The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire by James Jennings (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📖

means very often, the state of body, mere skin and bone.

Nottlins. s. pl. See KNOTTLINS.

Num’met. s. A. short meal between breakfast and dinner; nunchion, luncheon. Nuncle. s. An uncle.

To Nuncle. v. a. To cheat.

Nuth’er. adv. Neither.

 

O.

 

O’. prep. for of.

Obstrop’ilous. adj. Obstinate, resisting [obstreperous.]

Odments. s. pl. Odd things, offals. Office. s. The eaves of a house.

Old-qut-and-jerkin. s. A game at cards; in a more refined dialect, old-coat-and-jerkin; called also five cards.

To Onlight. v. n. To alight; to get off a horse.

O’änt (for w’on’t). Will not. This expression is used in almost all the persons, as I önt, he önt, we önt, they, or thâ önt; I will not, he will not, etc.

Ont, O’t. Of it. I a done ont; I a done o’t: I have done of it.

Ool. v. aux. Will.

Ope. s. An opening—the distance between bodies arranged in order.

Or’chit. s. An orchard.

Ornd. pret. Ordained, fated.

Orn. pron. Either. Orn o’m, either of them.

Or’ra one, Or’ryone. Any one; ever a one. Ort. s. Anything. [West of the Parret.]

Ort. s. Art.

Oten. adv. Often.

Ourn. pron. Ours.

To Overget. v. a. To overtake.

To Overlook, v. a. To bewitch.

Overlookt. part. Bewitched.

Over-right, Auver-right. adv. Opposite; fronting.

Overs. s. p. The perpendicular edge, usually covered with grass, on the sides of salt-water rivers is called overs.

 

P.

 

Pack-an-Penny-Day. s. The last day of a fair when bargains are usually sold. [_Pack, and sell for pennies._]

Parfit. adj. Perfect.

Parfitly. adv. Perfectly.

To Par’get. v. a. To plaster the inside of a chimney with mortar of cowdung and lime.

Par’rick. s. A paddock.

To Payze. v. a. To force, or raise up, with a lever.

To Peach. v. a. To inform against; to impeach.

Peel. s. A pillow, or bolster.

To Peer. v. n. To appear.

Pen’nin. s. The enclosed place where oxen and other animals are fed and watered; any temporary place erected to contain cattle.

Pick. s. A pitch-fork: a two pronged fork for making hay.

Pigs-Hales. s. pl. Haws; the seed of the white thorn.

Pigs-looze. s. A pigsty.

Pilch, Pilcher. s. A baby’s woollen clout.

Pill-coal. v. A kind of peat, dug most commonly out of rivers: peat obtained at a great depth, beneath a stratum of clay.

Pil’ler. s. a pillow.

Pilm. s. Dust; or rather fine dust, which readily floats in air.

Pink. s. A chaffinch.

Pip. s. A seed; applied to those seeds which have the shape of apple, cucumber seed, &c.; never to round, or minute seeds.

To Pitch. _v. a. To lay unhewn and unshaped stones together, so as to make a road or way.

_To Pitch_, in the West of England, is not synonymous with to pave. To pave, means to lay flat, square, and hewn stones or bricks down, for a floor or other pavement or footway. A paved way is always smooth and even; a pitched way always rough and irregular. Hence the distinguishing terms of Pitching and Paving.

Pit’is. adj. Piteous; exciting compassion.

Pit’hole. s. The grave.

To Pix, To Pixy. v. a. To pick up apples after the main crop is taken in; to glean, applied to an orchard only.

Pix’y. s. A sort of fairy; an imaginary being.

Pix’y-led. part. Led astray by pixies.

Plâd. v. Played.

Pla’zen. s. pl. Places.

To Plim. v. n. To swell; to increase in bulk.

Plough. s. The cattle or horses used for ploughing; also a waggon and horses or oxen.

Pock’fredden. adj. Marked in the face with small pox.

To Pog. v. n. and v. a. To thrust with the fist; to push.

Pog. s. A thrust with the fist; a push; an obtuse blow.

Pollyantice. s. Polyanthus.

To Pom’ster. v. n. To tamper with, particularly in curing diseases; to quack.

Pont’ed. part. Bruised with indentation. Any person wkose skin or body is puffed up by disease, and subject to occasional pitting by pressure, is said to be ponted; but the primary meaning is applied to fruit, as, a ponted apple; in both meanings incipient decay is implied.

Pook. s. The belly; the stomach; a vell.

Popple. s. A pebble: that is, a stone worn smooth, and more or less round, by the action of the waves of the sea.

Pottle-bellied. adj. Potbellied.

To Pooät, To Pote. v. a. To push through any confined opening, or hole.

Pooät-hole, Pote-hole. s. A small hole through which anything is pushed with a stick; a confined place.

Pooäty. adj. Confined, close, crammed.

Port’mantle. s. A portmanteau.

Poti’cary. s. An apothecary.

To Poun. v. To pound [to put into the pound, to “lock up”].

A Power of rain. A great deal of rain.

Pruv’d. v. Proved.

To pray. v. a. To drive all the cattle into one herd in a moor; to pray the moor, to search for lost cattle.

Prankin. s. Pranks.

Pud. s. The hand; the fist.

Pulk, Pulker. s A small shallow-place, containing water.

Pull-reed. s. [Pool reed.] A long reed growing in ditches and pools, used for ceiling instead of laths.

Pultry. . Poultry.

Pum’ple. adj. Applied only, as far as I know, in the compound word pumple-voot, a club-foot.

Put. s. A two-wheeled cart used in husbandry, and so constructed as to be turned up at the axle to discharge the load.

Pux’ie. s. A place on which you cannot tread without danger of sinking into it; applied most commonly to places in roads or fields where springs break out.

Pwint. s. Point.

Pwine-end

} The sharp-pointed end of a house, where the wall rises perpendicularly from the foundation. Pwinin-end./

Py’e. s. A wooden guide, or rail to hold by, in passing over a narrow wooden bridge.

 

Q.

 

Qu is in many words used instead of K.

Quare. adj. Queer; odd.

Quar’rel. s. [_Quarré_, French.] A square of window glass.

To Quar. v. a. To raise stones from a quarry.

Quar-man. s. A man who works in a quarry [_quar_].

Quine. s. Coin, money. A corner.

To Quine. v. a. To coin.

Quoin. Coin.

Quoit. Coit.

Qût (Quut). s. Coat.

 

R.

 

R in many words is wholly omitted, as, Arth. Coäse, Guth, He’äth, Pason, Vooath, Wuss, &c., for Earth, Coarse, Girth, Hearth, Parson, Forth, Worse.

 

To Rake Up. v. a. To cover; to bury. To rake the vier. To cover up the fire with ashes, that it may remain burning all night.

Rames. s. pl. The dead stalks of potatoes, cucumbers, and such plants; a skeleton.

Rams-claws. s. pl. The plant called gold cups; ranunculus pratensis.

Ram’shackle. adj. Loose; disjointed.

Ram’pin. part. Distracted, obstreperous: rampin mad, outrageously mad.

Ran’dy, Ran’din. s. A merry-making; riotous living.

Range. s. A sieve.

To Rangle. v. n. To twine, or move in an irregular or sinuous manner. Rangling plants are plants which entwine round other plants, as the woodbine, hops, etc.

Ran’gle. s. A sinuous winding.

Ras’ty. adj. Rancid: gross; obscene.

Ratheripe. adj. Ripening early. Rath. English Dictionary:

“The ratheripe wits prevent their own perfection.”

BP. HALL.

Raught. part. Reached.

Rawd. part. Rode.

To Rawn. v. a. To devour greedily.

Raw’ny. adj. Having little flesh: a thin person, whose bones are conspicuous, is said to be rawny.

To Ray. v. a. To dress.

To Read. v. a. To strip the fat from the intestines; to read the inward.

Read’ship. s. Confidence, trust, truth.

To Ream. v. a. To widen; to open.

Reamer. s. An instrument used to make a hole larger.

Re’balling. s. The catching of eels with earthworms attached to a ball of lead, hung by a string from a pole.

Reed. s. Wheat straw prepared for thatching.

Reen, Rhine. s. A water-course: an open drain.

To Reeve. v. a. To rivel; to draw into wrinkles.

Rem’let. s. A remnant.

Rev’el. s. A wake.

To Rig. v. n. To climb about; to get up and down a thing in wantonness or sport.

Hence the substantive rig, as used in John Gilpin, by COWPER.

“He little dreamt of running such a rig.”

To Rig. v. a. To dress.

Hence, I suspect, the origin of the rigging of a vessel.

 

Righting-lawn. Adjusting the ridges after the wheat is sown.

Rip. s. A vulgar, old, unchaste woman. Hence, most probably, the origin of Demirip.

Robin-Riddick. s. A redbreast. [Also Rabbin Hirddick; the r and i transposed.]

Rode. s. To go to rode, means, late at night or early in the morning, to go out to shoot wild fowl which pass over head on the wing.

To Rose. v. n. To drop out from the pod, or other seed vessel, when the seeds are over-ripe.

To Rough. v. a. To roughen; to make rough.

Round-dock. s. The common mallow; malva sylvestris.

Called round-dock from the roundness of its leaves. CHAUCER has the following expression which has a good deal puzzled the glossarists:

“But canst thou playin raket to and fro, Nettle in, Docke out, now this, now that, Pandare?”

Troilus and Cressida, Book IV.

The round-dock leaves are used at this day as a supposed remedy or charm for the sting of a nettle, by being rubbed on the stung part, with the following words:—

In dock, out nettle, Nettle have a sting’d me.

That is, Go in dock, go out nettle. Now, to play Nettle in Docke out, is to make use of such expedients as shall drive away or remove some previous evil, similar to that of driving out the venom of the nettle by the juice or charm of the dock.

 

Roz’im. s. A quaint saying; a low proverb. s. Rosin.

Rud’derish. adj. Hasty, rude, without care.

Ruf. s. A roof.

Rum. s. Room; space.

Rum’pus. s A great noise.

This word ought to be in our English Dictionaries.

Rungs. s. pl. The round steps of a ladder.

 

S.

 

The sound of S is very often converted into the sound of Z. Thus many of the following words, Sand-tot, Sar, Seed-lip, Silker, Sim, &c., are often pronounced Zand-tot, Zar, Zeeäd-lip, Zilker, Zim, &c.

 

Sâ‘cer-eyes. Very large and prominent eyes. [Saucer eyes.

Sand-tot. s. A sandhill.

To Sar. v. a. To serve—Toearn; as, I can sar but zixpence a day.

Sar’ment. s. A sermon.

Sar’rant. s. A servant.

Sar’tin. adj. Certain.

Sar’tinly. adv. Certainly.

Scad. s. A short shower.

Schol’ard. s. A scholar.

Scissis-sheer. s. A scissors-sheath.

Scollop. s. An indentation; notch; collop.

To Scollop. v. a. To indent; to notch.

Scoose wi’. Discourse or talk with you.

To Scot’tle. v. a. To cut into pieces in a wasteful manner.

Scrawf. s. Refuse.

Scrawv’lin. adj. Poor and mean, like scrawf.

Screed. s. A shred.

To Scrunch. v. a. and v. n. The act of crushing and bringing closer together is implied, accompanied with some kind of noise. A person may be said to scrunch an