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 sweetAs he whose brow with homely biggen boundSnores out the watch of night.2 Hen. IV,IV.v. 26-8.Biggin, Bolter, BlouzeThe 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: miseryacquaints 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,inkleis dying out now, but the compoundinkle-weaveris 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 speltincensein Shakespeare editions, so that it becomes mixed up withincense, to enrage, incite, butinsenseis clearly the right spelling in such a passage as:Sir, I may tell it you, I think I haveIncensed 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 wonderThat 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;milchormelch, 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 withDu.malsch, tender, soft,E.Fris.malsk, and has probably nothing to do withmilch, milk-giving.Minikin, small, delicate, effeminate;moble, to muffle the head and shoulders in warm wraps:FirstPlay.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-shottenMuss, 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,’Jobxli. 18;nook-shotten, shot into a corner, used in Cheshire of cheese put aside from the rest as inferior:...but I will sell my dukedomTo buy a slobbery and a dirty farmIn 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.andvb.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 rideWith 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 phrasea 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 trashFor 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 DialectsAmong 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 delayWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.Rom. and Jul.I.iv. 43-5.Make a coil, Be in a takingTo 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 youBefore the duke, and to the head of AngeloAccuse 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 stateStands 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 thisexists 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,’Isaiahxli. 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 DialectThe Quartos and Folios read ‘a Jewes eye’, which is now considered the better reading. The expressionthe varsal worldonly 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 incock-shut, twilight, the close of the day, used also in the phrasecock-shut time:Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troopWent through the army.Rich. III,V.iii. 69-71.The corresponding term for daybreak iscock-light.More sacks to the millis 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 ofloggatshas died out, but the term is still used to denote the small sticks or pieces of wood used in playingtrunketand 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 Shakespeariangame is theNine Men’s Morris, also known asMerills: ‘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 upis 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 TestimonyDr. 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 phraseto make bold, which appears in theDictionarythus: ‘to make bold. To take freedoms: a phrase not grammatical,though common.To be boldis better; as,I was bold to speak.I havemade boldto send to your wife;My suit is, that she will to DesdemonaProcure 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 saywill rather.]’ It is a very common phrase in Shakespeare, though Johnson does not here cite his authority.Johnson’s DialectIn 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 ofdictionaries 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; whencelichwake, 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.[commonlykex,cigue, French;cicuta, Latin. Skinner.] Skinner seems to thinkkecksyorkexthe 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 Gentleshaw.’ ‘Tup.n.s.[I know not ofwhat 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.[fromhove, orhoven, swelled: he ishuffed up by distempers. So in some provinces we still say the breadhuffs up, when it begins toheaveor ferment:huff, therefore, may be ferment. To be in ahuffis then to be in aferment, as we now speak],’cp.huff(Sh.I.Yks.Lei.Nhp.War.), to swell, puff up; to rise in baking, generally used withup. ‘Clees,n.s.The two parts of the foot of beasts which are cloven-footed.Skinner. It is a country word, and probably corrupted fromclaws,’cp.clee(gen. dial.use inEng.), claw. It representsO.E.clēa, thenom.form of the substantive which in the oblique cases has givenEng.claw. ‘Fleet.v.a.... 3. [In the country.] To skim milk; to take off the cream: whence the wordfleetingdish,’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 wordpun].’ The formpunstill 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 sorear?Gay.’Cp.rear(gen. dial.use inEng.), 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 pumpgrown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason full you may fetch up as manysoe-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 theSuds. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.’ The same phrase is still extant inn.Lin.ands.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 bushestooting.Spenser’sPast.’Johnson’s Scottish AssistantsCp.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 writtento traipse: probably of the same original withdrab]. 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; andtrapes(gen. dial.andcolloq.use inSc.Irel.andEng.), 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 wordatterJohnson 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 itgroats.] 1. Coarse meal.’ ‘Haver is a common word in the northern counties for oats: as,haverbread 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 withlowtanorluttanshoulders; that is, one who bends forwards; his shoulders or back,’cp.looting,ppl. adj.stooping, bending, now occurring inSc.dialects only. ‘Leverook.n.s.... This word is retained in Scotland, and denotes the lark. The smaller birds have their seasons; as, theleverook.Walton’sAngler. If the lufft faa ’twill smoore aw theleverooks.ScotchProv.’ This proverbial saying is still found inSc.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 givenas ‘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, anddaggle(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 WordsWe 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 wordcrundel, 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 theCodex Diplomaticusedited by Kemble, more than sixtycrundelsare mentioned, but the meaning of the word had always remained a puzzle. Sweet, in hisAnglo-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 poemBeowulf, occurs the following passage:Ofer þǣm hongiað hrinde bearwas, Over which [lake] hang ... woods. The question as to the meaning ofhrindehas 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 wordhrindewas taken to be a corrupt form ofO.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 isrind, and from a philological point of view, it is quite possible to connect the two words, and justify the retention of theMS.reading, whilst corroborating the accepted translation.
In stacking of bauen, and piling of logs,Make under thy bauen a houell for hogs.Tusser.
In stacking of bauen, and piling of logs,Make under thy bauen a houell for hogs.Tusser.
In stacking of bauen, and piling of logs,Make under thy bauen a houell for hogs.Tusser.
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 sweetAs he whose brow with homely biggen boundSnores out the watch of night.2 Hen. IV,IV.v. 26-8.
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweetAs he whose brow with homely biggen boundSnores out the watch of night.2 Hen. IV,IV.v. 26-8.
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweetAs he whose brow with homely biggen boundSnores out the watch of night.2 Hen. IV,IV.v. 26-8.
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: miseryacquaints 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.
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.
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.
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,inkleis dying out now, but the compoundinkle-weaveris 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 speltincensein Shakespeare editions, so that it becomes mixed up withincense, to enrage, incite, butinsenseis clearly the right spelling in such a passage as:
Sir, I may tell it you, I think I haveIncensed 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.
Sir, I may tell it you, I think I haveIncensed 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.
Sir, I may tell it you, I think I haveIncensed 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.
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 wonderThat such a keech can with his very bulk,Take up the rays o’ the beneficial sun.Hen. VIII,I.i. 54-6.
I wonderThat such a keech can with his very bulk,Take up the rays o’ the beneficial sun.Hen. VIII,I.i. 54-6.
I wonderThat such a keech can with his very bulk,Take up the rays o’ the beneficial sun.Hen. VIII,I.i. 54-6.
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;milchormelch, 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 withDu.malsch, tender, soft,E.Fris.malsk, and has probably nothing to do withmilch, milk-giving.Minikin, small, delicate, effeminate;moble, to muffle the head and shoulders in warm wraps:
FirstPlay.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.
FirstPlay.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.
FirstPlay.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.
FirstPlay.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.
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.
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.
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,’Jobxli. 18;nook-shotten, shot into a corner, used in Cheshire of cheese put aside from the rest as inferior:
...but I will sell my dukedomTo buy a slobbery and a dirty farmIn that nook-shotten isle of Albion.Hen. V,III.v. 12-14.
...but I will sell my dukedomTo buy a slobbery and a dirty farmIn that nook-shotten isle of Albion.Hen. V,III.v. 12-14.
...but I will sell my dukedomTo buy a slobbery and a dirty farmIn that nook-shotten isle of Albion.Hen. V,III.v. 12-14.
...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.andvb.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 rideWith ugly rack on his celestial face.Sonn.xxxiii. 5, 6.
Anon permit the basest clouds to rideWith ugly rack on his celestial face.Sonn.xxxiii. 5, 6.
Anon permit the basest clouds to rideWith ugly rack on his celestial face.Sonn.xxxiii. 5, 6.
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 phrasea 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.
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,And flat meads thatch’d with stover, them to keep.Temp.IV.i. 62, 63.
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,And flat meads thatch’d with stover, them to keep.Temp.IV.i. 62, 63.
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 trashFor his quick hunting, stand the putting on,I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.Oth.II.i. 312-14.
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trashFor his quick hunting, stand the putting on,I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.Oth.II.i. 312-14.
If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trashFor his quick hunting, stand the putting on,I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip.Oth.II.i. 312-14.
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 delayWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.Rom. and Jul.I.iv. 43-5.
Mercutio....Come, we burn daylight, ho!Rom.Nay, that’s not so.Mer.I mean, Sir, in delayWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.Rom. and Jul.I.iv. 43-5.
Mercutio....Come, we burn daylight, ho!Rom.Nay, that’s not so.Mer.I mean, Sir, in delayWe waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.Rom. and Jul.I.iv. 43-5.
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 youBefore the duke, and to the head of AngeloAccuse him home and home.Meas. for Meas.IV.iii. 146-8.
...he shall bring youBefore the duke, and to the head of AngeloAccuse him home and home.Meas. for Meas.IV.iii. 146-8.
...he shall bring youBefore the duke, and to the head of AngeloAccuse him home and home.Meas. for Meas.IV.iii. 146-8.
...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.
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.
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.
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 stateStands on me to defend, not to debate.Lear,V.i. 68, 69.
...For my stateStands on me to defend, not to debate.Lear,V.i. 68, 69.
...For my stateStands on me to defend, not to debate.Lear,V.i. 68, 69.
...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 thisexists 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,’Isaiahxli. 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.
There will come a Christian by,Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.M. of Ven.II.v. 42, 43.
There will come a Christian by,Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.M. of Ven.II.v. 42, 43.
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 expressionthe varsal worldonly 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 incock-shut, twilight, the close of the day, used also in the phrasecock-shut time:
Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troopWent through the army.Rich. III,V.iii. 69-71.
Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troopWent through the army.Rich. III,V.iii. 69-71.
Thomas the Earl of Surrey, and himself,Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troopWent through the army.Rich. III,V.iii. 69-71.
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 iscock-light.More sacks to the millis 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.
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.
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.
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 ofloggatshas died out, but the term is still used to denote the small sticks or pieces of wood used in playingtrunketand 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 Shakespeariangame is theNine Men’s Morris, also known asMerills: ‘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 upis 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.
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.
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.
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 phraseto make bold, which appears in theDictionarythus: ‘to make bold. To take freedoms: a phrase not grammatical,though common.To be boldis better; as,I was bold to speak.
I havemade boldto send to your wife;My suit is, that she will to DesdemonaProcure me some access.Shakesp.Othello.’
I havemade boldto send to your wife;My suit is, that she will to DesdemonaProcure me some access.Shakesp.Othello.’
I havemade boldto send to your wife;My suit is, that she will to DesdemonaProcure me some access.Shakesp.Othello.’
I havemade boldto 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 saywill 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 ofdictionaries 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; whencelichwake, 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.[commonlykex,cigue, French;cicuta, Latin. Skinner.] Skinner seems to thinkkecksyorkexthe 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 Gentleshaw.’ ‘Tup.n.s.[I know not ofwhat 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.[fromhove, orhoven, swelled: he ishuffed up by distempers. So in some provinces we still say the breadhuffs up, when it begins toheaveor ferment:huff, therefore, may be ferment. To be in ahuffis then to be in aferment, as we now speak],’cp.huff(Sh.I.Yks.Lei.Nhp.War.), to swell, puff up; to rise in baking, generally used withup. ‘Clees,n.s.The two parts of the foot of beasts which are cloven-footed.Skinner. It is a country word, and probably corrupted fromclaws,’cp.clee(gen. dial.use inEng.), claw. It representsO.E.clēa, thenom.form of the substantive which in the oblique cases has givenEng.claw. ‘Fleet.v.a.... 3. [In the country.] To skim milk; to take off the cream: whence the wordfleetingdish,’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 wordpun].’ The formpunstill 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 sorear?Gay.’
O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,Then why does Cuddy leave his cot sorear?Gay.’
O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,Then why does Cuddy leave his cot sorear?Gay.’
O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,
Then why does Cuddy leave his cot sorear?Gay.’
Cp.rear(gen. dial.use inEng.), 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 pumpgrown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason full you may fetch up as manysoe-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 theSuds. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.’ The same phrase is still extant inn.Lin.ands.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 bushestooting.Spenser’sPast.’
I cast to go a shooting,Long wand’ring up and down the land,With bow and bolts on either hand,For birds and bushestooting.Spenser’sPast.’
I cast to go a shooting,Long wand’ring up and down the land,With bow and bolts on either hand,For birds and bushestooting.Spenser’sPast.’
I cast to go a shooting,
Long wand’ring up and down the land,
With bow and bolts on either hand,
For birds and bushestooting.Spenser’sPast.’
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 writtento traipse: probably of the same original withdrab]. 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; andtrapes(gen. dial.andcolloq.use inSc.Irel.andEng.), 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 wordatterJohnson 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 itgroats.] 1. Coarse meal.’ ‘Haver is a common word in the northern counties for oats: as,haverbread 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 withlowtanorluttanshoulders; that is, one who bends forwards; his shoulders or back,’cp.looting,ppl. adj.stooping, bending, now occurring inSc.dialects only. ‘Leverook.n.s.... This word is retained in Scotland, and denotes the lark. The smaller birds have their seasons; as, theleverook.Walton’sAngler. If the lufft faa ’twill smoore aw theleverooks.ScotchProv.’ This proverbial saying is still found inSc.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 givenas ‘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, anddaggle(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 wordcrundel, 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 theCodex Diplomaticusedited by Kemble, more than sixtycrundelsare mentioned, but the meaning of the word had always remained a puzzle. Sweet, in hisAnglo-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 poemBeowulf, occurs the following passage:Ofer þǣm hongiað hrinde bearwas, Over which [lake] hang ... woods. The question as to the meaning ofhrindehas 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 wordhrindewas taken to be a corrupt form ofO.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 isrind, and from a philological point of view, it is quite possible to connect the two words, and justify the retention of theMS.reading, whilst corroborating the accepted translation.