of the ‘wylde walterande whal’; or, in the saddle, following the ‘wylde swyn’, or ‘reynarde’ ‘þe schrewe’ to the sound of horn and bugle and the ‘glauerande glam of gedered rachchez’ [yelping cry of a pack of hounds]. He possessed, on the one hand, a real vein of poetic imagination, coupled with learning and knowledge, and on the other, all the instincts of a keen sportsman. He was a lover of nature and outdoor life, with extraordinary powers of accurate observation, and an artist’s eye for picturesque detail. Thus his memory was stored with a rich and varied vocabulary which the exigencies of his alliterative verse brought into full play. Many of the words he used are not found recorded anywhere else in literature, but they have remained in the dialect of the district to which the poet belonged. Sir Gawayne especially, by reason of its more secular subject-matter, abounds in words which are common in the North-country dialects of to-day, and it is these modern instances which have brought to light previously hidden meanings, and have confirmed contextual deductions, and thus enabled us to appreciate more fully the skilful handling of a wide range of vocabulary which characterizes this unknown poet, sportsman, and man of letters. In the description of the wondrous caparison of the Green Knight’s horse are mentioned ‘his molaynes’. The Glossary to the text gives this word as signifying: round embossed ornaments, but with a query. Stratmann’s Dictionary gives ‘Molaine, sb.? some ornament of a shield’. No other instance of the use of the word occurs in literature, but it is found in the Midland and South Midland spoken dialects: Mullen, the head-gear of a horse; the bridle of a cart-horse. Similarly, ‘toppyng’, another word peculiar to this poem. The Glossary and Dictionary suggest the meanings ‘mane(?), or top, head(?)’; the correct meaning as shown by the dialects is: a horse’s forelock. When the Man in Green ‘gedereȝ vp hys grymme tole, Gawayn to smyte’, he ‘mynteȝ at hym maȝtyly’, l. 2290. Obviously the verb ‘mynt’ means, as the Glossary says, to aim, or strike, but the more exact sense, and the one required by the story, is shown by the modern dialect mint (Sc. Irel. and n.Cy. dialects), to make a feigned attempt at, to make a movement as if to strike a blow but without doing it. The Green Knight had appointed his ‘grene chapelle’ as the place where Sir Gawayne was to receive this blow, and it proves to be ‘nobot an olde caue, Or a creuisse of an olde cragge’:
Now i-wysse [of a truth], quod Wowayn, wysty is here.
l. 2189.
This word ‘wysty’ is translated in the Glossary by: desert, waste, but with a query; the marginal paraphrase gives: ‘a desert is here.’ The word does not, as far as I know, occur in any other literary monument, but it has been preserved in the poet’s native dialect, cp. wisty (Lan. Chs.), spacious, empty, bare, large, often used in the sense of needlessly spacious. This meaning is exactly in accordance with the rest of the speech, and it adds a realistic touch, which was wanting in ‘desert’. Sir Gawayne was looking into the chapel, and he sees it all big, and bare, and empty—it was an uncanny place:
Now I fele hit is þe fende, in my fyue wytteȝ,
Þat hatȝ stoken [set] me þis steuen [tryst], to strye [destroy] me here.
...
Hit is þe corsedest kyrk, þat euer I com inne.
ll. 2193-6.
Cleanness
In the poem called Cleanness, beginning with the parable of the Marriage Feast, occurs the word ‘trasches’:
For what vrþly haþel [man] þat hyȝ honour haldeȝ
Wolde lyke, if a ladde com lyþerly [badly] attyred.
...
With rent cokreȝ [gaiters] at þe kne & his clutte [clouted] trasches.
ll. 35-40.
The Glossary gives: ‘Trasches = trauses or trossers,... trousers?’ and Stratmann’s Dictionary favours the same suggestion, but there is no longer any doubt that the word is correct as it stands, and that it is the same as the modern trash (w.Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der.), an old worn-out boot, shoe, or slipper. The combination ‘cockers and trashes’ appears in Grose’s Provincial Glossary, 1790: ‘Cockers and Trashes. Old stockings without feet, and worn-out shoes. North.’ The next line of the poem runs:
& his tabarde to-torne & his toteȝ oute.
l. 41.
Here both the Glossary and Dictionary suggest that ‘toteȝ’ is a corrupt form meaning ‘toes’, the suggestion being made to fit the word ‘oute’, regardless of the fact that the lad’s feet had already been described in the previous line. In all probability ‘his toteȝ oute’ means: his locks disordered, hanging loosely about, cp. tot (Lan. Sus. Hmp. Som.), in forms tooat, tote (Lan.), a tuft, as of grass, hair, &c. The poem Patience is the story of Jonah, enlarged, and pointed with a moral. When Jonah is told to rise up quickly and take his way to Nineveh, he fears the consequences:
I com [if I came] wyth þose tyþynges, þay ta [take] me bylyue,
Pyneȝ me in a prysoun, put me in stokkes,
Wryþe [bind] me in a warlok, wrast out myn yȝen.
ll. 78-80.
Patience
Both Glossary and Dictionary translate ‘warlok’ by prison, which, besides being a superfluous repetition of ‘prisoun’ in the preceding line, does not harmonize with the verb ‘wryþe’. A far better sense is gained by taking ‘warlok’ to mean chain, fetter, cp. warlock (Lan. Chs. Som.), to tighten the rope or chain which binds the load upon a wagon; sb. a method of tightening the rope or chain of a wagon-load, the fastening thus made, cp. ‘Warloke, or fetyr lock: Sera pedicalis uel compedalis,’ Prompt. Parv. circa 1440.
These are only a few examples out of very many which could have been cited from these fourteenth-century poems alone, to illustrate the way in which the study of modern dialects helps us to a better understanding and appreciation of our older literature.
Surnames and Place-names
Before leaving the subject of the preservation of old words in the dialects, one other store-chamber of words no longer current in the standard speech is worth a passing notice. Many old words which have ceased to be used as common nouns, have become crystallized in surnames, and it is interesting to compare them with the existing cognates in the dialects. I am aware that any attempt to go etymologizing among surnames or place-names is treading on dangerous ground. It is so easy to rush in with a fair sounding derivation, which is in reality nothing more than a worthless guess. I shall not, therefore, venture far afield.
Amongst the names here brought together, I have not included those which have now no living representative, as for example: Hordern, which is the O.E. hord-ærn, a treasury, a storeroom, lit. a hoard-house. The word ærn is, as far as I know, wholly obsolete, all except its final n remaining in barn, literally, a barley-house. Or again, Newbottle, Newbold, which contain the forms O.E. botl, bold, a house, a dwelling, now no longer used as a simple word, remaining only in surnames and place-names.
Words denoting Occupations
The O.E. suffix -estre was originally used in forming feminine nomina agentis, but already in later O.E. we find bæcestre used to denote a male as well as a female baker, the name changing hands with the trade. During the M.E. period -estre became -ster and was felt to be only an emphatic form of the masculine -er, and could be used indifferently for men or women, so that when baking, brewing, dyeing, weaving, &c., ceased to be feminine pursuits, the terms bakester, brewester, litester, webster ceased to convey any tinge of feminine gender, and in course of time they became the surnames Baxter, Brewster, Litster, Webster. To sit and spin was, however, an occupation to which the ladies held undisputed claim, and spinster continued to designate a woman as distinct and apart from a man, even when the trade was forgotten, so the term has never become a surname. As a common noun backster for baker is known in a few northern dialects, but its use is dying out. In the form bakester it is, however, used in Cornwall. In the same districts brewster for brewer holds a similar position. Litster for dyer is practically obsolete now, though the verb lit, to dye, remains in Scotland and the North. It is a Scandinavian word, from O.N. lita, to dye, already occurring in M.E., cp. ‘That thi fote be littid in blode,’ Hampole, c. 1330, Ps. lxvii. 25. Webster belongs also to Scotland and the North, but it is rapidly disappearing in favour of the ordinary word weaver. Where the A.V. has: ‘My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,’ Job vii. 6, Wyclif wrote: ‘My daies passiden swiftliere thanne a web is kit down of a webstere.’
Words denoting Physical Features
The name Brewis means broth, pottage, cp. brewis, browis (Sc. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Chs. Wal. Der. Shr.), broth, or bread soaked in hot water, gravy, &c., originally a French word, O.Fr. broez, broth, in M.E. brouis, brois, cp.:
And y shal yeue þe ful fair bred,
And make þe broys in þe led.
Havelok, ll. 923, 924.
Bentley is the grassy meadow, Broadbent, the broad field, or hill-side, cp. bent (Sc. Irel. and in gen. use in n. and midl. counties and e.An.), any coarse grass, especially that found on moorlands or near the sea, also a sandy hillock or knoll covered with coarse grass, a hill-side. The word is used by Chaucer, and by many other early writers. Brock means a badger, cp. brock (Sc. Irel. n. counties to Chs., also Lin. Lei., &c.), a badger; but the word is obsolescent. Chapman is a word that occurs frequently in M.E. literature, meaning merchant, trader. It is closely connected with cheap, and chaffer, cp. chapman (Sc. Irel. Yks. Lan. Lei. Nhp. Shr. e.An.), a pedlar, a small dealer. Clough, Fairclough, signifies a ravine, cp. clough (n.Cy. dialects), a ravine, chasm, narrow glen. It occurs in Barbour’s Bruce (1375) in the form clewch: ‘In a clewch... All his archeres enbuschit he,’ xvi. 386. Garth is the Norse form of our word yard, cp. garth (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. Nhp.), a small piece of enclosed ground, usually beside a house, O.N. garðr, a small enclosure of land. Ginnell is probably the same word as O.Fr. chenel, or chanel, a channel, cp. ginnell (Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a narrow passage or entry between buildings. In Scotland it denotes a small channel for water, a street gutter. Greaves is an old form of groves, cp. greave (Irel. Lan.), a grove, a division of a forest, O.E. grǣfa, a bush. Chaucer has the word in a well-known passage:
The busy larke, messager of daye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe graye;
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte,
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes, hongyng on the leeves.
Knightes Tale, ll. 633-8.
Streams, Meadows, Woods, &c.
Hayward means literally hedge-warden, cp. hayward (Chs. Lin. Wor. Glo. Oxf. Bdf. Sus. Hmp. Dor. Som.), a manorial officer whose duty it is to see that fences are kept in repair, to look after the stock, and to impound stray cattle. One of the earliest instances of the use of the word in M.E. occurs in the Ancren Riwle (c. 1210), or Rule of Nuns, where reasons are given in support of the Rule that a nun should keep no beast but a cat only. Among the worldly cares and employments which would come upon her if she were to keep a cow, is that she would have to flatter the ‘heiward’. Holt, Hurst, Shaw are common words in the dialects for wood, copse, O.E. holt, hyrst, scaga, cp. ‘Gaillard he was as goldfinch in the shaws,’ Cokes Tale, l. 3. Inge means a meadow, cp. ing (Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. e.An. Ken. Sur. Sus.), a meadow, pasture, especially low-lying land by the side of a stream or river, M.E. eng, O.N. eng. Kemp originally meant a fighter, cp. kemp (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm.), a champion, a bold impetuous person, O.E. cempa, a soldier, warrior, O.N. kempa, M.E. kempe, a soldier, a champion. In the Lay of Havelok (c. 1280) we read concerning ‘þe starke laddes’ who ‘putten with a mikel ston’:
Hwo so mithe putten þore
Biforn a-noþer, an inch or more,
Wore he yung, or wore he hold,
He was for a kempe told.
ll. 1033-6.
Todhunter
Murgatroyd, the moor-gate-royd, means the moor-way clearing. This gate has nothing to do with gate, an opening, but we have it in gait, with specialized meaning. It is from O.N. gata, a way, cp. gate (var. dial. uses in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), a way, path, road. It is very common in M.E. writings. -royd is related to Icel. ruð, a clearing in a wood, cp. royd (Yks. Lan.), a clearing in a wood, now generally found in place-names and field-names. Pargeter means a plasterer, and is borrowed from French, cp. parget (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Chs. Lin. Nhp. War. Hrf. Glo. Ken. Sur. Sus. Som.), to plaster with cement or mortar, also to whitewash; pargeter, a plasterer. Fr. (Norm. dial.) porjeter, crépir, couvrir une muraille d’un enduit, O.Fr. (Norm.) pargeter, projeter, jeter et répandre en avant. Wyclif has: ‘Seie thou to hem that pargiten without temperure, that it schal falle doun,’ Ezek. xiii. 11. Ruddock denotes a robin, cp. ruddock (n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. War. Wor. Suf. Ken. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), the robin, O.E. rudduc. Chaucer mentions ‘the tame ruddok’ in his Parliament of Foules. Rutherford means cattle-ford; the more common form of the word is found in Rotherhithe, literally cattle-harbour, cp. rother (n.Cy. Lan. War. Wor. Hrf. Sus.), a horned beast, horned cattle. John of Trevisa, writing of this country in 1387, says: ‘Þis ylond ys best to brynge forþ tren, & fruyt, & roþeron, & oþere bestes.’ Slade means a valley, a hollow, a grassy plain between hills, the side or slope of a hill, and is found in many dialects. Snell is originally an adjective, meaning quick, prompt, cp. snell (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lin.), quick, sharp, acute, keen; and of the weather: cold, piercing, O.E. snell, quick, active. Souter means a shoemaker, cp. souter (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Nhp.), a shoemaker, a cobbler, O.E. sūtere (from Lat. sutor), M.E. soutere, cp. ‘A somer-game of souteres,’ P. Plow. Bk. V, 413. Todhunter is the fox-hunter, cp. tod (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Lin.), a fox. An early occurrence of the word is found in one of Ben Jonson’s poems. Wong means a field, cp. wong (Yks. Not. Lin. Lei. Nhp.), a field, a meadow, low-lying land, O.E. wang, wong, a plain, mead, field, M.E. wonge:
And þe lond þat þor-til longes,
Borwes, tunes, wodes and wonges.
Havelok, ll. 1443, 1444.
Notes
1 ‘For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.’—Boswell, Life of Johnson, sub anno 1748. Ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (1887), vol. i, p. 187.