»EltK6lEY \ 
 
 LIBRARY I 
 
 CALIFORNIA J 
 
'X 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 ALFRED L. ELWYN, M.D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 1859. 
 
LOAN STACB^ 
 
ES 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 This little work was undertaken to show liow much there 
 yet remains, in this country, of language and customs directly 
 brought from our remotest ancestry. It has been the 
 assumed privilege of English travelers and authors to twit 
 us upon the supposed peculiarity and oddity in our use of 
 words and phrases. An examination of the language of 
 their own country has convinced us that this satire was the 
 result of ignorance : those who made it were unacquainted 
 with the language and early literature of their own people, 
 and thence very naturally supposed that what they heard 
 here was affected, coined, or barbarous. The simple truth is, 
 that almost without exception all those words or phrases 
 that we have been ridiculed for using, are good old English ; 
 many of them are of Anglo-Saxon origin, and nearly all to be 
 heard at this day in England : a difference of circumstances 
 may have altered a little their application, but still not 
 enough to render our mode of employing them at all absurd. 
 It is, indeed, remarkable that we have made no violent or 
 outrageous alterations. It is another testimony to the almost 
 inflexible tenacity with which people hold to their language 
 
 (iii) 
 
 491 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 and tlieir liabits. In our case it is, no doubt, owing to 
 our remote situation tliat has prevented us feeling all those 
 fluctuations that come in the progress of an improving civili- 
 zation and the questionable innovations of fashion ; and it is 
 perhaps not far from the fact, that if one wished to know 
 how English was spoken two hundred years ago, in England, 
 he would find it out sooner by a visit to New than by any at- 
 tempts at discovery in Old England. The Yankees, or New 
 Euglanders, preserve, to a great extent, the mode of speak- 
 ing of their pilgrim parents; while in the land of their 
 fathers that has sunk into the obsolete, or subsided among 
 the dialects and provincialisms. This remark will not be 
 true much longer. The general spread of education, and the 
 frequent intercourse between all parts of the country and all 
 portions of society, is rapidly cutting away all peculiarities, 
 and producing a gradual assimilation in all directions. TVe 
 have none of those secluded spots, so common in England 
 even now, where, as if by a Chinese w'all, the outward pro- 
 gress of improvement is stayed, and a barricade is reared 
 against the irruption of new feelings or new fashions. These 
 are the strongholds of antiquity ; but we have none of them : 
 a few years will erase every trace of the manner of speaking 
 that has spread from Plymouth Eock over an empire. The 
 peculiarities to which we have alluded are almost exclusively 
 confined to New England. Her origin is purely English ; the 
 small amount of Irish or Scotch will not detract from the 
 truth of this assertion ; and it is among her people that we 
 are to look for those peculiar modes of speaking which distin- 
 guish her from her sister States, and as the true descendants 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 of Anglo-Saxon ancestors. In other parts of tlie country, 
 the language lias been modified by immigrants and by tlie mix- 
 ture of different nations, or from the class of immigrants being 
 different from those who peopled New England. Although 
 we have Dutch, Germans, Swedes, French, Spanish, Scotch, 
 and Irish, in different parts of the country, yet the English 
 language suffers but little, if at all, from this heterogeneous 
 mixture. The only difference as to language between any 
 part where other than English have settled, and New Eng- 
 land, is, that among the first there are fewer of what are 
 known here as Yankee peculiarities, or those words and 
 terms brought with them by the Puritans. A New Eng- 
 lauder is known anywhere in the United States as readily by 
 his manner of speaking, as a Scotchman would be in Lon- 
 don; not only his pronunciation is different, but his ac- 
 cent and his words. Even those who have the advantage 
 of a liberal education preserve some peculiarity. Some of 
 those who do not only New England honor, but the country, 
 retain something by which they are distinguished. Put is 
 pronounced with the u short, as in cut. There is an occa- 
 sional nasality, and an accent, and words are used that are 
 not used at all out of New England, or known only as Yan- 
 kee peculiarities. Dr. Johnson is an example of how firmly 
 these local or provincial peculiarities adhere to a man, how- 
 ever thorough his knowledge of his own language may be. 
 He always pronounced ''punch" poonc/i, being the mode of 
 his county, Staffordshire, or of that part where he was born. 
 In the Middle States, or the oldest parts of them, where 
 Dutch and Swedes preceded the English, though we may de- 
 1* 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 tect some distinguisliing characteristic, yet there are but few 
 in comparison with New England, and those are confined al- 
 most entirely to pronunciation ; there are few of what may 
 be termed provincialisms in use, and still fewer of those 
 words and phrases that carry us back to the earliest periods 
 of the English language. If we keep along the Atlantic, 
 and go South, where the original settlers were as much Eng- 
 lish as those of New England, and where there had been a 
 very small intermixture of any other people, though there 
 are marked peculiarities, yet they are still more those of ac- 
 cent and pronunciation than of the language. 'We know of 
 no way of distinguishing a citizen of Delaware or Maryland, 
 though we may know them to be of the South ; but a Vir- 
 ginian has his Shibboleth, that at once makes him known 
 as readily as if his birth-place were printed on his back. His 
 walk difiers from the rest of his fellow-citizens, and he has a 
 round, rolling, superfluity of speech, and puts more letters 
 into his words than is necessary or authorized by Webster. 
 *'By" is bcT/, "God" is Geord, (which may arise from some 
 peculiar habit, that makes it necessary for them to open 
 their mouths wider than the rest of mankind, and causes 
 that kind of large oral expression by which they are 
 so easily recognized.) If we cross the Alleghanies we 
 have another nation, made from the same material as their 
 older kinsmen, but still differing with their different circum- 
 stances. The people of Ohio, who are largely derived from 
 Yankees, are not remarkable for possessing their peculiarities. 
 The great number of modern English and other foreigners 
 who have mingled with the settlers from New England, have 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 broken down any Yankeeisms that might otherwise have 
 established themselves there. Indiana and Illinois contain 
 nothing' peculiar, nor perhaps Tennessee ; but Kentucky is 
 as marked as its progenitor, Yirginia. The people of that 
 State have not only preserved their ancestral oddities, but 
 multiplied them. Their very peculiar circumstances have 
 grafted a new and original language on the English they car- 
 ried with them. The want, for many years, of places of edu- 
 cation, of intercourse with the older cis-Alleghany communi- 
 ties, and the isolation in which individuals lived, even among 
 themselves, produced new and strange modes of expression. 
 With the rapid growth of population, the increase of wealth, 
 and improvement in all the arts of civilized life, all that is 
 passing away ; and the West, from the immigration of a more 
 modern class, from its want of old associations and attach- 
 ments to the past, will soon be without any of those distin- 
 guishing peculiarities in language that belong to, and will for 
 a long time adhere to, their Northern kindred. Notwith- 
 standing certain words and phrases may be found in this 
 country, yet we, having nothing that approaches a dialect, all 
 those are old words and old English, or far the larger por- 
 tion, and we have nothing of what may be called a "patois," 
 either indigenous or imported. 
 
 The Yankees use old English words, such as are as old as 
 Chaucer, and which may now be heard in England in those 
 districts where "modern degeneracy has not reached them" 
 , and driven them out. This is the great distinction between 
 this country and England. There, in almost every county, 
 there is a particular language, which is hardly understood by 
 
VUl PREFACE. 
 
 its adjoining neighbor ; here we have nothing like this. The 
 Rev. Mr. Boucher only distinguished two distinct divisions or 
 dialects of the English language in England, the North and 
 the West ; though, as we have just said, every county has 
 its own mode of speaking, which may, however, according 
 to the above gentleman, be considered as subsided particles 
 from some one of those divisions. But between the North 
 and West, the difference of language is so thorough, that a 
 native of the one cannot understand the native of the other. 
 A Cumberland or Westmoreland peasant could as well con- 
 verse with a Frenchman as with a Somersetshireman, and 
 these two would be equally perplexed at meeting a Norfolk, 
 Suffolk, or Cambridgeshireman. An interpreter would be as 
 necessary as with one of our tribes of Indians. This is true 
 of smaller and nearer divisions than counties ; it may be 
 found in districts, or minute parts of counties. The Rev. Mr. 
 Carr, author of a work on the "Craven Dialect," says: 
 "Though the dialect of the whole of this district (Craven) be 
 somewhat similar, there are still shades of difference in its pro- 
 nunciation; and many expressions and archaisms may be re- 
 tained in one parish which are unknown or nearly obsolete in 
 another." This district is a part of Yorkshire, thirty miles 
 long by about as many broad, containing twenty-five parishes 
 and 61,859 inhabitants ; and yet, small as it is, the people 
 probably find it difficult to understand each other. But there 
 are other parts of Yorkshire where other dialects are found, 
 Hallamshire, Halifax, etc., so that this county seems to have 
 as many tongues as the Indian tribes of this country; and 
 in Somersetshire we have the Exmoor dialect, which is unin- 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 telligible to the rest of the county, though it is but a very 
 small part; and in both of these places the language has 
 changed but little, if at all, for centuries. Mr. Carr asserts 
 "that the lapse of more than four centuries has had little 
 effect upon the language, that at the present day, and at the 
 very same spot, (Langstroth,) the Craven dialect is spoken in 
 the like degree of purity as it was in the days of Chaucer ;" 
 and from the want of some standard in common conversation, a 
 disposition exists to coin words for the occasion. This remark- 
 able state of things must be understood to exist only among 
 the lower classes ; the better educated, except by some slight 
 accent, would hardly be distinguished wherever they might 
 be born. This is a strong argument in favor of the respecta- 
 ble station in society of our ancestors, that they appear to 
 have brought with them none of these dialects, but spoke the 
 common English of the day. Many were from Cornwall, 
 that has or had a language of its own, which was spoken 
 among its lower classes till within fifty years, though now it 
 is said to be entirely obliterated. Many were from Devon- 
 shire, which, though it possessed no distinct language, yet 
 had a peculiar way of speaking English, that still remains ; 
 and, in traveling through that county, a Yankee feels almost 
 at home, from the similarity between the language, accent, 
 etc. of its people and those of his own country; but in 
 other parts of England, he recognizes very little that pro- 
 duces this feeling of being at home ; while in Cumberland 
 or Westmoreland, he would faDcy himself among people as 
 remote from English as if among the Esquimaux. It would 
 not be easy, if we take words as the indices of one's place 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 of descent, to decide from the various glossaries, whence the 
 larger number of the first settlers of this country came ; 
 that is, whether from one part of England more than another. 
 Almost every glossary contains some of those words now in 
 use in New England, though, on the whole, the North of Eng- 
 land's vocabulary contains the most, and the East Anglia the 
 next largest number. From the West of England ports, be- 
 ing, at the time of the pilgrimage of the Puritans, those of 
 the most business, large numbers sailed ; but there is no evi- 
 dence that the people of that quarter were, from that cause, 
 induced to come here more than from any other district. 
 Devonshire never appears to have been much troubled with 
 religion or political contention. Her population being agri- 
 cultural, and withdrawn from the strifes of the more thickly 
 populated districts, seem always to have been too comfortable 
 to feel the necessity of immigration. It is the same now, and 
 an immigrant from that quarter is an uncommon person. Still, 
 there must have been considerable numbers, from some cause 
 or other, found their way to this country from that county. 
 And it is proper to draw such an inference from the similarity 
 we have mentioned existing between that part of England 
 and New England, in tone and accent. The shrill tone of 
 voice that has been observed among our people is a. North 
 of England peculiarity, or, to speak with more propriety, be- 
 longs to certain parts of the North. The nasality that is 
 also charged to us may be a remnant of that whine which 
 was considered as distinguishing Roundheads from Cava- 
 liers, and as adopted by the Puritans, perhaps as expres- 
 sive of submission and sanctity — it being certainly a tone 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 far removed from the free, open, bold, bluff speecb of their 
 opponents. The frequent use, too, of the phraseology of 
 Scripture, as if in opposition to the more secular discourse of 
 courtiers and cavaliers, preserved this peculiarity ; and it is 
 not unlikely that this custom has also preserved the old 
 words and old customs, by keeping up in the mind of each 
 generation a sense of being distinct in character and origin 
 from any other portion of the continent. There is, however, 
 a small share of nasality at the South, which must be ac- 
 counted for in some other way, as her peculiarities are cer- 
 tainly not from Puritanism. It may come from the climate, 
 that from its relaxing effects produces a languor and indo- 
 lence, through which the air from the lungs, instead of being 
 ejected strongly and vigorously from the mouth, warbles with 
 a faint emission by the nose. But the chief reason why we 
 have, and continue to have, the various strange and odd modes 
 of using language and of utterance, is, that we have no stand- 
 ard for either. The people of England have Parliament, 
 filled with men of the best education, to be their standard ; 
 the people of this country will hardly look to their National 
 Legislature for an example in the use of language or of na- 
 tional refinement. 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 OF 
 
 SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Able, for rich, as ''he is accounted very dbUy I have 
 only heard this word in Chester County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 A Company-keeper, Holloway says, means, in Nor- 
 folk, a lover. To "keep company," is the phrase in 
 New England, among a certain class, for what is 
 called courting, or, among the very refined, address- 
 ing. I have never heard this expression, a "com- 
 pany-keeper." 
 
 Admire. This word may be frequently heard in the 
 sense of "I should like;" as, "I should admire to see 
 him; to go to Rome," etc. ; but, I believe, confined to 
 New England. In the sense of to "wonder at," as, " I 
 admire at you," it may sometimes be heard ; for this 
 there is the authority of Beaumont and Fletcher, in 
 the "Nice Yalour:" "The m.ore I admire your flinti- 
 ness." 
 
 Afeard, for afraid. This word, that most suppose to 
 be a corruption of afraid, is an old Saxon word, and 
 2 (13) 
 
14 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 used frequently by Shakspeare, who does not use the 
 other. 
 
 Ste. Ila! I have not 'scaped drovrning, to be afeard now 
 of your four legs ! 
 
 Trin. Be not afeard, — thy good friend, Ti'inculo. 
 
 Ste. He ^that dies, pays all debts : I defy thee : mercy 
 upon us. 
 
 Cal. Art thou afeard? 
 
 Ste. No, monster, not I. 
 
 Cal. Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises. — Tempest. 
 
 For be he lewed man or elles lered, 
 
 He n'ot how soon that he shall ben afered. 
 
 Chaucer: Doctoure's Tale, line 12,218. 
 
 Was the gentleman afeard to declare his matters openly ? 
 
 Beu. and Fletcher's Night Walker. 
 
 Afore, for before; now only heard among the unedu- 
 cated, was used by Chaucer ; also, afore long, for ere 
 long. This is in the Craven Dialect. Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's "Night Walker :" "Go you afore, and let 
 the ladies follow." The word is universally used in 
 these authors. 
 
 Agean, or AGIN, for against, in old English, agen. "Agin 
 that time come," may be heard in the country every 
 day. Agin for again is also common : " try it agin.^^ 
 Also for against : "it stands agin that door." It is 
 used in several parts of England in the same way. 
 
 Aggravate, to irritate. Forby, in his "Vocabulary 
 of East Anglia," has this word as common in several 
 parts of England. " He aggravated my temper," I 
 have often heard in New England. 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 15 
 
 A KINK. A person odd, eccentric, and not easily un- 
 derstood by commonplace people, is said to have a 
 kink. It is known in England and here in this sense, 
 but is used there in others altogether unknown here. 
 "A kink in one's neck," is common to both countries; 
 but "(2 kink of laughter," is peculiar to the Old Coun- 
 try. A spell of laughter is our word. 
 
 Alley, among several other meanings, has that of a 
 , marble. "A white alley, ^^ may be heard from every 
 school-boy in the marble season. It is an abbrevia- 
 tion of alabaster, of which these toys were once 
 made. 
 
 All hollow. He beat him hollow, or he was beaten 
 all holloiv, are both common here. Its derivation is 
 not clear, unless hollow be a corruption of wholly. 
 Some old writers spell it holly, and hole (whole.) 
 
 All one. This is a common expression for indiffer- 
 ence, as, "it is all one to me." Skelton's phrase, ''we 
 are all one,^^ meaning we are all of one mind, is in 
 use as we are all one on that point. 
 
 Allow. I have only found this in " Tom Clodpole's 
 Journey to Lunnun," one of those various dialectic 
 poems which adorn English literature. 
 
 *' He ^loioed he ge me half a crown, 
 And treat me wud sum beer, 
 If I wud make it up wud him, 
 And let un goo off clear." 
 
 This establishes it as an old Sussex provincialism. In 
 the County of Chester, Pennsylvania, there is a use 
 of this word that seems peculiar ; it is rather in the 
 
16 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 sense of assent than admit. " He alloiced that he 
 would come from town on Thursday," in the sense of 
 he thought it probable. "Do you think he can finish 
 that work to day ?" '' He allows that he can." 
 
 All i' BITS. (Craven Glossary.) The Yankees say all 
 to bits, as, "it was stove all to bits.^^ All to pieces, 
 as a synonym, we often hear; it is a Suffolk expression. 
 
 All that's left of him. This phrase, that we often 
 hear, is in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Thierry and 
 Theodoret:"— 
 
 " De Vitry, I take it." 
 
 Be V. "All ihafsleft of him." 
 
 The very form in which we so often hear it. Shak- 
 speare has a similar expression in "Hamlet." 
 
 Anan. Is used often by Natty Bumppo ; but only occa- 
 sionally heard, so far as my experience goes, among 
 his countrymen of the present day. It is common in 
 England, instead of ivhat, or what do you say, and I 
 have heard it in Chester County, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Anent. (Derbyshire and North of England.) I have 
 heard this word, in this country, from a farmer of 
 Chester County, Pennsylvania. His ancestors came 
 from Staffordshire. It is also used in Scotland, though 
 asserted in Johnson's Dictionary to be of Saxon ori- 
 gin. Also, for enent, may be heard sometimes in this 
 quarter. 
 
 Apple-pie order. (Craven Glossary.) This common 
 phrase I met in no other provincial glossary. It is 
 common in New England. " Things were in apple- 
 pie order," meaning neatly arranged. 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. It 
 
 As. This is often used for the relative that: "Nobody 
 as I heard on," A Herefordshire glossary gives it 
 in the same sense. 
 
 As LEAN AS A RAKE. This common expression has 
 kept its place since Chaucer. Skelton has it, too. 
 Whether rake means here one emaciated by disease, 
 or the implement known to all, or a cur dog, as Dr. 
 Johnson has it, we will not decide. 
 
 Ater, for after, is used in England, and we have in- 
 herited it, whether an old word or not. I do not 
 know whether it is employed by any old writer. 
 
 Ax, for ask, so common in this country, and supposed 
 to be a corruption, is pure Saxon, and used by some 
 of the best old English writers. Chaucer spells it axe. 
 Acisan is the Ansrlo-Saxon. 
 
 '»' 
 
 B. 
 
 Bace, or BASE. Prison base, or bars, was a game 
 played by school-boys in our time, and is probably still 
 played in New England ; it is an old amusement, and 
 is mentioned by Spenser and Shakspeare. It appears 
 to exist still in England, and Nare's Glossary gives 
 an account of it. Our manner of playing it was much 
 changed from that of our ancestors. There were no 
 opposite parties in our game, but the boys separated 
 from a certain goal, or base, leaving one of their 
 number at it; at a given signal he was to go in 
 search of them, and pursue and if possible overtake 
 one, who then took his place at the goal ; but if all 
 2* 
 
18 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 got back to the base without being touched, then the 
 same boy must take his chance again. Its great 
 amusement was in being a trial of speed. Strutt 
 says that it was known as early as the time of 
 Edward III. 
 
 Bad, or badly, for sichness. "I feel quite 6a<i," is a 
 common expression in this country. The comparative 
 hadder is a Saxon word ; though it would be used 
 now only by the ignorant. 
 
 Baginet, for bayonet. (Jenning's Dialects of the West 
 of England.) We often have this word pronounced 
 this way in this country. 
 
 Ball. This, as a source of amusement, is as old as 
 Homer. The daughter-of Alcinous played ball with 
 her maidens, after a sea-bath, on the shores of her 
 father's island, of which the account in the Odyssey, 
 with the attending circumstances, is very pretty and 
 ' enticing. It appears to have been .known in England 
 more than six hundred years. Few of the games of 
 ball in this country are the same as those in England. 
 The one we used to call ''bat and 6aZ/," may be an 
 imperfect form of cricket, though we played this in the 
 same or nearly the same manner as in England, which 
 would make it probable that the "bat and balV^ was 
 a game of Yankee invention. It was played in this 
 way': sides were chosen, not limited to any particular 
 number, though seldom more than six or eight ; the 
 toss up of a cent decided who should have the first 
 innings. The individual who was first chosen, of the 
 side that was in, took the bat and his position at a cer- 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 19 
 
 tain assigned spot. One of his adversaries stood at a 
 given distance in front of him to throw the hall, and 
 another behind him to throw back the hall if it were 
 not struck, or to catch it, or in any way to assist in 
 getting the advantage of his opponents. After the 
 hall was struck, the striker was to run ; stones were 
 placed some thirty or forty feet apart, in a circle,^ 
 and he was to touch each one of them, till he got 
 back to the front from which he started. If the hall 
 was caught by any of the opposite party who were 
 in the field, or, if not caught, was thrown at and hit 
 the boy who was trying to get back to his starting 
 place, their party was in; and the boy who caught the 
 hall, or hit his opponent, took his bat. A good deal 
 of the fun and excitement consisted in the hall not 
 having been struck to a sufficient distance to admit 
 of the striker running round before the hall was in 
 the hands of his adversaries. If his successor struck 
 it, he must run, and take his chance, evading the hall 
 as well as he could by falling down or dodging it. 
 While at the goals he could not be touched; only 
 in the intervals between them. Trap-hall was not 
 common, but sometimes seen. "Cat" was common. 
 Strutt mentions three forms of this game; we only 
 played one. Moor gives kit-kat as a common game 
 in Suffolk, which appears the same as our "cat," ex- 
 cept that it is played with a stick, while we used the 
 hall. Foot-hall was also common; and to some, the 
 writer among the number, the most exciting of all 
 the boyish sports. It brought out, occasionally. 
 
20 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 pretty ferocious feelings, and led to frequent combats, 
 as no boy liked a severe kick without making some re- 
 turn ; and very naturally mistook a sharp blow on the 
 shin as a personal offence. There was also a game 
 of nine-holes, with the hall. Strutt has a game of 
 this name, but in no way the same. Fives I have 
 seen here, but never in New England. These are all 
 the games with the hall that I have known in this 
 country. 
 
 Banging, for great, large. (South of England.) I also 
 find it, in a Glossary of North Country Words, used 
 in the same sense. Thumping is a synonym. A 
 hanging big fellow, and a thinnping big baby, are 
 common expressions here. The derivation of the 
 word is not stated. Bang, a blow, is common, though 
 the analogy between this and the other word is not 
 clear, unless that banging is beating, a common word 
 for excelling. In Suffolk, England, they have a 
 cheese so hard as to be called bang or thump. We 
 find thumping in the Exmoor Dialect, meaning great, 
 huge. 
 
 Barra, or BARROW, a hog. I take this from the Ex- 
 moor Dialect, published in the ''Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine" for 1*746. It is a very familiar word to all New 
 Englandmen. Exmoor Forest is in Somersetshire, on 
 the Bristol Channel ; a wild, uncultivated district. 
 
 Barme, yeast. (Kent and Ireland.) It is in common 
 use, in New England, in the same sense. Shakspeare 
 has it in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and it is also 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 21 
 
 used by Lord Bacon. Origin, Welsh and Saxon. 
 Chaucer has it berme. 
 
 *' Of tarte, alum glas, berme, wert and argoils." 
 
 Baste, to Jlog, or beat. Holloway gives this as used 
 both in the North and South of England. He de- 
 rives it from the French bastoner. To baste one, or 
 to give one a basting, is common here. There is a 
 culinary operation under this name that perhaps may 
 be the parent of this word. 
 
 Bauk, or BALK, a beam. Balked, disappointed, as if a 
 beam were in the way. These words are in common 
 use in the sense of checked, or being checked. A 
 balking horse everybody knows the meaning of, who 
 has had anything to do with that animal ; though the 
 word does not seem to be so applied in England. 
 This expression may be considered as peculiar. 
 
 Ben, for been, is in Chaucer, and may be heard very 
 commonly here. 
 
 Besom, a broom. (North of England.) I have heard it 
 but once, that I remember, in this country, from some 
 country dame, no doubt. Of Saxon origin; and 
 found in that best repository of thorough English, the 
 Bible. 
 
 Better, for more than, is common in New England, as, 
 ^'better than ten bushels;" and I also find it in the 
 Herefordshire Glossary. 
 
 Bide, to stay or stop. Will you not bide ? I have heard, 
 but not frequently. 
 
 Bile, for boil, is from Essex. 
 
22 GLOSSARY or SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Blather. Sometimes heard here in the sense in which 
 Skelton has it, loud talking or disputing. It is still 
 known in Northamptonshire. 
 Blirt, to cry. (North of England.) "To hlii^t out," is 
 not an uncommon expression for some peculiarity of 
 speaking, or mode of communication. It was for- 
 merly used in the sense of "a fig for." 
 Blunt, for money, is in a little work on the "Sheffield 
 
 Dialect." It is in common use here. 
 Bob up and down. This may be found in Chaucer as 
 the name of a town. 
 
 " We te ye not where stancleth a litel town 
 Which that ycleped is Bob Up and Down, 
 Under the blee in Canterbury way." 
 
 To hob, in the dictionary, means to play to and fro, 
 as is done in fishing. Bobbing up and down is "mov- 
 ing up and down." Whether our common expression 
 comes from the town, or whether the town was so 
 called from being a place through which every one 
 passed up and down from London to Dover, is a 
 question we know not how to settle. 
 
 Bobbery, for noise, confusion, is frequent here. Moor 
 gives it as in use in Suffolk, though not an old phrase, 
 but as of frequent use in India. 
 
 Bodily. To press anything down bodily, is to press 
 it in a mass or altogether. This is not a common 
 word here, though I have heard it in Yirginia. It is 
 not frequent in England, as Tod, nor Walker, nor 
 Bailey have it ; but it is in the Craven Dialect, where 
 it means wholly, entirely; but in Pegge's work it 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 23 
 
 means, ''with all one's strength." The first is nearer 
 the way in which I have heard it applied. 
 
 Boggle, to hesitate. In this sense, this word may be 
 heard occasionally. Its root is a Celtic word, meaning 
 a goblin or ghost ; thence comes hogle and bug-bear. 
 
 BooBY-HUTCH. Forby's definition: a clumsy and ill- 
 contrived carriage, or seat. A carriage-body put on 
 runners and used as a sleigh was called, in New Eng- 
 land, a booby-hut; whether sucji a carriage is seen 
 now, or whether the word, with the vehicle, is also 
 obsolete, I know not. Hutch has several meanings in 
 England; in Kent, it means a small cart. Vide Tod's 
 Johnson. 
 
 Boss. This word, peculiar to this country, I had never 
 heard till used by Matthews, in his "Jonathan W. 
 Doubekins." It struck me as strangely, no doubt, as 
 it did him. Its origin I do not know ; it may be from 
 borsholder, which is, in Tod's Johnson, a kind of 
 magistrate, or justice of the peace, among the Sax- 
 ons, and still known under this name in some parts of 
 England. The Borselder, meaning the head of the 
 little district, or bor, is still heard in England in the 
 sense of neighbor ; one of the same bor. I find this 
 word in Ben Jonson, meaning a reservoir for water : 
 *'That unctous bounty is the boss of Billingsgate." 
 
 Time Vindicated. 
 
 It is in Bailey. But it is more probably a Dutch 
 word, or part of a Dutch word. 
 BoosY, for drunk. We say one is boosy, who is drunk, 
 or near it. Skelton has it for bloated : ''Her face all 
 
24 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS 
 
 hoosyy Hollo way derives this from huyssen, a Bel- 
 gian word, meaning to drink. Kent and East Sussex 
 are its English localities, but it ranges over the whole 
 of this country. 
 
 Born days. "In all my horn days I never seed the 
 beat of that;" this common Yankee phrase is also 
 Yorkshire, though it is generally used to give force to 
 
 • an exclamation. 
 
 Botch. Is used hoi-e both as a substantive and verb. 
 A thing badly done is a hotch, or such a business has 
 been botched. In parts of Yorkshire, a hotch means 
 a cobbler. It is said to be derived from a Gothic 
 word, meaning to mend. 
 
 Bowling.' We have nothing under this name. The 
 game known as nine-pins, though played with ten 
 pins, is the same as that mentioned by Strutt, under 
 the name of " long hoivling," except that his game is 
 played along the ground, and ours along plank ; and 
 instead of the pins being placed on a frame, as in his, 
 they are arranged at the end of this plank. This is 
 about sixty feet long, and six wide ; the balls are made 
 of lignum->ita3, and large ; and, after being thrown at 
 the pins, are returned by a long trough, and fall into 
 a box placed to receive them. Sides are chosen ; each 
 player throws or rolls three balls, and the number 
 of pins he knocks doAvn are placed to his account; 
 and when the whole number of players have played 
 through, then the success of each is added up, and 
 that side is victorious which have knocked down the 
 most pins. It is a game not to be highly commended, 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 25 
 
 as the great advantage of exercise is lost by being 
 played under cover, and by the time each one has to 
 wait before his turn comes. It is generally, too, a 
 mode of dissipation encouraged by tavern-keepers, to 
 whose precincts these nine-pin alleys, as they are fre- 
 frequently called, are generally attached. It is ex- 
 tremely common in New England, there being hardly 
 a tavern in the neighborhood of a town that has not 
 one of these inducements to idleness and apologies for 
 drinking and small gambling. There are many minor 
 games, played by boys, that have not been altered, 
 but played in New England as they are now, and have 
 been for ages in old England. 
 
 Bran, or brand-new. This word, that is so very com- 
 mon, originally meant anything new or just made, but 
 it is more generally applied to new clothes, from their 
 glossy appearance, given by the tailor's hot goose. 
 Brant, or hran, is an old word for burn. Brandy 
 comes from it. In ''Beaumont and Fletcher" it is 
 called brandewine, no doubt burnt wine. It is said 
 that this name was given to the Brandywine River, 
 from distilleries of that liquor on that stream. In 
 Beaumont and Fletcher's ''Beggar's Bush," a cha- 
 racter {Clause) cries out, "Buy any brandewine? 
 buy any brandewine ?" Brandewine is the Dutch 
 for brandy, whence, probably, the name of the river. 
 Shakspeare's word "fire-new." is the same as brand- 
 new. 
 
 Brewis. This word, in England, means a crust of bread 
 thrown into a pot where salt-beef is boiling. Some 
 3 
 
26 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 old writers use it for broth. In New England, in our 
 school days, it meant flinty crusts of rye and Indian 
 bread softened with milk and eaten with molasses. 
 They had a custom, in the North of England, of run- 
 ning for the broose at weddings ; it is the same word. 
 
 Brisk tjp. "Come, brisk up," applied to one who 
 seems sad; also, "he's brisken up at last," are fre- 
 quent in New England. The last expression is in the 
 Craven Dialect. 
 
 Bumble-bee. By some this word, common to both 
 countries, is derived from the noise the bee makes in 
 flying ; others derive it from a Teutonic word, bom- 
 mele, a drone. Humble-bee, as it is sometimes called, 
 is also derived from the humming noise that it makes 
 in flying. See Tod's Johnson. 
 
 Bumping. In England, this means a particular sort of 
 punishment, used among school-boys. " Cobbing," is 
 another word for the same thing. In our school-days, 
 in New England, it was employed upon all new-comers, 
 as a kind of greeting or introduction to their com- 
 panions. Whether it exists anywhere now, we do not 
 know. At the school to which we allude, it was 
 dropped about 1811 or 1818. There was no pain in 
 the operation, unless there was resistance, or some one 
 of the bumpers had a private animosity to gratify 
 Under what circumstances it is employed, in England, 
 we do not know ; hei^e it seems to have been intended 
 to imply something like the granting the freedom of a 
 corporation. "Washing" was another of the customs 
 at the New England seminary. This was in winter. 
 
GLOSSARY or SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 21 
 
 the other the sahitation of other parts of the year. 
 It consisted in plunging the freshman into a snow- 
 drift and rubbing his face with snow. Grose, in his 
 Classical Dictionary, says that humpmg was a cere- 
 mony performed on boys perambulating the bounds 
 of the parish on Whitmonday, when they were 
 humped against the stones marking the boundary, in 
 order to fix them on their memory. According to 
 Moor, humjnng is practiced in Suffolk, as a punish- 
 ment among school-boys. The manner of perform 
 ing this evolution seems the same in both countries, 
 though with us it was not always designed as a 
 punishment, but as a kind of informal introduction to 
 the privileges of companionship. 
 
 Bung your eye, for diHnk a dram. Strictly speaking, 
 to drink till one's eye is bunged up, or closed. (Class. 
 Diet.) This cant phrase I have never heard ; but boys 
 at school said, "I'll hung your eye," meaning to strike 
 one in the eye, the consequence of which was generally a 
 hunged eye, that is, so swollen as to be closed up. It 
 is derived, no doubt, from hung, which came from a 
 
 ^ Welsh word that means a stopple. — Tod's Johnson. 
 
 Burying, for a funeral; as, ''he is gone to a hurying,^^ 
 is heard often in New England, and in several parts 
 of England. 
 
 Butter-fingered. Mr. Carr defines this as one who is 
 afraid of touching a heated vessel or instrument; Mr. 
 Brockett, "one who lets things slip from his fingers." 
 This was our mode of applying the expression. A boy 
 who did not catch his ball was called hutter-fingered. 
 
28 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cake, or cakey, a foolish fellow. (Class. Diet.) Oc- 
 casionally heard here. 
 
 Cant, to set upon edge. (Forby.) This is our mode of 
 using it. 
 
 Catch. This is pronounced, in New England, ketch. 
 It is also so pronounced in parts of England, and is a 
 pronunciation as old as Chaucer. In Essex they say 
 kitch. 
 
 " Lord ! trowe ye that a coveitous wretche 
 That blameth love, and hath of it despite 
 That of the pens that he can mueke and hetche.^^ 
 
 Troilus and Cresida, book iii., 1375. 
 
 He also, in another place, spells it catche. There 
 appears a disposition, in certain of the more Anglo- 
 Saxon parts of England, to turn short a into short e, 
 as bed for bad. They have their authority in some of 
 the oldest writers in the language. I have never 
 heard bad so pronounced ; but gether, for gather, is 
 common, and is brought from our English ancestors, 
 who took it from a very remote source. A is also 
 changed in calf, as keaff; in care, as keer, and some- 
 times ker; chair is called cheer; rather, ruther; 
 farther, further and furder; marsh, mash; harsh, 
 hash; scarce, source. All these peculiarities in the 
 use of a are common in parts of England, and we 
 have preserved them. E in several words becomes a, 
 as mar chant, sarmon, arrand, varmin; y alter, for 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 29 
 
 yellow. The diphthong ea is made a in some cases : 
 arnest, for earnest; lam, for learn; earth becomes 
 airth; deaf, deef. Suffolk and Norfolk are the por- 
 
 ~ tions of the mother country to which we are indebted 
 for these seeming oddities, though really ancient modes 
 of speaking. 
 
 Cat's cradle, or scratch cradle. This is a well- 
 known game among children, in this country as well 
 as in England. I find it mentioned in only one of the 
 works on British provincialisms in my possession. Brit- 
 ton's "Provincial Words of Wiltshire and the Adja- 
 cent Counties." This is curious, as this game is known 
 everywhere here, and Wiltshire is one of the inland 
 counties of England, and one from which few proba- 
 bly have ever emigrated to this country, at least in 
 comparison with the sea-board counties. Whether this 
 child's sport is, then, as common in England as here, 
 admits of a doubt. 
 
 Cave, to fall into a hollow beloiv. (Forby.) We mean, 
 by caving, the falling in of any excavation, as the 
 banks of a ditch, or sides of a grave. A very hungry 
 traveler made a very expressive application of the 
 word, by saying his stomach was so empty that he 
 thought he should cave in. 
 
 Cawkers. The hind part of a horse's shoe, sharpened 
 and turned downward, to prevent the animal from 
 slipping. (Brockett.) This is, no doubt, the word 
 we call corks. We also say corked shoes, when the 
 horse's shoes are sharpened in winter. In some parts 
 of England it is spelled cawkins. 
 3* 
 
30 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Char, or choor. Doing little chores^ is a common ex- 
 pression in New England. It means more an errand 
 than any kind of work. But in England it is applied 
 to the humbler kinds of house-labor, as well as to 
 going errands. A char-woman is a frequent visitor 
 to English families in days of extra labor. It is used 
 in the North and West of England. The word is 
 in Shakspeare, and in Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 "Here's two chewers chewred^ 
 
 Cure for Love. 
 " Set lier to her chare.'''' 
 
 Middleton's Honest Whore. 
 "Now, for his conjuring, the witches of Lapland are tlie 
 devil's chair-toomen to him." — Beau, and Fletcfier's Fair 
 Maid of the Inn. 
 
 Chaw, a vulgar word for cheio. Is universal in New 
 England among those least attentive to the propriety 
 of language. "Give me a c/iait; of tobacco." Walker 
 has it, and the Craven Dialect, so that it is probably 
 an old word, though I remember no authority for it.^ 
 
 Chill, to take off extreme coldness from any beverage, 
 by placing it near the fire in frosty weather. (Forby.) 
 We do not say to chill cold water, but we say to take 
 off the chill. As a verb, I do not remember to have 
 heard' c7i27?. The participle chilled, is common. "He 
 was chilled by sitting in the cold church." Chilly, wq 
 use, as, "I feel chilly, ^^ for a morbid sensation of 
 something less than cold. 
 
 Chimlay, for .chimney, and sometimes pronounced 
 chimbley. We have derived it from the North of 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 31 
 
 England; also chimney -piece, for mantel; both of 
 which are the common words of New England. 
 Chip of the old block. Is a universal North Country 
 expression. * 
 
 "How well dost tliou now appear to be a chip of the old 
 j;oc^."_Milton's Prose Works, p. 347, edition of 1697, folio. 
 
 Chopping boy, for a strong, hearty child, is from that 
 part of England ; also chuckle-headed, for stupid. 
 
 Chouder, a sea-dish, composed of fresh fish, salt 
 pork, herbs, and sea-biscuits, laid in different layers 
 and stewed together. (Class. Diet.) This is a well- 
 known dish in New England, though we had supposed 
 it peculiar ; an indigenous invention ; it is a savory 
 and wholesome dish. 
 
 Chuck. We very seldom hear this word with Macbeth's 
 affectionate meaning. As a verb, in the sense of "to 
 throw," as chuck it here, it is common in New Eng- 
 land ; chuck full, or, as it is more generally pro- 
 nounced, chock full, implying very full, is also com- 
 mon there. This is noticed in Hunter's Hallamshire 
 Glossary, but in no other work. There are various 
 meanings given to it, in Tod's Johnson, but no one 
 that approaches this use of it. Chuck full is in Essex, 
 also. 
 Chump, a small block of wood. This is probably the 
 same word that we call chunk in New England. Brit- 
 ton and Forby have it. Ghunk is a strong piece of 
 wood, in Persian. See Westons's work. Our word 
 chunk and junk may come from it. 
 Clap. ''Clap yourself down," is not an unfrequent 
 
32 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 way of asking one to take a seat. It is a familiar 
 and not a formal expression. I find it in "Wilbraham's 
 Glossary of Cheshire Words, where it is supposed to 
 be of French origin, from se clapper, to squat as 
 rabbits do. 
 
 Clap-board. This is the name of the boards of which 
 the houses of New England are built. They are three 
 or four feet long, made of pine, and thinner on one side 
 than the other. These form the sides ; those of the roof 
 are called shingles. Why they are called clap-hoards, 
 I do not know. In the North of England, they make 
 a bread called clap-hread, from its being clapped 
 with the hand. The board with which it is clapped 
 is known as a clap-hoard ; whether this, by its shape, 
 suggested our word, I am unable to decide. 
 
 Clean. I find this in none of the glossaries but Nares's. 
 It is very common in New England, in the same 
 sense as used by Shakspeare in "Comedy of Errors." 
 "It went clean through from one side of the room to 
 the other." 
 
 Clip, a hlow. To hit one a clip), is no uncommon -pro- 
 ceeding here. I know of no authority for the word. 
 Bailey has clop, for blow. 
 
 Clout, for a hloiv on the head. Though an old word, I 
 have heard it but once in this country. Its other 
 meanings we have kept as we had them from our an- 
 cestors, i.e. a kitchen-cloth, etc. 
 
 Clumpers. Ver^y thich and heavy shoes. Forby, who 
 says wooden shoes are so called in Holland, gives 
 a Belgic word, klonipem, for its origin. We used 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 33 
 
 the word, as boys, in the above sense. Shoes with 
 thick soles we called a ''real pair of dumpers." 
 
 Clutches. Appears to be peculiar to the North of 
 England. We continue to make use of it in the sense 
 it has there, that of a strong gripe or hold upon some 
 one. "I should not like to get into his clutches." 
 
 Clutter, for confusion. The things are all in a clut- 
 ter. Forby has it in the same sense. 
 
 Cob. Corn-cob, with us, means the receptacle on which 
 the seeds of Indian-corn grow. We say, "ears of 
 corn," before the grains are removed; but after, corn- 
 cobs. ■ There is a word, cobs, meaning the top, or 
 head, of anything, which may be the origin of this; 
 though, in England, they say a cob-horse, and apply 
 it to a low, thick-set animal. 
 
 Cognizance. This may be sometimes heard in the sense 
 of notice, as, "I would take no cognizance of that, if 
 I were you." Its proper meaning is, judicial notice. 
 " Our laws take no cognizance ;" but it has descended 
 from legal to social application. 
 
 Conceit, used for conceive ; as, " I conceited that it was 
 so-and-so;" also, "I had no conceit on it." I have 
 only heard it in Pennsylvania, but never, I think, in 
 New England. The Hereford Glossary has it. In 
 Middleton's "Mayor of Queenborough," this word is 
 used in this sense, " I've no conceit, now, you ever 
 loved me;" also, in the same play, in the same sense 
 as quickness of apprehension. It does not seem to im- 
 ply fondness, as in England. "Out of conceit of so- 
 and-so," means, there, dislike; here, rather, "I have 
 lost my good opinion of." The verb is known, too, 
 
34 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 as, "I never conceited lie would do such a thing," 
 meaning supposed or imagined. 
 
 Co'SCER'S, to meddle with. (Hereford Glossary.) It may- 
 be heard in this sense in all the northern part of this 
 country. " Don't concern with that ;" "I wish to have 
 no concern with him, or it." "But those she-fowlers 
 nothing concern us," is in Middleton's "Mayor of 
 Queenborough." 
 
 Corned. (Class. Diet.) A common word for a common 
 condition in New England. Chaucer has a word, 
 .corny, strong of the malt; a man corny, would be 
 one who had drank ale strong of the malt, thence 
 comes, very naturally, corny. Corned is still used in 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, England. 
 
 Cowlick, or calflick. This is applied to a portion of 
 the hair that persists very obstinately in preserving a 
 particular and independent position on the head. In 
 Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, he says 
 that " this term must have been adopted from a com- 
 parison with that part of a calf's or cow's hide where 
 the hairs, having different directions, meet and form 
 a projecting ridge, supposed to be occasioned by the 
 animals licking themselves." 
 
 Creachy. This word I have never heard but once, and 
 from a farmer in Pennsylvania, all whose ances- 
 tors were Quakers, of Welsh origin. I know of no- 
 thing like it in any dialect. It seems a corruption of 
 creaking, and was applied to a very fat ox, whose 
 legs were getting a little creachy. 
 
 Cracker. This word, which is applied to a particular 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 35 
 
 kind of biscuit, we have heard accomplished English- 
 men debate as to what could be its origin. There is 
 a cake called, in some parts of England, a cracknel, 
 which some have thought it derived from ; there is 
 also a small baking-dish called a cracker. But the 
 word seems to us to speak for itself, and to be so 
 called from cracking, or crackling, in the mouth. 
 Bailey defines cracker, a crust. 
 
 Crinkle crunkle, to lorinkle; cringle crangle, zig- 
 zag. Holloway gives these as Norfolk, Suffolk, and 
 Hampshire words, of a Danish origin, krinkelin. We 
 used to say, as boys, that our letters were crinky 
 cranky, when they took a direction deviating, as they 
 often did, from a straight' line, in our earliest attempts 
 at penmanship. There might have been other appli- 
 cations, and I have an impression that there were, but 
 I do not remember them distinctly. 
 
 Crump. We not unfrequently hear the expression, "he 
 is an old crump.'' It means, in the North of England, 
 one out of temper. Frump is also used in the same 
 sense, though not the verb, which may be found in 
 some of the old dramatic authors. 
 
 Cubby-hole, a snug, confined place. (Jennings.) Com- 
 mon, in New England, among children. 
 
 Curtshey, clumb. Are both Cumberland vulgarisms, 
 and as such are common in New England. 
 
 Cuss. This is an Essex pronunciation of curse. It is 
 common in New England. A stage-driver, in New 
 England, once expressed to me his contempt for a 
 person who led a very retired life, by saying " that he 
 
36 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 was a sleepy-headed cuss." This kind of personifica- 
 tion of an anathema is not common. They also say 
 pus for purse, as is heard in New England. And in 
 Suffolk they pronounce peirce, purse, or puss, a pro- 
 nunciation quite common in New England, whether 
 it be the name of a person or a verb. Peirce and 
 Pearse are both names of persons, and both pro- 
 nounced Purse. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dab. "To hit one a dab," we used to hear very often, 
 at the time when blows were dealt with less hesitation 
 than in these serious parts of one-s life. The verb to 
 dab, means to touch gently, and the substantive im- 
 plied rather a blow with the back or palm of the hand 
 than with the fist. The origin is said to be from an 
 Arabic word, adab, whence comes adept, and the word 
 dab, or dabster; "he is a dabster at it," which we often 
 hear, though there seems no analogy between this and 
 dab, in the first sense we have mentioned, that of a 
 blow. In Brockett's Glossary, he gives the word dad, 
 instead of dab, for a blow, but adds no explanations 
 as to its source. It is probably only a corrupt pro- 
 nunciation. A certain kind of cake, I believe of In- 
 dian-meal, is called a dab, in Pennsylvania, and south 
 of it. Dab may be a corruption of dub, which meant 
 to make a knight by stinking him. The martial ap- 
 peal to arms, known to boys as "rubby-dub-dub," is 
 from the same source. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 3t 
 
 Daff-a-down-dillies. This word, that has sunk, in 
 the progress of what is called refinement, to a vulgar- 
 ism, was used by Spenser, in his "Shepherd's Callen- 
 dar." 
 
 Dainty. Is seldom or never applied in any way here 
 but to eating. Moor gives it as common, in Suffolk, 
 in the same sense ; , but it is in no other collection but 
 his. Daynt is in Spenser, but not with the limited 
 application in which it is now heard. 
 
 Damage. We had an idea that this word was an emi- 
 grant. In the Hallamshire Glossary, it is given as 
 used in Yorkshire in the exact sense in which we use 
 it: "what's the damage V^ meaning what have we to 
 pay. 
 
 Dansy. This is used, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 
 as applying to old persons who are failing. Dansy- 
 headed is a Norfolk and Suffolk phrase for giddy, 
 thoughtless. This of Pennsylvania, where I have only 
 heard it, appears of the same origin ; one of the usual 
 marks of old age being a lightness of mind, as shown 
 by loquacity. 
 
 Darned. " I'll be darned,''^ a species of oath, very com- 
 mon in New England, comes from Essex. 
 
 "Tf e'er their jars tliyve made ya feel 
 This gud adwice ya call, 
 For sitch warm an's gripe or I'll be darned 
 Food soon make ya sing small " 
 
 Darter, for daughter, was a common pronunciation 
 formerly in New England. It is from Essex, and we 
 seem to derive that hardening of words from that por- 
 4 
 
38 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 tion of England. They say, too, jarney, for journey ; 
 laming and lamed. 
 
 Dawdy, a careless, slatternly looman. We say dowdy, 
 which is no doubt the same word. Dawdle, or dad- 
 die, implying a lounging, indolent way of doing any- 
 thing, is allied to this verb. 
 
 Deaf-nut. A North Country word for a nut whose 
 kernel is decayed. It is common with us, and is said 
 to be Saxon. Deaf is often pronounced, in New 
 England, long, like leaf. In Westmoreland and Cum- 
 berland it is the same, and in a glossary of those coun- 
 ties is spelt deef. In Scotland, deaf is applied to 
 soil and vegetables, indicating sterility. 
 
 Dead-alive, deadly, for very, extremely. Both of 
 these expressions are in the Hereford Glossary as 
 Gloucestershire provincialisms. A " dead-and-alive 
 sort of a man," I have heard, in New England, ap- 
 plied to a dull person, and ''an all-alive sort of a per- 
 son," to one lively and quick. Deadly I have only 
 heard coupled with affected, as, "she is deadly af- 
 fected." Neither, I think, are of such common use, 
 or made use of by such a class of persons, as would 
 project them among provincialisms. A dead lift, and 
 dead ripe, as in the Craven Dialect, for raising a 
 heavy inactive mass, and for fully matured, are fre- 
 quent ; and, when at school, we used to say the tide 
 was "(ZeacZ low," when at its lowest. 
 
 Dicky, a womari's under petticoat. It's all dicky with 
 him, that is, "it is all over with him." (Class. Diet.) 
 This last phrase is very common here. We have no 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 39 
 
 idea whence it came, nor would we be very likely to 
 discover from the definition above. We are not alto- 
 gether sure what Grose meant, unless it is to play off 
 a witticism ; if so, "it's all dicky with him," will be 
 that he is brought to his last shift. 
 Die. The phrase, "as clean as a di^?," may be fre- 
 quently heard. AYhence it comes is not easily decided. 
 Mr. Carr gives it in his Glossary of Craven, but with 
 no solution. He quotes these lines from Tusser, who 
 died toward the close of the sixteenth century : — 
 
 " In ridding of pasture with turfes that lie by, 
 Fill everie hole up close as a <f?e." 
 
 This quotation does not give any clue. "He's going 
 to make a die of it," may be heard of one of whom 
 there are no hopes of his living; and, if it had not 
 been for the above lines, that use of the word might have 
 done, as expressing a something completely effected. 
 Die is also an old word used in architecture, for the 
 part of the pedestal between the base and cornice ; it 
 is also the mould in which coins are shaped ; and the 
 neatness and precision of the die may be its origin. 
 Diggings, a vulgarism of this country, is in Jeremy 
 Taylor's "Holy Dying," chapter i. section 2, part 3: 
 "Let us not project long designs, crafty plots, and 
 diggings so deep." Is it not singular that no diction- 
 ary., at least that I have consulted, contains this word ? 
 Admitting that its origin here does not entitle it to a 
 position in the language, still the use of it by such an 
 author as Taylor should have given it a place. 
 
40 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Disguised, for drunk. (Class. Diet.) Not so far gone 
 as drunk, with us, but only partially affected. The usual 
 behavior or condition of a man disguised with liquor, 
 means that he is not himself. In Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's "Philaster," there is the same application of 
 this word as we now hear, when a person is said to 
 ■ be disguised by liquor. Tod's Johnson quotes the 
 " Spectator " for this word; but it is older than the 
 " Spectator," as I find it in " Middleton's Honest 
 Whore," Act II. Scene 2, part 2 :— 
 
 "Did you late see a gemleman better disguised?'^ 
 "Never, believe me, signior." 
 "Yes, but when he has been drunk." 
 
 DOATED. I have never heard this word but once, and 
 then from a farmer in the neighborhood of Philadel- 
 phia. It means broken by age. Moor has it as ap- 
 plied to decaying timber, by the people of Suffolk. 
 
 Dog, or a pai^ of dogs, for a pair of andirons, is com- 
 mon in New England. Brockett has it in his Glossary, 
 yet Captain Hamilton, no doubt through ignorance, 
 seemed to think it of American coinage. On the site 
 of a Koman camp, they dug up, a few years ago, a 
 pair of iron dogs, so that they are an ancient piece of 
 furniture. An account of them will be found in Bray- 
 ley's "Graphical and Historical Illustrator.'^ 
 
 Dog cheap, for extremely cheap, we have preserved 
 from our North Country ancestors ; also doggfxl, for 
 sullen and obstinate, and dog Latin, for a gibberish of 
 Latin words thrown together without rule or order. 
 The Hallamshire Glossary gives the three. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 41 
 
 Down in the mouth, belongs to the North of England. 
 
 Draggle, or Daggle, comes from an old word, dag-dew. 
 A daggle-idA\Q6. or draggle-idAlQdi wench, is common 
 here, and used in the same sense as in the North of Eng- 
 land, implying a low creature. It formerly would have 
 meant nothing more than a woman whose petticoats 
 are wet and dirty. 
 
 Duds. ''Pack up your duds,^^ we hear occasionally in a 
 ludicrous sense. Duds formerly meant clothes of a 
 dirty or inferior sort. (Brockett.) Dud is Gaelic, for 
 rag. It is not made use of in this country by any 
 portion of our people, as an integral part of the lan- 
 guage, only as a colloquial expression. 
 
 Dumpy. Brockett gives sullen as the meaning of this 
 word, in the North of England ; and Britton, dwarf- 
 ish, short, and clumsy, in Wiltshire ; in this sense, it 
 may be heard often among us, but never, so far as I 
 know, in the other. We say a person is in the dumps, 
 but not dumpy. Tod's Johnson gives a Dutch word, 
 dom, as the etymology of dumps, and an Icelandic 
 word, doomp, which means a stout servant-maid, for 
 that of the latter word. In ''Romeo and Juliet," 
 dump is used for music in a melancholy strain. For 
 melancholy or moody, dumps has long been in use. 
 
 " I' til' meantiiDe let's bestow a soBg upon him, 
 To shake him from his dumps." 
 
 Beau, and Fletcher's Double Marriage. 
 
 Dump, to throw out, as dirt from a cart, is used in 
 Pennsylvania. "Dump it down here," I have never 
 heard but in this quarter. 
 4 * 
 
42 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 DuNDER-HEAD. We often apply this word to a stupid 
 person. I find it in none of the glossaries, or Tod's 
 Johnson, or Bailey. In Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 "Women Pleased," there is a word of the same appli- 
 cation: "you know what a dundle-hend my master is." 
 Whence it comes I am unable to decide, unless from 
 dumb, which sometimes means stupid. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eend, for enc?. (Wilbraham.) This is the usual pronun- 
 ciation among the illiterate. There is a peculiarity in 
 its use, in New England, that is not very easy to ac- 
 count for. If an individual, or a number of persons, 
 were to hear anything that caused surprise, it would be 
 said that he or they "were all struck on.eend;^^ also, a 
 horse reared on eend. It is, perhaps, expressive of 
 the perpendicular position one takes ; the drawing up 
 of astonishment, taken from a stick set on its end. 
 Height an end, straight forward ; also upright, are in 
 the Craven Glossary : they are our Yankee meanings. 
 Moor, in his " Suffolk Words," gives the same word as 
 used there. Aninnd, is his spelling of it. 
 
 Earnest. Money given to bind a bargain. (Britton.) 
 We hear this word, made use of in this way, occasion- 
 ally ; no other glossary mentions it. 
 
 Egg, to instigate, to incite. (Brockett.) Comnionly pro- 
 nounced edge. " To edge on," being common in the 
 sense of to instigate. Chaucer has it in his "Persones 
 Tale," and also uses a substantive, eggement: — 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 43 
 
 <* Mother, quod she, and may den bright Marie 
 Soth is, that thrugh womanne's eggement 
 Mankind was borne, and damned ay to die." 
 
 The Man o-f Lawe's Tale, line 52G2. 
 
 It was corrupted into edge before the close of the 
 seventeenth century. In the Exmoor Dialect, agging 
 is given in the same sense as edging, or egging. I 
 have never heard the word in this country. Walter 
 Scott has it in his " Life of Kemble. 
 
 Eke out, to use sparingly. (Brockett.) This is hardly 
 our meaning; we say, "he has barely enough to eke 
 out a living," or, "that his circumstances are limited," 
 but never, so far as we know, employ it in any other 
 way. 
 
 Errand. In New England, they say arrand, or raiit; 
 This appears the old way. In Sir Walter Raleigh's 
 " Lye," we read — 
 
 *' Go soule, the bodie's guest, 
 Upon a thankless arrant.'" 
 
 In Westmoreland and Cumberland, they say arrant. 
 Expect, a North Country word, for to suppose. It has 
 two meanings in this country. We expect that a thing 
 has happened, and we expect that it will happen ; and 
 in reply to a question, "Are you going to New York 
 to-morrow ?" "I expect so," would probably be the an- 
 swer ; not exactly in the sense of suppose, but of " I 
 think I shall." Pickering has noticed this word in his 
 "Vocabulary." 
 
44 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Favor. To say that a person favors his father or mo- 
 ther, for resembles, M Gommon here, as in England; 
 but we preserve an old meaning, that appears to have 
 died out in England. We say, of a horse that goes a 
 little lame, that he favors his foot, off or near. None 
 of the glossaries have this word in the latter sense, 
 nor Tod's Johnson ; but Bailey has favor, to ease, to 
 spare, which is our application. 
 
 Eers, and Eersley, are common, in New England, for 
 fierce, and fiercely. They can be found in Percy's 
 ''Reliques," spelt in the first manner. Pierce is 
 also pronounced 'pers. 
 
 Fester, an inflammatory tumor. (Jenning's Dialect of 
 the West.) This is our application, and very com- 
 mon. 
 
 Fiddlestick. An interjectional expression of dishelief, 
 or doubt, usually bestowed on any absurd or nonsensi- 
 cal conversation. (Brockett.) This is our way. of 
 using it, though we sometimes enlarge it into fiddle- 
 stick'' s end. 
 
 EiNNiKiNG, FiNNiKiN, for trifling. Scrupulously par- 
 ticular. (Brockett.) Contempt is always, I think, im- 
 plied in our use of this word. It is general among us. 
 
 Fizz, to scorch, to fly off, to make a hissing noise. 
 (Brockett.) The noise made by igniting damp pow- 
 der is nearer our meaning, and the only one in which 
 we use it. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 45 
 
 Fix. This we use in a peculiar manner in this country. 
 " He is in a j^^," may be often heard, meaning that he 
 is in a situation from which it will be difficult to extri- 
 cate himself; also for arrange, "I'll^j; it;" and with 
 an application taken from the word arrange, as " I'll 
 fix him," to settle with him, or bring him to terms, 
 though a vindictive feeling is implied in the expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Flat, for fool, is common here. '' He's such a flai.''^ 
 
 Flam, a fall; also /a^terz/, bordering on a lie. (Brock- 
 ett.) Neither of these is our meaning. We some- 
 times hear, " it's all a flam ;" implies imposition, a 
 cheat practiced on some one, or ourselves ; something 
 almost a lie. 
 
 Flap-jack, a fried cahe, made of batter, apples, etc. ; 
 a fritter. (Jenning's West of England Dialect.) In 
 New England, this is a large pancake, generally or 
 universally for the evening meal. It is very common 
 in the country, but more frequent at inns than in pri- 
 vate families. Shakspeare mentions these in " Peri- 
 cles." The prince is shipwrecked, and falls among 
 some honest fishermen, one of whom invites him very 
 heartily to his house : — 
 
 "Come, thou shalt go home, and we'll liave flesh for holj^- 
 days, fish for fasting-days ; moreover, puddings d^nCi flap-jacks ; 
 and thou shalt be welcome." 
 
 They are pancakes in New England, not apple-puffs. 
 Flea-bite. A ludicrous designation for any trivial pain 
 or danger. (Brockett.) Very common here, though 
 the thing, in fact, is no joke. 
 
46 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Flip, small-beer, hrandij, and sugar. (Class. Diet.) 
 These are the ingredients of the New England liquor 
 of the same name. It is common at all the taverns in 
 winter, and a very welcome beverage after a cold ride. 
 It is heated by plunging into it a red-hot iron, and 
 then handed, foaming, to the chilled and shivering 
 traveler. The Swedish word fiepp, a drink of sugar 
 and brandy, seems its original. 
 
 Flinders, for shreds, broken pieces, splinters. Dutch, 
 flenters. (Brockett.) Broken or smashed to flinders, 
 is a common expression among us ; also, " he's -gone 
 all to flinders,''^ for one who makes a bad failure. 
 
 Flummery, for blanc-mange. (Hallamshire Glossary.) 
 It is not used in this sense, in this country ; but for 
 something more fluid, and nearly porridge. Tod's 
 Johnson derives it from the Welsh. 
 
 Follow, to practice for a livelihood. (Forby.) Our 
 use of this word is the same : " What trade do you 
 followV^ '^ He /o?/oiys farming." But it is also applied 
 to professions, as "he followed the law," "he fol- 
 lowed preaching." To judge from Forby's definition, 
 it applies, in England, only to trades and inferior 
 occupations. 
 
 Foist. This, from the French, fausser, meant cheat, 
 or trick ; but it may be heard in the sense of '' put 
 upon;" as, "don't try to foist your nonsense on me." 
 This is an analogous, though not the same meaning. 
 Also, in the sense of bringing in irrelevant matter, as 
 ''h.Q foisted into his speech." This word seems of low 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 4*7 
 
 origin ; it formerly meant a pickpocket. In Dekker's 
 "Bellman in London," there are these lines : — 
 
 *' He that cuts the purse, is called the nip ; 
 He that is half with him, is the sneap, or cloyer ; 
 He that picks the pocket, is called the foist; 
 He that faceth the man, is the stale." 
 
 This is a departure from the proper and original 
 meaning. Used by Dyce, in Middleton's ''Roaring 
 Girl." 
 Fox, to get drunk. I have never heard this, but a wri- 
 ter in a newspaper says that he heard it, in one of the 
 Southern States, used by an intoxicated tavern-keeper 
 to describe his condition. It is an old word ; Tod's 
 Johnson has it. In Beaumont and Fletcher's " Fair 
 Maid of the Inn," we find it: "Your Dutchman, in- 
 deed, when he is foxed is like a fox ; for when he's 
 sunk in drink, quite earth to a man's thinking, 'tis full 
 exchange time with him ; then he's subtlest. " The wri- 
 ter in the newspaper quotes Taylor, the " Water poet." 
 It seems to have been in general use two or three hun- 
 dred years ago, rather as a low word. 
 
 " Where is Simonides, our friendly host?" 
 
 "Ah, blind as one that had been foxed a sevennight!" 
 
 Middleton's Mayor of Queenborough. 
 
 " The grayer citizens were foxed that day 
 AVith beer and joy most soundly paid." 
 
 Fractious, for fretful, quarrelsome. (Britton.) Be- 
 sides these, we say a fractious horse, meaning violent 
 and vicious. 
 
48 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Fresh, for intoxicated, or tipsy, is also common among 
 us. 
 
 Fromity, or Frumty. An excellent country mess, made 
 in the farm-houses at Christmas. (Ilallamshire Glos- 
 sary.) The wheat, after being "creed," is boiled with 
 a proper portion of milk; sugar and spice are then 
 added. The process of creeing consists in placing 
 the grain, from which the outer coat has previously 
 been removed, in an earthen vessel, with a quan-tity of 
 water just sufficient to cover it. The vessel is then 
 closed, and placed in a slow oven for twelve or four- 
 teen hours. We are told that a mess of this sort is 
 known in Maryland, and by the above name. In 
 Johnson's Dictionary, it is derived from frumentu7n, 
 the Latin for corn or grain in general. Junius, in 
 his " Etymologicon Anglicanum," derives it from the 
 Saxon word feorm, provision of any kind. We in- 
 cline toward this origin, rather than the more classi- 
 cal, simply because it was a dish of the country, and 
 was universal among the Saxons, who handed it to 
 every new-comer as an earnest of their hospitality. 
 Neither the language nor customs of the Romans 
 would stand much chance of descending among the 
 entire mass of the Britons, to the exclusion of the 
 old long-practiced habits of this people or, the Sax- 
 ons ; and then we feel more comfortable in the suppo- 
 sition that it is a Saxon word — a kind of moral con- 
 sciousness that it is worth something, even in debated 
 matters of philosophy. It is in Beaumont and Fletch- 
 er's "Coxcomb:" — 
 
GLOSSARY or SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 49 
 
 "She burst, herself, and foncllj'^, if it be so, 
 With frumety at a churching." 
 
 Frump. We sometimes hear this word applied to a per- 
 son (generally old) as signifying cross, or ill-tempered. 
 He or she is an old frump. It is the old meaning, 
 though somewhat varied ; it formerly applied to man- 
 ners. In "Green's James lY." we have — 
 
 "If we but enter presence of his grace, 
 Our payment is a frown, a scoff, a,frii}?ip." 
 
 As a verb, to frump, I do not remember to have 
 heard it, though in use in some parts of England ; 
 but, with the meaning we give it, it is heard in Suf- 
 folk and Norfolk, while the old sense, of jeer, or taunt, 
 is unknown. 
 
 Fuddle, to drink to excess. (Brockett.) We mean by 
 it rather stupefied by liquor, than complete intoxica- 
 tion. 
 
 Fudge, for fabulous. (Brockett.) "It's all sl fudge, ^^ is 
 common here. 
 
 Full drive, is common here, for rapid, or, perhaps, 
 heedless, as well as rapid, driving. I have never 
 heard it in Chaucer's sense of "completed." 
 
 " This bargain is full drive, for we ben knit." 
 
 Frankeleine's Tale, line 11,542. 
 
 Full butt, full smack, full split, are synonyms of 
 full drive; also another word, whose etymology is 
 not obvious: "there he goes, lickity split." How 
 this has been compounded does not strike us at a first 
 view. 
 
 5 
 
50 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Funeral. There is some slight difference in the arrange- 
 ment of these solemnities in the different parts of the 
 country, though I know not what they are. But the 
 old custom of giving wine and cake has, in turn, I be- 
 lieve, long since gone out. In the only rural district, 
 that of the County of Chester, in the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania, where it has been my ill fortune to follow a friend 
 and neighbor to the grave, the old English custom of a 
 meal, on a large scale, is still continued. Most of those 
 who attend i\iQ funeral, return to the house from which 
 the deceased was carried, and dine. Of course there is 
 no liquor, nor is there anything convivial on the occa- 
 sion. It is nothing more than an entertaining of 
 those who have come a long distance to show their 
 respect for the dead. 
 
 Funk, for fear. He's in a terrible funh, for very much 
 frightened, is a common expression. But what is its 
 origin, I know not. 
 
 Fuss, for excessive hustle. (Hunter's Hallamshire Glos- 
 sary.) 
 
 Fussy. A fussy person means, with us, a restless, im- 
 patient, officious sort of a creature ; one who cannot 
 bear his own idleness, and puts on the air of business 
 to impose on himself and others. He seems lively, 
 and energetic, though in reality inefficient; always 
 bustling about, but doing nothing. 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 51 
 
 G. 
 
 Gab. An old word, used by Chaucer, for talking idly, 
 is still frequent in New England; and also the expres- 
 sion, "he has the gift of the gah,'''' for one who speaks 
 readily, or who has an off-hand use of words ; not 
 oppressed by ideas. 
 
 Gal, for girl, that every New Englandman has heard so 
 often, is from Essex. 
 
 Gallanting. Wandering about in gayety and en- 
 joyment; applied chiefly to the associations of the 
 sexes. "He's gone a gallanting,''^ is common in New 
 England. (Jennings, on the West of England dia- 
 lects.) 
 
 Game leg, a lame leg. (Grose.) Heard here in a ludi- 
 crous or burlesque sense. Gam, Celtic for leg. (Tod's 
 Johnson.) 
 
 Gawby, (Grose ;) Gaby, (Britton.) Pronounced like 
 the last of these two words. This word is heard 
 occasionally, meaning the same unhappy condition of 
 understanding as those two writers give for it in Eng- 
 land, viz., a dunce, a fool, a blockhead. 
 
 Gawky, for awkward. North of England. Scott's 
 character of "Dominie Sampson," gives a good idea 
 of the application of this word. It is common in 
 New England, and always implies height, as well as 
 awkwardness. A man whose body, in its several parts, 
 appears to be directed by several different and oppos- 
 ing wills ; whose legs move one way, while his arms 
 
52 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 fling and flap in another; his head seems to dislike its 
 vertical position, so as to roll about as in search of 
 some place where it would be more at ease ; and 
 whose trunk appears disjointed, and even somewhat 
 disgusted with any familiarity or companionship with 
 its fellow members ; while his stature is so considera- 
 ble that any bend or bow gives you uneasiness, lest he 
 may not know how to get up again : such a one we 
 call a gawky person, or a gawk. To gawk about, to 
 stare vacantly, like a countryman on his first visit to 
 a large town, appears, according to Holloway, to be 
 in use in Hampshire and Sussex. The expression is 
 common in New England. 
 
 Gee, to agree, or go on well together. (Britton.) This 
 is common with us, in this sense. Gegan is the An- 
 glo-Saxon for to go. 
 
 Geer, for furniture, utensils^ harness. To geer, or 
 gear, to dress ; snugly geered, neatly dressed ; doctor's 
 geer, apothecary's drugs. Grose gives the first of 
 these as in use in the North of England, the last as a 
 Norfolk peculiarity. The only way in which I have ever 
 heard it employed in this country, has been for har- 
 ness. To gear up, for to harness a horse ; and gearing, 
 for the harness, are common expressions among the 
 farmers in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. I do not 
 remember it in New England. Gear is the Anglo- 
 Saxon for apparatus. It once meant affair, matter. 
 "That gear cottons well," is in Middleton. This ap- 
 plication of the word cotton, difi'ers from that occa- 
 sionally heard, "I cotton to him, or her." 
 
GLOSSAHY or SUPPOSED AMEPJCAMSMS. o3 
 
 Gibberish. Xonsensical prattle of children. (Hallam- 
 shire Glossary. ) Anv confused and half-nnintelligible 
 harangue, without distinguishing the years of the 
 speaker, will be called gibberish here. The word is 
 common; it is an old word, and its derivation still 
 unsettled. 
 
 Gist, or jtnt, ioT joint . (Exmoor Dialect.) This mar be 
 heard every day in Xew England. * 
 
 GEr>L A gloomy, discontented look is called glum. 
 Grum means rather a stern, severe expression. (Hal- 
 lamshire Glossary.) Both are Saxon, and both fre- 
 quently used among us. 
 
 Gob. the mouth. TVe do not apply -this word, in Xew 
 England, to the mouth, but to what is thrown from it. 
 It is a low word. Gob may be a corruption of gobbet, 
 a word used by Shakspeare and Spenser, and mean- 
 ing morsels. The preliminary movement before the 
 phlegm is thrown from the mouth, we call hawking; 
 in the South of England, they say cawking and spit- 
 ting. Keuchen, is a Belgian word, to cough. 
 
 Goixgs-ox. Is from Essex. ''WeU, now, these are. 
 pretty goings-on .'"' How often has every mischievous 
 boy heard this I 
 
 Gbeat. To be great with a person, is to be on terms of 
 intimacy or friendship with one. Probably the full 
 form would be, to be in great estimation with. (Hal- 
 lamshire Glossary.) This is an ancient expression, 
 and common here, though rather among children than 
 any one else. 
 
 Grime. Mr. Hunter, in the Hallamshire Glossary, says 
 5* 
 
64 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 this word means, in the dialect of which he treats, 
 dirt laid superficially. We use it in the strongest 
 sense^ of dirt deeply insinuated into the skin. 
 
 Grit, for sand. (Grose.) Such a one has the real grit 
 in him, is a common expression for energy of charac- 
 ter. We have never heard it for sand. 
 
 Groundsill, the threshold of a door. This may 
 be heard in precisely the same meaning in New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Guess, to suppose, to believe. (Craven Glossary.) Mr. 
 Pickering says this word is used in Kent, England, in 
 the same way as in New England. We also have 
 it, in Yorkshire,* with the same meaning. The Yan- 
 kees have been and are outrageously quizzed by Eng- 
 lishmen and their own countrymen about this word. 
 It is as good as any other, and not used in any 
 peculiar sense, but according to its real meaning ; ge- 
 nerally a Yankee who guesses, is quite certain as to 
 what he expresses a doubt. 
 
 GuMPSHON, or GUMPTION. Common sense combined with 
 energy; shrewd intelligence ; a superior understanding. 
 An excellent word of high antiquity. (Brockett.) This 
 word is heard very often, but not seriously. When 
 used, however, it is applied in the sense given by 
 Brockett. Grose derives it from gawm, to understand. 
 
 Gunner, a shooter; gunning, the sport of shooting. 
 (Forby.) Both of these words have been sources of 
 ridicule against us, with English writers. They have 
 been considered as peculiar, but our ancestors must 
 now take the responsibility; and any American who 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 55 
 
 feels ashamed in using language the English do not 
 approve, may be now encouraged, and say, "I am go- 
 ing a gnnning,''^ without the fear of the British. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher have it more than once. 
 Gummed. In Beaumont and Fletcher's " Woman Hater," 
 I find, "She has never, boy, been gummed or fretted." 
 It is said to be derived from velvet, stiffened by gum, 
 and chafing the wearer. I remember, as a boy, an 
 expression, ''that's rather gumming,''^ meaning, likely 
 to annoy. I have never heard it since. It appears 
 to be the same word. By gom, or gum, a vulgar oath, 
 and not uncommon among us, is from Essex. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hacking cough. This common expression Holloway 
 
 gives as belonging to l^J'orfolk and South of England. 
 
 A faint, tickling cough, is its Norfolk meaning; a 
 
 short, hard, cutting cough, the Southern. The last is 
 
 our application of the term. 
 Half-saved, for half-witted. (Hereford Glossary.) This 
 
 is a very common New England word, in the above 
 
 sense. 
 Halla-baloo, for noise, uproar, clamor. (Brockett.) 
 
 Common in this country. 
 Halves. The going halves, as boys called it, when 
 
 anything was found, is an old custom derived from the 
 
 North of England. " Come, let us go halves. " 
 Hames. Two movable pieces of wood, or iron, fastened 
 
 upon the collar, with suitable appendages for attaching 
 
56 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 a liorse to the shafts. (Jeniiing's "West of England Dia- 
 lect.) The collar by which a horse draws in a wagon. 
 (Tod's Johnson.) We do not remember to have heard 
 this word in New England. Among the farmers of 
 Chester County, Pennsylvania, it is common, and in 
 the meaning given by Jennings. 
 
 Handy, for near, adjoining. (Jennings.) He lives quite 
 handy, is common here ; also, he is a handy fellow, 
 for one ready and active. 
 
 Hankitcher. The handkerchief was frequently so 
 pronounced in New England, and is now so called in 
 the dialects of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Han- 
 kerchar, is the Essex pronunciation. It was proba- 
 bly commonly so pronounced two centuries ago. In 
 Middleton's "Roaring Girl," there is this oath, "I 
 swear by the tassels of this hankercher it is true." 
 
 Hard of hearing. This common expression among 
 us, is from Essex; and, to ''haul over the coals," and 
 to " hide," for beat. 
 
 Harum-scarum. Wild, unsettled ; running after you 
 know not what. German, herumschar, a wandering 
 troop, Scharen, in the plural, meaning blackguards. 
 (Brockett.) The only use we make of this word is to im- 
 ply heedlessness, thoughtlessness. A harum-scarum 
 sort of a fellow, may be heard daily. Schar, in Ger- 
 man, means a crowd, a multitude; herum, about; but 
 the word schwarmen, to play the vagabond, to be 
 wild, dissipated, or unsettled, or to have no fixed pur- 
 suit; or the word schwarmer, meaning one "qui fait 
 la debauche, qui aime les divertissement bruy antes," 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 61 
 
 - with the adverb, would make a better derivation than 
 Broekett's. Herum schwarinen, or schwarmer, 
 would then speak for themselves. They use, how- 
 ever, in the North of England, a word, to hare, to 
 frighten, from an old French word, Jiarier. Harum- 
 scarum would come simply enough from this. 
 
 Hawk, to expectorate. (Brockett.) We use it as the 
 preliminary to expectoration, not for the act itself. It 
 is an old word. Tod's Johnson derives it from the 
 Welsh, hocher, to throw up phlegm with a noise. 
 
 Hayty-tayty. What's here ? (Jennings.) What's the 
 matter ? what's all this about ? Common among us. 
 
 Heap, in the sense of a large quantity, or large number, 
 is not as common here as in England, though I have 
 heard it among farmers. 
 
 Heft, for weight. (Jennings.) Did you heft it? It is 
 used in Wiltshire, and as a verb, to heft. We have 
 heard it, in New England, for the handle of an ax. 
 
 Helter-skelter. In great haste, disorderly. (Brockett.) 
 Used in this sense, very common here. Its etymology 
 is unsettled. See Tod's Johnson, in voce. 
 
 Hickelty-pickelty. In the utmost confusion. (Brock- 
 ett.) A very common expression among us. There 
 seems to be no satisfactory etymology of this word. To 
 lie huddled together like pigs, appears a probable ori- 
 gin, and very applicable to its use. 
 
 Hide, to beat; hiding, a beating. (Brockett and Jen- 
 nings.) 
 
 Hitch, to become entangled or hooked together. (Jen- 
 nings.) Hitch your horse to the fence; there's a hitch 
 
58 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 in that business ; they were hitched together. These 
 expressions give the meanings in which we have heard 
 this word applied. Also, hitch your chair a little far- 
 ther along ; also, he's got a hitch in his gait or walk, 
 for a slight lameness. 
 
 HiTY-TiTY. Brockett derives this from the French, haute 
 tete, and gives to it the meaning haughty, flighty. 
 We have never heard it in this sense ; but as a retort 
 on one who takes airs we have heard it. ^'Hity-tity 
 miss 1" Jennings, from height, and tite, weight. The 
 board on which see-saw is played, is called, in some 
 parts of England, a tayty. By what analogy hity- 
 tity can be derived from this, in the way in which it 
 is generally applied, is not clear, unless it be heigh to 
 the tayty, or hie. Height, aloud ; to speak in a loud 
 voice, seems, in some of the senses in which it is em- 
 ployed, a more correct derivation, but whence come 
 tity, or taty, puzzles us as much as it does the other 
 glossaries. Little children in see-sawing might cry, 
 '7wgr/i to the sky," and thence this expression. I do 
 not know, however, whether any children ever did so 
 cry. This is often pronounced, by little children, ''ity 
 up in the ty.^^ Mighty is given, in the Craven Dialect, 
 as a child's word for a horse ; and as tayty is a board, 
 and ridden astraddle, this may be defined highty-ty-ty. 
 In the "Suppliants of ^schylus," we have "otototo 
 toi." 
 
 HoBBr-TY-HOY. Jennings believes this word to be sim- 
 ply Hobby the Hoyden, or Robert the Hoyden, or 
 Hoyt. Hoyden was once applied to the male sex. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 59 
 
 See Tod's Johnson, under the word hoiden; and hoit 
 is a North Country word for an awkward boy. The 
 using ea for en, was among the first changes of our 
 language. At first, housen, for houses ; ourn, for ours ; 
 hern, for hers; hisen, for his, etc., was universal; af- 
 terwards the n softened into s. Those words, ourn, 
 etc., among the vulgar, were once good English, and 
 the Yankees have a prescriptive right to their use. 
 
 Hoist. This, derived from haurio, to draw up, has a 
 peculiar meaning in this country. We not only say 
 hoist or hist it up, but we use it as the substantive, 
 and say, "he got a deuce of a Ziois^," meaning a 
 fall. 
 
 Hominy. This material, so well known among us, I 
 find called homine, in an old book in the Philadelphia 
 Library, entitled "A New Dictionary of the Terms, 
 Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew, in its 
 several Tribes of Gipsies, Beggars, Thieves, Cheats," 
 etc., printed in London, but no date given. It is 
 defined there, Indian-corn. 
 
 Honor bright. A protestation of honor among the 
 vulgar. (Brockett.) A very common expression among 
 us. 
 
 Hop, to dance. (Brockett.) This is still used in the 
 country, in New England, and is not inappropriate, to 
 judge from what we have seen of it. It is, however, 
 an old word, from the Saxon, and is used by Chaucer : 
 
 "To hoppe and sing, and maken swiche disport." 
 
 Hop, the substantive, though brought very naturally 
 
60 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 from the verb, does not seem to have been made use 
 of by Chaucer. 
 
 Hopple, to tie the legs together. (Brockett.) This is, 
 in this country, for fastening a horse's legs, so that he 
 can neither run nor leap. 
 
 Hop-score. This well-known game we call hop-scotch. 
 It is played in the same way as in England. It is only 
 mentioned in the Hallamshire Glossary. 
 
 HousEN, for houses. An old Saxon word, and still used 
 in the West of England; sometimes heard in New 
 England. 
 
 HowsoMEVER, or HOWSOMNEVER, for hoivevcr. (Brock- 
 ett.) Is a common vulgarism here. 
 
 Huddle. To gather together, to embrace. (Brockett.) 
 To be mixed together confusedly, is one use of the 
 word. 
 
 Huff, to offend. (Brockett.) To huff one; or, he s 
 huffed; or, in a huff, are all common here. Bread 
 is said to huff, when it begins to rise, in some of the 
 provincial dialects of England. 
 
 Hunch, a lump; as a hunch of bread and cheese. 
 (Hereford Glossary.) We have a word not uncom- 
 mon in this country, hunk, of exactly the above 
 meaning, probably corrupted from hunch. Its use 
 appears to be limited to bread and butter and cheese ; 
 at least, I do not remember it but in connection with 
 these useful articles. 
 
 HuNDRUM. A small, low, three-wheeled cart, drawn usu- 
 ally by one horse ; used in agriculture. (Jennings.) 
 See Tod's Johnson, for its origin. We say, "he's a 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 61 
 
 hundrum sort of a fellow," for a dull, prosy person : 
 it is frequent here. 
 Husking. At the time when the husks are to be re- 
 moved from the corn, the neighbors, male and female, 
 meet to aid in the operation. It is a rural frolic or 
 merry-making, with the usual amount of coarse fun. 
 
 I. 
 
 Iddicasion, for education. This Yorkshire method of 
 pronouncing this word is not unfrequent in New Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Inkling, a desire, an inclination. This word is given 
 by Grose, Brockett, and Hunter, and with the same 
 meaning by each. It is common in this country, in 
 the same sense. Its derivation is not decided by ety- 
 mologists. (See Tod's Johnson.) 
 
 Is. Is constantly used among the vulgar for the first 
 and second persons of the verb to he. (Brockett.) 
 It is with us: "Yes, I 2s;" "z's you?" Also, ''Be 
 you?" and, "yes, I be." 
 
 Zaseyr,^ov garrulity. (Brockett.) " Stop your ya66er," 
 was a common and expressive term, not many years 
 ago, and I presume may be heard now ; an old word. 
 
 Jam, to squeeze into, to render firm hy treading. 
 (Brockett.) In the first sense, not in the second, it is 
 a word in common use. 
 
 6 
 
62 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AIVIERICANISMS. 
 
 Jarr. The door stands ojar, or half-open. (Grose, who 
 gives it as a ]N'orfolk word.) Tod's Johnson derives it 
 from the Latin gyrus, a turning about. In universal 
 use in this country. Holloway, in his Dictionary of 
 Provincialisms, derives ajar from guerre, war ; figura- 
 tively, confusing, clashing. Shaking a door ajar, is a 
 door partially open, liable to be shaken or moved easily. 
 I cannot confide in this idea. 
 
 Jatjm, or JAMB, the door-post, or side-front of a win- 
 dow. This is the definition of Grose. We generally 
 or universally apply it to the sides of the chimney. It 
 is a North Country word, from the French jambe, a 
 leg. 
 
 Jaw, for noisy speech, coarse raillery. (Brockett.) 
 '' Hold yourjaii;," for hold your tongue, may be heard 
 frequently here. 
 
 Jiffy, for in a moment.' (Brockett and Britton.) To do 
 a thing in a jiffy, is common here. 
 
 Jimmy, for neat, slender, elegant. (Brockett.) We some- 
 times hear, "he's a ji'm??i7/-looking fellow." Forby 
 has gim and gemmy, which he derives from givymp. 
 
 Jill, or gill, a pint. A Yorkshire word, according to 
 Grose. It is curious that in some parts of England 
 the gill is a fourth of a pint, in some a half, and in 
 Yorkshire a whole pint. We mean by it here, all the 
 country over, a fourth of a pint. Gillo is the Latin 
 for gill, and probably the origin of it. 
 
 Joggle, to shake. (Brockett.) This word was common 
 with boys: "don't joggle me;" "you joggled my 
 elbow, and made me spoil my copy." 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 63 
 
 Jog-trot. An inactive, or any peculiar line of conduct, 
 pertinaciously adhered to. (Brockett.) "He keeps along 
 in a regular jog-trot,''^ and, ''he leads a jog-trot sort 
 of a life," are familiar expressions among us. 
 
 Jollification. A scene of festivity or merriment. 
 (Brockett.) ''We had quite a jolUficatioyi,''^ may be 
 occasionally heard. 
 
 K. 
 
 Keep, to lodge. Where do you keep^ and keeping-room, 
 for drawing-room, are peculiar expressions in New 
 England. 
 
 Keow. This is the Cheshire pronunciation of cow, ac- 
 cording to Jennings. The Yankees use it, and have 
 been ridiculed, therefore, by their own countrymen and 
 foreigners. They also say keaf, for calf, but they do 
 not say ky, for cows, as in Cheshire, but keows. 
 
 Kelter, or kilter, for frame, order, condition. 
 (Grose and Brockett.) We often hear, "a thing is 
 out of kilter, ^^ for out of order, and it appears to be 
 in common use in the North of England. The addi- 
 tion of lielter, making helter-skelter, or all in confu- 
 sion, puzzles the etymologists. Grose says helter, is 
 to hang, therefore helter-skelter, is to "hang all order." 
 This is not entirely satisfactory, and it very probably 
 arose from some familiar and local peculiarity or cus- 
 tom, now lost. The German kelter pressoir, a press, 
 may be its origin. Hence, anything "out of kelter,''^ 
 would mean that it had lost the smooth and neat ap- 
 
64 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 pearance anything has after being pressed. It is also 
 a cant word for money, in some parts of the North of 
 England. But I am inclined to derive it from culter, 
 the coulter of a plow ; anything out of kelter, would 
 then be something which had lost that which made it 
 useful, or be ''without a kelter,''^ vihioh. may be the 
 proper phrase. 
 
 Kidney, for disposition, principles, humor. (Brock- 
 ett.) We often hear, "a man of his kidney,'''' though 
 it generally implies something bad of a man; that he 
 is of a bad disposition, or bad principles. 
 
 Kettle of fish. This is a Sussex and Hampshire ex- 
 pression, for a confused and perplexed condition of 
 one's affairs. " This is a pretty kettle of fishP^ means 
 it is a bad business, from which one does not see how 
 to extricate himself readily. It is common in Xew 
 England. 
 
 KiDNEY-TATiE. A long kind of potato, much culti- 
 vated in the neighborhood of Newcastle. (Brockett.) 
 The kidney potato is well known here, only we do 
 not say iatie. 
 
 Kind o', after a kind, or manner. A Norfolk and Suf- 
 folk word, according to Holloway. The people of 
 New England make great use of it, though by those 
 who are unacquainted with its source it is spelt kinder; 
 as, he's got a kind o' unsettled; he seemed a kind o' 
 unhappy. 
 
 Kisses. Small confections or sugar-plums. (Brockett.) 
 Shakspeare has kissing comfits, in his "Meriy Wives 
 of Windsor." Falstafif cries out, "Hail kissing com- 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 65 
 
 fits and mowlringoes." Kisses may be had at our own 
 confectioners. 
 
 KiST, for chest. (Brockett.) This appears a common 
 word in several Northern languages ; it may be heard 
 here, but not frequently. Cist a is the Latin word, and 
 is as likely to be the root, as Dutch, Welsh, German, 
 or Saxon. 
 
 Kit. a set, or company ; generally in a contemptuous 
 light. (Brockett.) "The whole kit of them," is a fre- 
 quent expression, and partaking somewhat of the con- 
 temptuous. 
 
 KivvER. Holloway gives this as a Lincolnshire word. 
 It is almost invariably pronounced among a large por- 
 tion of New England for cover. Forby has it. Chau- 
 cer uses kevere. 
 
 Knock, io stii^ or to ivork briskly. (Forby.) ''I have 
 been knocking round, or about, all day;" and, "I am 
 quite knocked up." The first of these phrases is near 
 Forby's meaning. I have known a kindred phrase to 
 this, used by a Yankee in London: ''I have been 
 smashing round considerable to-day." Both imply 
 activity. 
 
 Knowed, for knew. This Essex corruption we preserve. 
 "I never knowed nothing on it," may be heard in 
 New England, and not very far from Philadelphia. 
 
 6* 
 
66 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Lace, to heat or flog. ''I'll lace your jacket;" also, 
 lacing, a beating. (Brockett.) A common expression 
 here. 
 
 Lady-bug, or bird. For some reason, perhaps its 
 beauty, this little insect has attracted the affectionate 
 interest of several Northern nations. We inherit ours 
 from our English ancestors ; they derived theirs, pro- 
 bably, from some of their Northern invaders. Joseph 
 Hunter, in the Hallamshire Glossary, says that he 
 found the word in a small volume, entitled " German 
 Popular Stories;" that the little song — 
 
 ^'Lady-cow, lady-cow, fly thy way home, 
 Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone I" 
 
 was as well known to the children of Suabia as to 
 those of England ; and it is as familiar to us as to 
 either. It is held extremely unlucky to kill a cricket, 
 a lady-hug, a swallow, martin, robin red-breast, or 
 wren — perhaps from its being a breach of hospi- 
 tality, all those birds and insects taking refuge in 
 houses. (Grove's Popular Superstitions.) 
 Lang-saddle, or settle. A long wooden seat, with a 
 back and arms, usually placed in the chimney-corner 
 in country houses. (Brockett.) Under the name of 
 settle, this is an article of furniture in very common 
 use in New England. It is generally very high in the 
 back and narrow in the seat, and long enough for six 
 
• GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 61 
 
 or eight people to sit upon ; but economical and socia- 
 ble as it may be, it is far from comfortable, being in no 
 way calculated for an easy lounge. It has, however, 
 its pleasant associations. To come into an inn, late 
 at night, in the depth of winter, and to find the settle 
 drawn before a blazing fire, and a mug of flip brew- 
 ing, will always fix it in the memory agreeably, not- 
 withstanding its high, perpendicular back, and narrow, 
 hard seat. We only say settle, not lang-settle. 
 
 Lapsided, deformed on one side; as though one part 
 lapped over another. (Hollo way.) This word belongs 
 to Norfolk, Sussex, and Hampshire. It is not uncom- 
 mon here. Holloway thinks it is from a Teutonic 
 word, lopped, to move awkwardly ; but we prefer lap, 
 in its usual acceptation, to fold over, to lie over. 
 
 Larrup, to heat. A Norfolk, Sussex, and Hampshire 
 word, in common use here. Its original is disputed. 
 
 Lat, a lath; as thin as a lat. Brockett gives this as a cant 
 phrase of the North of England. We have the same, 
 but never say lat, but lathe. 
 
 Learn, to teach. Brockett says that this way of using it 
 is not obsolete in the North of England. It is uni- 
 versal in New England, among a certain portion of 
 the population. It is an old word, and used by Shak- 
 speare, in "Othello." 
 
 Leather, to heat. (Grose.) A North of England word. 
 We say, to lather: ''I'll lather him;" no doubt the 
 same word, though most persons would suppose it to 
 be derived from the lather of soap ; as if an applica- 
 
68 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 tion to the man's skin would produce something anala- 
 gous to the bubble and foam of that material. 
 Leatherhead, a blockhead; a thick-skull. (Brockett.) 
 We use the adjective, leatherheaded, but not often the 
 substantive. Lantliorn Leatherhead is a luminous 
 numskull in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," and 
 played the part of a seller of hobby-horses, in that 
 drama. Whether Jonson was the first to put forth 
 the term, I know not. He appears, however, a dis- 
 tinguished character, and probably from the long en- 
 durance of his fame, a very popular person in his 
 day. Giflford, in a note on this name, says that tradi- 
 tion gives it as a satire on Inigo Jones, the architect. 
 We extract a portion of a scene, that bears out this 
 idea : — 
 
 Scene — The Fair ; Booths and Stalls set out ; Lanthorn Leather- 
 head, Joan Trash, and others, sitting by their icarcs. 
 
 Leath. The fair's pestilence dead, methinks; people come 
 not abroad to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, Sis- 
 ter Trash, lady of the basket ? Sit farther with your ginger- 
 bread progeny, and hinder not the prospect of my shop; or 
 I'll have it proclaimed in the fair, what stuff they are made on. 
 
 Trash. Why, what stuff are they made on, Brother Lea- 
 therhead ? Nothing but what's wholesome, I assure you. 
 
 Leath. Yes; stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and 
 dead honey, you know. 
 
 Over. Ay, have I met with enormity so soon! [Aside. 
 
 Leath. I shall mar your market, old Joan, 
 
 Trash. Mar my market, thou too proud pedlar! Do thy 
 worst ; I defy thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I 
 pay for my ground, as well as thou dost: an thou wrong'st 
 me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and an ingineer, I'll find a 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 69 
 
 friend shall right me, and make a ballad of thee and thy 
 cattle all over. Are you puft up with the pride of your 
 "wares ? your arsedine ? 
 
 The two words in italics are the supposed allusions to 
 Jones. There are other passages that strengthen the 
 impression of Leathet^head being a satirical personifi- 
 cation of Inigo. Very few of those, however, who 
 use the word as one of contempt, fancy that they are 
 libeling a great genius. 
 Leef, or LiEVE, for willirigly. (Grose.) Used in the 
 South of England. We say, "I had as lieve, or leef, 
 not do it," meaning, I had rather not do it. We also 
 say, ''I had as lives, or leef, do it as not," meaning 
 if there is any occasion, I am quite ready or willing 
 to do it, and that it would not be disagreeable to me 
 to do it. It is an old Saxon word ; one of its mean- 
 ings is desire, inclination; as, in Chaucer's ''Monke's 
 Prologue :" — 
 
 " Thou wouldest han ben, a trede foul a right, 
 Haddest thou as great leve as thou hast might." 
 
 Another is agreeable; as, in the "Knight's Tale :" — 
 "But on of you, al be him loth or Zeve." 
 
 Whether it is agreeable to him or not. In the ''Mil- 
 ler's Tale," we have another meaning : — 
 
 " I am no babble, 
 Me though I say it. I am not lefe to gabble." 
 
 I do not like prating, or, it may be, I am not willing 
 to prate. In the " Shipmanne's Tale," we have yet 
 another use of the word : — 
 
TO GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 *' For on my portos here I make an oth, 
 That never in my life, for lefe nor loth, 
 Ne shall I of no couseil you bewray." 
 
 So that this apparent vulgarism is good old English. 
 The word lever, the comparative degree of leve, or 
 lefe, as more agreeable, I have never heard; nor 
 lever, for rather ; both of which are old words. 
 
 *' It were me lever than twenty pound worth lond." 
 
 Chaucer. 
 And in the sense of rather : — 
 
 "As there is falle on me swiche hevinesse, 
 No't I nat why, that we were lever to slepe 
 Than the best gallon wine that is in Chepe." 
 
 Manciples Prologue. 
 
 Let on, to mention. "He never let on,^^ he never told 
 me. An Icelandic word, laeta. (Brockett.) "He 
 never let on to me about it," may be heard not unfre- 
 quently in the country. 
 
 Lick, to beat. I'll lick you, and, I'll give you a licking, 
 are common, both in word and deed. I find it in 
 Brockett and the Hallamshire Glossary. Grose says 
 it is a North and South of England word. Likken, 
 Dutch. 
 
 LiCKLY, for likely, probable. (Brockett. ) This word is 
 never pronounced lickly, and we notice it only to say 
 that it has two meanings, in New England. In the 
 sense of good looking, as, "he is a likely fellow;" 
 also, for a youth who promises well, and is intelligent; 
 and for probable. The last seems its only meaning in 
 England. 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. tl 
 
 Lift, for assistance. (Brockett.) We say, "give us a 
 lift." It has another application ; if one has an addi- 
 tion to his fortune, "he's got a great lift lately," may 
 be heard as announcing it. 
 
 Littlest, for least. (Brockett.) Shakspeare makes use 
 of it. It is common here. 
 
 Loafer, loafing. This common expression, so far as I 
 know, is peculiar to us, and of late invention, seems to 
 come very directly from the German. Laufer is 
 "courir," to run; laufen is "coureur," and one of 
 the meanings of this is a rambler, a rover. By a very 
 easy transition from these gentler terms, it can be made 
 to have a strong or coarser and more vulgar applica- 
 tion ; and loafing, or to go loafing about, is to run 
 about idling ; and a loafer, is an idle vagabond. 
 
 Loon, for Ibun, loicne ; an idle vagabond, a worthless 
 fellow, a rascal. (Brockett.) In the first sense, this 
 word may be heard in New England; "a lazy loon," 
 being no uncommon expression; also, "as stupid as a 
 loon." In neither of the others do I remember it. 
 Shakspeare makes " Macbeth," in an agony, cry out — 
 " The devil damn thee, thou cream-faced loo?i, 
 Where gots thou that goose-book?" 
 
 Lout, a heavy, idle fellow. (North of England.) "A 
 lout of a fellow," is not uncommon among us. 
 
 LuBBART, an awkward, clownish fellow. (Brockett.) 
 This word may be found in Shakspeare, Milton, and 
 later authors. AYe say lubber, in the precise sense 
 given above. Lowt, which Shakspeare uses, is a syno- 
 nym, and not unfrequent in New England. 
 
Y2 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 LuMAKiN. A lumakin sort of a fellow, for an awkward 
 person, is used here. Mr. Akerman gives it as in use 
 in Wiltshire. 
 
 Lump. There is a mode of using this word in New 
 England, or was, that seems to be peculiar. ''If you 
 don't like it, you may lump it," was a defiance to a 
 boy who had taken offence at something said or done. 
 Whence comes lump, or what it means, I do not know. 
 " To take in the gross, without attention to particu- 
 lars," the definition in Tod's Johnson, covers it to a 
 certain extent. Forby gives lump, to drub with vio- 
 lence. The German lumpen, "traiter avec mepris," 
 which would give the meaning, "if you don't like it, 
 treat it with contempt," is not far from the New Eng- 
 land use of the word. Thence it might be, "if you 
 don't like it, treat it with contempt." 
 
 LusTYisH, for rather stout; inclining to be fat. (Brock- 
 ett.) This is our application of the word. 
 
 Lynch. Is a Western mode of arranging social griev- 
 ances. 
 
 Lynch-law. a summary execution of the will of those 
 who live under no fear of the restraints of laws or 
 civilization. It seems to be absolutely necessary, as, 
 without it, there would be no hope of ridding society, 
 in new countries, of those who are a nuisance. It is 
 a rough expression of the moral sense, and frequently 
 well directed. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 73 
 
 M. 
 
 Mad, for very angry. This is one of the words that 
 English travelers laughed at us for using. '' Let me 
 alone, I am mad with you;" but it is only through 
 ignorance of the language of their own people. It 
 is used in Essex, and in Middleton's ''Your Eive Gal- 
 lants," one of the characters uses it : — 
 
 "They're mad; she graced me with one private minute 
 above their fortunes." 
 
 Mannersbit. a portion of a dish left by the guests, 
 that the host may not feel himself reproached for in- 
 sufficient preparation. (Hallamshire Glossary.) Among 
 the relics of old times and their fashions, this still ex- 
 ists in New England ; probably, however, as a custom 
 only among the very particular, and the very precise. 
 "Leave some for manners,''^ was always enjoined on 
 us, as school-boys, and was always practiced by all, old 
 and young. The last piece of toast, the last piece of 
 pudding, the last potato, were untouched ; and so left 
 the table, notwithstanding the significant glances of 
 the hungry and half-satisfied. 
 
 Mantel-piece, the chimney-piece. (Hallamshire Glos- 
 sary.) This, which formerly meant the whole of the 
 work about a chimney, seldom is applied to more than 
 the piece of wood or marble that crosses its top. 
 
 Mare's nest. "He has found a mare^s nest, and is 
 laughing at the eggs," said of one who laughs without 
 any apparent cause. (Grose's Classical Dictionary.) 
 7 
 
14 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 This phrase, which is not uncommon among us, is not 
 applied in the way which Grose gives it. We say, 
 "he think's tliat he's found a mare^s nest,^^ as a sort 
 of sarcasm on one who thinks that he has hit on a 
 reason for a thing, or made a discovery in some mat- 
 ter that was mysterious or attempted to be concealed, 
 and therefore assumes a superior wisdom. In Ker's 
 "Essay on the Archaiology of Popular English Er- 
 rors and Nursery Rhymes," he derives this saying 
 from the Dutch, er mers nest, i.e. their hut is nested, 
 or, there is nothing in it. 
 
 Mash, to smash. (Hallamshire Glossary.) Our employ- 
 ment of this word is confined, I think, to "beating 
 into a confused mass," as in Tod's Johnson ; as we 
 would say, "a dish of mashed potatoes," or, "his 
 limb was mashed,^^ for crushed. I understand that in 
 the interior of New England, maul is used. 
 
 Maul, a wooden hammer, used by masons. (Hallam- 
 shire Glossary.) For this, we say mallet, but use it as 
 a verb, and say, "111 maul him," or, "he was sadly 
 mauled," for beat and beaten. 
 
 May be, for perhaps, is common among us also. 
 
 Maying. We preserve this custom, one of great anti- 
 quity ; and no feeling can be conceived more beautiful 
 than that which leads to the fields, to pluck the early 
 flowers of spring. It is full of a thankful joyfulness, 
 with a veneration that has in it something sacred. 
 
 Meal-time. For whose use there seems no other au- 
 thority than the Bible : "And Boaz said unto her. At 
 meal-time come thou hither, and eat of the bread and 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 15 
 
 dip thy morsel in the vinegar." Our Puritan forefa- 
 thers were devout and earnest readers of the Scrip- 
 ture, and many of their phrases are from that sacred 
 source. 3Iealy -mouthed, we apply to one who has a 
 gentle way of speaking, as distinguished from a strong. 
 It is used in England in a similar sense. 
 
 Means, for property. He lives on his means. (Hallam- 
 shire Glossary.) Precisely our application. 
 
 Middling, for tolerably well. (Brockett.) This word is 
 in use as far South as Pennsylvania. "How are your 
 folks V ''Why, about middling,^'' may be heard in the 
 country every day. We also hear, a middling warm 
 day, a middling high piece of ground, a middling 
 crop, a middling good year for potatoes. 
 
 Miff, for offence. (Britton.) To be miffed with one, is 
 frequent in Pennsylvania. I never heard it in New 
 England. 
 
 Mind, to remember; to be steady, or attentive. (Brock- 
 ett.) In the first sense, we seldom if ever hear it, ex- 
 cept from emigrants. In the last, or something near 
 it, it is common enough; as, mind what you are 
 about; if you don't mind your eye, I'll give you a 
 licking ; also, you mind the children, while I go, etc. ; 
 this use of the word I find in the Hereford Glossary. 
 It is common among us. 
 
 MiTS. Long gloves without fingers, elsewhere called 
 mittens. (Hallamshire Glossary.) Besides this, we 
 mean by mits, the worsted articles worn by children in 
 winter; they have no fingers, but inclose the hand, 
 and are considered warmer than gloves. The long 
 
76 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 gloves without fingers were worn in New England by 
 those who represented the past, even in our time, and 
 are to be seen daily among the Quakers. The word 
 is from the French mitaines, and was first adopted 
 into our language by Chaucer probably : — 
 
 *' Hei'e is a mitaine eke, that ye may sel : 
 He that his hand wol put in this mitaine^ 
 He shall haye multiplying of his gaine," etc. 
 
 The Pardonere's Tale. 
 
 Mobility. Mob. (Classical Dictionary.) This may be 
 sometimes seen in a newspaper, or heard in that sense. 
 It no doubt comes from mohilitas, fickleness. 
 
 Month's mind. We have heard this expression from 
 our earliest recollection, without any idea what it 
 meant. It now appears that it was an expression 
 used formerly in wills. A montlVs mind, or a yearns 
 mind, meaning that at those times, once a month, or 
 once a year, certain solemnities were to be performed 
 to hold the deceased in remembrance. Shakspeare 
 has it in the "Two Gentlemen of Yerona." A desire, 
 or an intention, is our only application of it; as, ''I 
 have a month''s mind to do something." 
 
 Mortal, mortacious, mortally indeed. Grose gives 
 these as Kentish words for very. The last two terms 
 I have never heard, but the first is common in New 
 England in a sense similar, if not the same as very. 
 One hears there, "a moiial sight of folks," for a great 
 many people ; and, I think, also, a ''mortal good doc- 
 tor." Tod's Johnson has another meaning, extreme, 
 violent; as a low word, as "he was in a mortal fight;" 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 11 
 
 also, "he was mortally afearcl." In this sense, it may 
 be heard among us, with the authority, however, of 
 Dryden. 
 
 Most. This superlative is, as Brockett says, common 
 in parts of England, often prefixed to another superla- 
 tive ; generally, however, with the indefinite article, as, 
 "it is a most a beautifulest day;" "he is a most a 
 handsomest man." 
 
 Much op a muchness. This phrase, for there being 
 very little difference or choice between two things, is 
 now used in Sussex and Hampshire, in England. We 
 generally say, pretty much of a muchness. It is, of 
 course, a vulgar phrase. 
 
 Muck, moist, wet. (Lincolnshire; Grose.) I have 
 beard, " I'm all of a muck sweat," an application not 
 altogether peculiar. Grose says that much, in other 
 parts of England, means manure laid to rot, which is 
 usually very moist; whence, wet as muck. Our use of 
 the word comes, no doubt, from this. It is an old 
 word, derived from the Saxon, and has been employed 
 by Spenser, Shakspeare, and others ; though we have 
 the honor of its usefulness by a somewhat novel appli- 
 cation. 
 
 Muggy. Muggy weather, is misty, thick, foggy wea- 
 ther. (Hallamshire Glossary.) Corruptly, perhaps, 
 we mean by muggy weather, a close, warm, and damp 
 atmosphere, such as spring sometimes produces. Brit- 
 ton gives it in this sense. 
 
 MuLLYGRUBS, foF had temper ; ill humor, an indescriba- 
 ble complaint. (Brockett.) The first is no uncommon 
 t* 
 
18 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 application of the word ; l3ut whether we use it for the 
 "indescribable complaint," it is impossible to say, not 
 knowing what that may be ; but there is a complaint, 
 known to every human being, to which the mulli- 
 gruhs is attached, in this country. It is an old word. 
 [I should think muUy was an Icelandic word, mogla, 
 this being descriptive in either. ] Il^euellij ^krop'^s, q.e. 
 my evil suffering is the belly. This, Mr. Ker thinks, 
 is a good origin for mullig7'ubs ; in English, a belly- 
 ache, and some of its consequences and accompani- 
 ments. The distressed countenance, to which the 
 word is sometimes applied, goes with the pain and in- 
 convenience of the disease ; so, on the whole, I think 
 we may consider ourselves indebted to the Dutch for 
 mulligrubs. Mully may be derived from an Icelandic 
 word, mogla, to murmur ; this being descriptive and 
 expressive of an individual in either condition, whe- 
 ther that of mind or body ; the grubs, I do not know 
 how to account for. Greep, is the Dutch for gripe ; 
 murmen, to murmur. Whether these words, com- 
 pounded, might not make it, is worthy of considera- 
 tion. 
 
 MuMMOCK. ' Though not common, is sometimes heard. 
 Skelton has the substantive, mummocks, that I have 
 never heard. Shakspeare has the verb, viummocked, 
 in the same sense as heard here. Forby has the sub- 
 stantive in his East Anglia Dialect, and Baker in the 
 Northamptonshire. 
 
 MuN, the mouth. (Craven Dialect.) Mr. Carr derives 
 it from mond, a Belgic word ; or, mund, Teutonic. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS 19 
 
 Mun is Swedish for moutli. "A lick in the muns,^^ 
 was a school-boy mode of expressing a blow in the 
 face. It was not necessarily the mouth. 
 MuNCHE, to chew. (Jennings.) The definition in Tod's 
 Johnson, "to chew eagerly, by great mouthfuls," and 
 Shakspeare's — 
 
 " A sailor's wife had chestnuts on her lap, 
 And mounched, and mounched, and mounched,''^ 
 
 are its usual meanings here. 
 Mush, to crush: to pound very small. (Hallamshire 
 Glossary.) Mush is with us a substantive, the simple 
 substance known in England, Old and New, as hasty- 
 pudding; in Scotland, as porridge; and in Penn- 
 sylvania and farther South, as mush. Asa verb, I 
 have never heard it. We have mash, in the above 
 sense. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nashun, for much, or very, I have never heard, except 
 in "Yankee Doodle;" but as that was written by an 
 Englishman, it is not orthodox. Akerman has it. 
 
 Near, for niggardly, stingy. This may be sometimes 
 heard here, though not as often as in England. It is 
 a North of England expression. 
 
 Nation, an abbreviation of damnation ; a vulgar term 
 used in Kent, Sussex, and the adjacent counties, for 
 very. (Grose's Classical Dictionary, also the North 
 and West of England.) One may hear, as a kind of 
 burlesque oath, in New England, tarnation, for dam- 
 nation. Nation, for damnation, or for the more modest 
 
80 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 expletive, very, we have never heard, except in the 
 "Yankee Doodle" anthem : — 
 
 "It held a pound of powder, 
 And made a noise like fayther's gun, 
 Only a nation louder." 
 
 Nice. This word, that means, in England, clever, 
 agreeable; as, "I like him, he is such a nice person," 
 has lost that signification here. We use it in the 
 sense of clean, or neat; as, "how nice you look!" 
 These are, of course, colloquial expressions. As the 
 exact opposite of nice, we have nasty. Ill-natured, 
 impatient, saucy, Brockett gives as the North of Eng- 
 land application. In the first and last sense it is quite 
 common ; " get away, you nasty fellow !" may be heard 
 from one of the female sex, who finds one of the male 
 sex somewhat too importunate or familiar, though 
 not always urged with a very strenuous resolution. 
 "He's a 77as^y-tempered fellow," is also common; but 
 for dirty, filthy, its proper meaning, it is seldom 
 used. 
 
 Nine-holes. Nares speaks of this as a rural game, 
 played by making nine holes in the ground, in the 
 angles and sides of a square, and placing stones and 
 other things upon them, according to certain rules. 
 A game called nine-holes, was common at the school, 
 in New England, where I was educated ; it was played 
 with ball, and does not appear precisely the same with 
 that given by Nares. 
 
 Ninny-hammer, a foolish, stupid person. (Brockett.) 
 Also, Shakspeare's word, ninny, are both common 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 81 
 
 here in the above sense. It has become, however, a term 
 of good humor, not of offence. In the dialogue be- 
 tween Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban, in which the 
 invisible Ariel takes a part, Caliban exclaims — 
 
 " What a pied ninny this, thou scurvy hatch !" 
 
 "I say you are a ninny-hammer, and beware the cuckoo." 
 Middleton's Family of Love. 
 
 JN'oR, for than. "Better nor a thousand on 'em were 
 killed;" "better nor fifty bushels of them potatoes 
 was spoilt by the rain." It is frequent in New Eng- 
 land. I find it in the Hereford Glossary. 
 
 '^ov^Y,,iov judgment, sense. (Brockett.) Among better 
 educated persons, this word is sometimes heard ; sel- 
 dom with any one else. The above author derives it 
 from the Latin noscere; why not from the Greek 
 noos nous ? 
 
 NoRRA ONE, for never a one. (Britton.) A Yankee 
 would say, nary one, which is universally so pro- 
 nounced among the badly educated. In " Tom 
 Jones," the landlady of the inn where he meets with 
 the first adventure, after leaving Mr. Alworthy's, in a 
 part of a speech at Jones, says : "And yet I warrants 
 me there is narrow a one of all those officer-fellows 
 but looks upon himself to be as good as arrow a 
 squire of £500 a year." They also have, in England, 
 in Somersetshire, orra one; we say, ary one. Take 
 ary one on 'em you like best, meaning any one. 
 
 NuTHER, for neither. (Jennings.) Not an uncommon 
 New England pronunciation, though more frequently 
 
82 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 nytlier. Notlier is the old way of spelling the word, 
 as in Chaucer's "Gierke's Tale:" — 
 
 " That notlier by heir words, ne heir face 
 Before the folk, we eke in heir absence." 
 
 Also, in the "Merchant's Tale :" — 
 
 *' For nother after his death," etc. 
 Nuts. The common phrase, "it is nuts to him," I do 
 not find in any of the glossaries ; it is an old mode of 
 speaking. In Beaumont and Fletcher's " Mad Lover," 
 "But they are needful mischiefs, and such as are nuts 
 to me, and I must do 'em." It is common here among 
 all classes. 
 
 o. 
 
 Old Nick. Brockett says that this word, with Old 
 Harry and Old Scratch, mean the devil, among the 
 vulgar in the North of England. Nick he derives from 
 Nicken, or Nicka, an evil spirit of the waters among 
 the Danes and Germans. They are all three employed 
 here as ajQfectionate terras for his satanic majesty. 
 
 On, for concerning. (Hallamshire Glossary.) To tell 
 on me ; I didn't hear him tell on it, are common in 
 New England. 
 
 OuRN, for ours. (Jennings.) Very common in New 
 England. 
 
 Outside. This word is frequently used by writers in 
 newspapers in a sense not known to the language. 
 In a Ledger of a late date, there is a phrase alluding to 
 the sale of Fort Snelling, ''outside of the Secretary 
 of War," for "no one but that official." 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 83 
 
 Pair of stairs, for flight of stairs. (Hallamsliire 
 Glossary.) This expression, so frequent here, seems 
 peculiar to Yorkshire, or rather the Hallamshire dis- 
 trict, as I find it nowhere else. Its source is not 
 mentioned. 
 
 Palaver, to use unnecessary words. (Brockett.) 
 ''Don't stand palavering, ^^ is common. It is derived 
 from imlahra, the Spanish for word, in the opinion of 
 some etymologists; though, as it is and always has 
 been a vulgar word, if really from the Spanish, it has 
 insinuated itself into general use through the drama. 
 
 Pan, to watch, to agree, to assimilate. (Brockett.) We 
 insert this word for the purpose of asking a question ; 
 we have never heard it, but every one knows the com- 
 mon word, span, in New England, used for a pair ; as, 
 " a span of horses;" may it not be derived hom pan, or 
 else used corruptly for pan ? 
 
 Patch. The substantive appears to puzzle etymolo- 
 gists. "Out, scurvy pa/c/i.^" says Caliban. Why does 
 it not come from the condition of one who wears 
 patched clothes, implying poverty, filth, and rags? 
 Gross-jyatch, a word used in Norfolk and Suffolk, 
 East Suffolk, England, and often here, among children, 
 for an ill-tempered person, appears to convey con- 
 tempt. 
 
 Patching, for mending clothes. (Grose.) A coat 
 patched, is not as we use the word, a coat mended, 
 but a coat with new pieces set in. Coats and trowsers 
 
84 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 with these new insertions may be seen every day, giv- 
 ing a harlequin character to one's habiliments. 
 Pay, to heat. (Brockett.) We hear, ''1 j^aid him well," 
 for the operation of a beating ; and most persons, no 
 doubt, like ourselves, took it to be a debt discharged. 
 " I have jjcppered two of them ; two I am sure 
 I have /?«/(/; two rogues in buckram," 
 
 says Sir John Falstafif. Peppered, is also still in 
 use here ; and another word, ^^e^/, to beat with sharp 
 knuckles. (Brockett.) "I gave him such a pe^^mg'," 
 was once to be heard, though not very common, among 
 boys. 
 
 pEAKisn, for looking in ill health, is known here. 
 Shakspeare uses the verb peak, in that sense. It 
 probably comes from the growing thin, or to a peak. 
 Skelton has pekish, but as foolish. 
 
 Pelt, a blow. (Grose.) "I hit him such a pelt,''^ was 
 common among boys, in New England. 
 
 Percy and, the sign, etc. (Brockett.) This is the same 
 as that which children call and pussy and, probably. 
 Forby gives this word as ampers and, deriving it 
 from and perse and; the character, etc., he says, is a 
 combination of e and t, which form the Latin conjunc- 
 tion et, and & was introduced formerly into Latin 
 words. Posset and sciretis, he found in some Latin 
 MSS. spelt poss d, and scir & is. He has also am- 
 pasty, as another name for ampers and, meaning and 
 pasty. 
 
 Pert, or piert, for brisk; in good health. (Hereford 
 Glossary.) I have heard this word so applied in this 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 85 
 
 State : " Why, you look quite peert this morning ; " but 
 never, that I remember, in New England. It is ap- 
 plied, in Yirginia, to the wind : " It blows quite 
 peert.''^ 
 
 Petted, for favored, indulged. (Grose.) Though in 
 common use here, this seems peculiar to the North of 
 England. 
 
 Phippunny, for fivepenny. I take this from a vocabu- 
 lary of Lancashire words, in the Gentleman's Ma- 
 gazine for 1T46. Whether used in England now, I 
 do not know, though, in "Jack Hinton, or Our Mess," 
 a tale by the author of " Charles O'Malley," it ap- 
 pears as a part of the vulgar tongue in Ireland. A 
 phippunny, ov fippenny, was universal here for a five- 
 cent piece, or a piece of six and a quarter cents, 
 until the late abolition of this coin from our currency. 
 
 FiECE, fov a little while. (Brockett.) To sioip a piece ; 
 or, won't you stay apiece f Also, for distance : he went 
 along a piece farther. All are common among the 
 yeomanry of our country. 
 
 Pick at. To pick at; as, "Bill Jones kept picking at 
 me, so I struck him," was a common phrase, among 
 school-boys. 
 
 PissABED. This plant, so common in the fields of negli- 
 gent farmers, and known to delicate ears as the daisy, 
 still bears the somewhat unpleasant name that we have 
 given. Both Johnson and Webster speak of it as a 
 vulgar term. Perhaps neither of them knew that it 
 is used by one of the best of English dramatic poets, 
 Heywood, in one of his most poetical plays, " Love's 
 8 
 
86 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Mistress;" and uses it in such a way, and among such 
 a class of sentiments, as to prove that in his time it 
 was not vulgar, nor conveyed a coarse and vulgar 
 meaning. 
 "Ceres was binding garlands for god Pan, 
 Of bluebottles and y e\lo^y pissabeda, 
 That grew amongst the wheat, with which she crowned 
 His forked brows, and wooed him with his horn. 
 To rouse the skipping Satyrs to go hunt 
 A herd of swine, that rooted up her corn." 
 
 Plaguy. This word, that came from the disgusting 
 appearance of people with the plague, has made 
 several ascents and descents into different meanings. 
 They may be found in Tod's Johnson. None of 
 them are the New England use of it. Shakspeare, 
 who seems the normal type of everything, has it in 
 the exact Yankee usage. 
 
 Pluck a rose. This expression I have never heard but 
 once. It is in Middleton's Changeling : — 
 
 What hour is't, Lollio? 
 
 Lol. — Towards belly hour. 
 
 Alib. — Dinner time ? 
 
 Lol. — Yes, sir; for every part has his hour: we wake at 
 six and look about us — that's eye hour ; at seven, we sliould 
 pray — that's knee hour ; at eight, walk — that's leg hour ; at 
 nine, gather flowers and pluck a rose — that's nose hour; at 
 ten, we drink— that's mouth hour; at eleven, lay about us 
 for victuals — that's hand hour ; at twelve, go to dinner — 
 that's belly hour. 
 
 The meaning of the phrase is clear. 
 Plunder. This word is said to be used in some parts 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 8t 
 
 of this country in the sense of baggage; or, in a more 
 extended sense, as Ms furniture; always property 
 of some sort. I have heard it employed seriously. 
 
 PoMPKiN. A man or woman of Boston, in America ; 
 from the number of pompkins raised and eaten by the 
 people of that country. Pompkinshire, for Boston 
 and its dependencies. (Classical Dictionary.) This is 
 entirely new to us, and is probably obsolete. It will 
 surprise a Bostonian of the present day to be told 
 that his ancestors were spoken of so contemptuously. 
 
 Poorly, for indifferent in health. (Brockett.) "How 
 do you feel to-day ?" Poorly, will be a frequent an- 
 swer to the above question. 
 
 Power, for a multitude. (Hallamshire Glossary.) In 
 the country we hear this : "a power of folks," or, "a 
 power of cattle," are both common. 
 
 Proper. "He's a, proper handsome man," "that's p)^o- 
 per nice," were common phrases in New England. 
 It is only a tautological vulgarity ; projjer was once 
 used for handsome. 
 
 Pucker. To be in a pucker, is a vulgarism brought 
 here from Hampshire or Sussex, It seems to come 
 very directly from pocca, a bag or sack ; and alludes 
 to the being drawn into wrinkles like a bag, and ex- 
 presses contempt. 
 
 PwiNT, for point. (Jennings.) This is very near the 
 
 New England pint. The pint of a pin ; also, disap- 
 
 pinted,'^ are universal among the old-fashioned, and 
 
 where change has not unseated old customs and old 
 
 . ideas. 
 
88 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quandary. This common word is derived, by some ety- 
 mologists, from the French qu^en dirai. It may be 
 heard every day, from all kinds of people. 
 
 QuARE, for queer, odd. (Jennings.) This way of pro- 
 nouncing the word is common iu New England, though 
 they reverse it in chair, which is called cheer: "Take 
 a cheer." 
 
 Queer. The origin of this word is not determined. 
 The German, quer, an adverb, means "de travers, 
 d'avoir I'esprit de travers," is, "to be wrong-headed ;" 
 which is what it means when we say, "he is a queer 
 fellow," that there is something wrong or odd about 
 him. Quer seems, therefore, a very proper origin, 
 and very satisfactory. 
 
 Quilting. A quiUing-froWG, is one of Xew England's 
 rural amusements, but confined to the women. 
 
 Quite, is also corruptly and absurdly employed; as, 
 quite a number. The word conveys the idea of com- 
 pleteness, as, quite ruined, quite miserable ; but in the 
 other way, means nothing. Quite a considerable num- 
 ber, as we hear often, in English means nothing. 
 Words in this way, from ignorance, become fastened 
 to a language. 
 
 E. 
 
 Kake up, to cover, to bury. (Jennings.) We have 
 added a meaning lo this word, and not only use it for to 
 cover, but, to open and expose. To rake up, is used 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 89 
 
 in no other way in England than in the sense of to 
 cover. To rake up a fire, is there to throw ashes 
 over live coals, or to stir them in the grate ; we also 
 say, rake open the fire. The first is derived from the 
 Saxon, the last we have invented from the use of the 
 rake. "To rake up old stories against one," is an- 
 other form of applying it here. 
 
 Rear. Among the great mass of the people of this 
 country south of Philadelphia, this word has given way 
 to raise. One seldom hears, "I shall have difficulty in 
 rearing that child," but almost always raising ; and, 
 "where were you raised,'''' instead of brought up. 
 The Hallamshire Glossary mentions a rearing sup- 
 per, as an entertainment given when the wood-work 
 of a roof is put on. To go to a raising, is one of the 
 most frequent and most social of our rural amuse- 
 ments. People come from all quarters to assist in 
 the operation, which generally ends in a frolic, and 
 sometimes becomes an occasion of intemperance and 
 the disgusting scenes that go with it. The reason of 
 this universal substitution of raise, for rear, must be 
 determined by some one else. 
 
 In Kent, rear has the meaning of early ; whence Pegge 
 derives the expression, imi^e meats, or, as he thinks it 
 should be pronounced, rear. It may sometimes be 
 heard, pronounced in this way, in New England, and 
 was once so pronounced in England; and may be 
 
 found in Middleton. 
 
 "And thy recti- flesh 
 Tost all into poached eggs." 
 
 The World Tost at Tennis. 
 8* 
 
90 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Rare seems to come directly from rarus, and would be 
 pronounced with more propriety with the a long, than 
 as if it were spelt rear; though rare may come from 
 the Swedish ra, or Danish raa, which are the archaics 
 of raw. 
 
 Reckon, to sujjpose ; to conjecture, to conclude. (Brock- 
 ett.) To rec^o??, belongs more to the South; as, a 
 Yirgiuian, asked if he purposed leaving town to-mor- 
 row, would reply, "I reckon so." In Xew England, 
 it would mean one who was quick at figures : he reck- 
 ons well ; he is a good reckoner. I calculate, and 
 I guess, belong to New England. I remember once, 
 at Newport, Rhode Island, saying to a farmer that I 
 liked the people of this town, they were so civil. 
 His reply was : "We always calculate to be, to them 
 that are civil to us." This way of using calculate 
 would puzzle an Englishman. It comes with the 
 Yankees as a kind of second nature, everything there 
 being a matter of calculation ; and I have no doubt 
 that he expressed the sense of his neighborhood in 
 the matter of civility; who, after due consideration, 
 had calculated that, as a system of conduct, civility 
 was the best they could think of. 
 
 Reckning. The score at public houses. (Brockett.) A 
 Yankee will say to his landlord, " I'll settle the reck- 
 ning,''^ just as he is going away. It is also used as 
 expressing anger toward some one, and conveying a 
 menace, as, "I'll settle the reckning with him." 
 
 Rench, to rinse. (Brockett.) The New England pro- 
 nunciation is hardly so strong, but is rens: "Sam, 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 91 
 
 rens that tumbler;" this may be rench, somewhat 
 softened. Brockett gives an Icelandic word for its 
 origin; Holloway, a Danish word, i^enser. 
 
 Rig, to dress. (Jennings.) Is not in general use with 
 any class, bat as a colloquial vulgarism, may be heard 
 sometimes, though only in fun. 
 
 KiGHT. The using this word as an adjunct to adjec- 
 tives, to give them force and expression, so common 
 among the earliest English writers, is confined, in this 
 country, to the South. "I know him right well;" 
 he is a right honest fellow, or a right good fellow, are 
 heard there, but not at the North at all. Bight down 
 is employed in a similar way to right, as, "he's a right 
 down good-for-nothing chap;" also, right on, to ex- 
 press resolution, and as a direction : "keep right on.''^ 
 Milton has right onivards, right up; "get right up,'''' 
 we use. Forby gives each of them. 
 
 Rile, to render turbid ; to vex, to disturb. (Brockett. ) 
 In each of these senses it is in common use in New 
 England, though more frequently heard with the first 
 meaning. A Yankee once said to me, speaking of 
 the troubles in Canada, "the people there seemed 
 a good deal riled up.''^ He got his temper riled, for 
 one offended and indignant, is not unfrequent. It is 
 not in Tod's Johnson, but is in that fine production, 
 "John Noakes and Mary Styles:" — 
 
 ".John was a-dry an' soon cried out, 
 *Gom git some beer, we 'ooll' 
 He'd so to wait, it mad him riled, 
 'Ihe booths were all chuck lull." 
 
92 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Mr. Forby, in his notice of this word, and alluding to 
 its being in use in this country, says : " It may have been 
 transported to the Western World many years ago, with 
 some East Anglian thief!" Alas, " invidia glorise comes 
 est!" as we grow in strength, we shall be doubly the 
 offspring of scoundrels. Though these expressions 
 of contempt are not new; but however bad the early 
 colonists or criminals might have been, it was thought 
 a region of more morality than the Court of England, 
 at that time. In one of Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 plays, we have this very bluntly and sturdily expressed 
 by a character who was urged to bring his wife to 
 court : — 
 
 Oil, dear cousin, 
 You have a wife, and fair; bring her hither ; 
 Let her not live to be the mistress of 
 A farmer's heir, and be confined ever 
 To a serge far coarser than my house-cloth! 
 Let her have velvets, tiifanies, jewels, pearls, 
 A coach, an usher, and her two lacquies; 
 And I will send my wife to give her rules, 
 And read the rudiments of a court to her. 
 Cler. Sir, I had rather send her to Virginia, 
 To help propagate the English nation. 
 
 Room, for place; in the place of. This is pure old Eng- 
 lish, (Hallamshire Glossary,) and universally so em- 
 ployed in New England. 
 
 KouGH. To roughen the shoes of horses in frosty wea- 
 ther. (Britton.) To have one's horses caiol-ed, is the 
 common expression in New England. In Philadelphia, 
 rough is more common. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 93 
 
 Rugged. This is used in a peculiar manner in New 
 England, in the sense of hardj. Among the several 
 meanings in Tod's Johnson, none come near this. 
 The word was formerly ruggy, as in Chaucer : — 
 "With flotery berd, and ruggy ashy heres." 
 
 KuMPLE. A large debt, contracted by little and little. 
 (Grose gives it as a Somersetshire word ; but Jen- 
 nings, whose work is devoted to that part of England, 
 does not mention it.) In the sense of to press, to ruf- 
 fle, as in Britton, it is common here. A rumpled 
 shirt ; anything rumpled, means pressed into wrinkles. 
 Its Saxon origin means wrinkles. The Latin word, 
 rumpo, might also be taken as its origin, it meaning 
 a broken or interrupted surface; and the phrase in 
 Somersetshire, "it will come to a rumple at last," 
 meaning to a failure or bankruptcy, or that a person 
 will break, agrees rather with the Latin origin than 
 with the Saxon or Belgic. 
 
 KuMPUS, a great noise. (Jennings.) Yery common 
 among us. Rumplen, in German, is "faire du bruit, 
 du fracas;" it is also a substantive. Ker derives it 
 from a Dutch word, erompas, an unseasonable inter- 
 ruption, something that breaks up a state of quiet. I 
 can find no such word in the only Dutch dictionary to 
 which I have access. There is a quizzing air about 
 this author that leads one to doubt his etymological 
 correctness, and whether he is in earnest at all. 
 
 Runt, a Scotch ox; also for a person of strong but low 
 stature. (Brockett.) We use this word in neither of 
 the above senses. A runt of a fellow, meaning some 
 
94 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 one inferior in size, without regard to strength ; gene- 
 rally, however, implying inferiority in this particular 
 too. ''Every family has its runt,''^ taking this com- 
 plimentary application from a litter of pigs, in which 
 there is almost invariably one very diminutive in com- 
 parison with the rest. But we believe it is meant to 
 apply only to unusually large families. 
 
 s. 
 
 Safe, for sure, certain. He's safe to be hung. (Brock- 
 ets ) I have heard this word used in this way, though 
 it is not common. Safe, for a place of security, as 
 an \von-safe, is universal ; and we also apply it to the 
 box in which family provisions are kept. This is 
 generally suspended from the ceiling of the cellar, 
 and is a kind of larder on a small scale. It is applied 
 in the same way in Suffolk. 
 
 Sapscull, a foolish felloio; a blockhead. (Brockett.) 
 Not uncommon in this sense here. 
 
 Sappy, for /ooZzs/i. (Wilbraham.) He's such a sap, he's 
 a sappy fellow, are common here. 
 
 Sartin, and sartinly, for sure, positive. (Brockett.) 
 "You are not so sartin of that." "Yes I be; there 
 aint the least onsartinty about it." "I'm sartin sure 
 on it." "Are you going to sue the deacon ?" ''Sar- 
 tinly I be; as sartin as he's alive, I'll have the law on 
 him," are common phrases in New England. 
 
 Sattle, for settle. This vulgar pronunciation is con- 
 formable to the Saxon origin of the word. (Brockett.) 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 95 
 
 He's gone out West, to sattle. It is almost universally 
 pronounced in this way among farmers. 
 
 Sauce, insolence of speech; impertinence. (Brockett.) 
 Britton brings it nearer to the Yankee pronunciation, 
 in saace, the way it is spelt by him ; sarse would be 
 still nearer, as, "don't give me none of your sarse;^^ 
 "he's the sai^siest chap ever I knowed;" and saucer 
 is sarser. But the Yankees apply sauce in a way I 
 had supposed peculiar. But this hunt of mine has, 
 however, added another testimony to the truth of 
 "that there's nothing new under the sun." Long 
 sarse, and short sarse, and round sarse, are not un- 
 frequently applied to different vegetables : carrots, 
 beets, and potatoes are so called, according to their 
 respective dimensions. The Hallamshire Glossary 
 defines sauce, as the vegetables on table ; whence, I 
 presume, comes the New England application; and 
 Forby, as any sort of vegetables eaten with fresh meat. 
 Saucy is an Essex word ; it is also a Suffolk word, in 
 both our senses — the vegetable and the impudent. 
 
 Say, for authority ; influence, sway. (Brockett.) "I've 
 no say in that business," is a common expression. 
 
 Scaly, for a shabby, mean person, is our New England 
 word. Set up, for begun; as, he's just set up a gro- 
 cery store. Shay, for chaise. Smart as a carrot, 
 for great nicety of appearance ; as, "you look as smart 
 as a carrot;''"' a synonym of "you look as fine as a fiddle. " 
 Smash, for all to pieces. He's gone all to smash. 
 Sheu, for showed, a very common New England vul- 
 garism. Smack; "he came right smack against me," 
 
96 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 expressing violence ; are all from Essex. And to- 
 RiGiiTS, fov in order; "come, put things to-rigbts;" 
 and TARNATION, heard jocularly in New England, are 
 from the same county. The last word is in a poem 
 added to the literature of England, entitled "John 
 Noakes and Mary Styles, or an Essex Calf's Visit to 
 Tiptree Races;" the verse runs thus: — 
 
 "Poor houest John, 'tis plain lie knowed 
 But liddle ov life's range, 
 Or he'd a knowed, gals oft at first 
 Have ways tarnation sti^ange." 
 
 The whole is as brilliant as this. 
 
 Scamp, a mean rascal; a fellow devoid of honor or 
 principles. (Brockett.) Xo uncommon character in 
 this country, any more than in that of our ancestors. 
 Also scampered, to run away, which Brockett derives 
 from French, Italian, and Teutonic, is in common use 
 here. 
 
 ScANTiSH, for scarce. (Brockett.) This represents a me- 
 dium between scant and very scant; a scantish cro^ of 
 corn, would be not very bad nor very good. Mr. Hod- 
 son, in his travels through this country, gives a word 
 that we have never heard. While gazing with admira- 
 tion at the scene near Harper's Ferry, a man awoke 
 him from his rapture by a slap on the back, at the same 
 time saying, "a tightish crop, aint it ?" presuming that 
 he was admiring the prospect of a fine harvest; he, of 
 course, meaning the opposite of scantish. The pro- 
 cess by which he brought tightish to such a significa- 
 tion was not probably known to himself, and there- 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 9T 
 
 fore we offer no explanation. They have lightish in 
 Sussex, England, for well, in good health. 
 
 Scape-grace, a graceless fellow. (Brockett.) Kot 
 unfrequent here. 
 
 Scatter-brained, lightheaded. (Brockett.) A scatter- 
 brained sort of a fellow, is no uncommon member of 
 the human family, even in our sedate land. 
 
 ScRANCH. To grind any hard or crackling substance 
 between the teeth. (Brockett.) The Scotch use this, 
 as well as the North of England ; and I have heard it, 
 though not often, in this country. 
 
 Scrawny. Whence this word comes, I have no idea. 
 It is heard, in this country, in two senses; a very thin 
 person is called scrawny ; and a man at Brandy wine 
 Springs, Delaware, once told me that he liked the 
 water, a mild chalybeate, expressing his liking in this 
 language : " I always drink this water of a morning, 
 when I come along, and feel a kind o' scrawny like," 
 evidently meaning that it refreshed him ; feeling as one 
 very naturally does in a hot summer's morning, lan- 
 guid and debilitated. They have a word in England, 
 scraggy, meaning lean ; it also has another meaning, 
 full of protuberances : this would apply very well to a 
 thin person. Scrawny may be a corruption of this, 
 and both may come from the Dutch schraal, lean, 
 slender. The Craven Dialect has scranny, our word. 
 
 ScRANNY, for thin, meagre. (Wilbraham.) For some 
 reason this is only appropriated to women here ; a 
 thin, scranny woman, is frequent. Tod's Johnson 
 9 
 
98 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 lias only scrannel. We wish there was less occasion 
 for the word. 
 
 Seed, for saw. Universal among the vulgar. (Brock- 
 ett.) " I never seed anything like that 'ere," is a fre- 
 quent phrase. 
 
 Set, to propose; to push forward. (Brockett.) Set it 
 forward a little, is a common expression; also, to 
 esteem, to regard ; I set a great deal by him ; I set no 
 store by him. Forby has them. 
 
 Shakes. We make use of this word in a masculine, 
 feminine, or neuter gender. He, she, or it, is no 
 great shakes. Forby attempts a derivation from the 
 Anglo-Saxon saca, sausa, lis, or as a thing not worth 
 making a great stir about, from scacan, quatere. 
 
 Shay, a post-chaise. (Brockett.) A post-chaise is an 
 unknown vehicle in this country. Our chaise, or shay, 
 as it is generally called in New England, has but two- 
 wheels, and is meant for only one horse ; the English 
 post-chaise, for two or more, and has four wheels. 
 
 Shift. To shift himself, is to change his dress ; to 
 shift for himself, is to provide for himself. (Hallam- 
 shire Glossary.) Made use of in both these senses in 
 this country. 
 
 Shilly-shally, for hesitating, irresolute. (Brockett.) 
 In Tod's Johnson, this is spelt shill I shall I, and 
 considered a corrupt reduplication of shall I. "Don't 
 stand there shilly-shally,^'' applied to one who does 
 not seem to know what to do with himself, is a fre- 
 quent phrase here. Ker thinks Johnson's derivation 
 a mere whim. He brings it from the Dutch, schill-je 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 99 
 
 schael-je ; je means ever, always ; schill, difference, 
 distinction ; schael, the vessel of a pair of scales : it 
 would then mean, always uncertain, never the same. 
 
 Shine, a row; disturbance, mischief (Brockett.) To 
 kick up a shine; we also kick up shines. 
 
 Shinney. According to Brockett, shinney is the stick 
 with a crooked or round end with which the game of 
 shinney, played by our boys here, is played in the 
 Northern counties of England. 
 
 Shoat. In some places a shot, a young pig between a 
 sucker and a porker. It is always a term of contempt 
 w^hen applied to a young person. (Wilbraham.) It 
 is universal, in New England, in the first sense. A 
 young shaver, comes nearer the second, though it 
 conveys no contempt. 
 
 Shoo. The interjection used in driving birds or fowls 
 from gardens. (Hallamshire Glossary ; Wilbraham ; 
 Brockett.) Frequent here, in word and deed. Scheu, 
 is the German for timid ; scheuchen, to frighten ; but 
 it seems a natural exclamation, and no more German 
 than shoo, for hush. A farmer would be astonished 
 at hearing that he was talking German, and so would 
 the fowls. 
 
 Shot. The score of reckoning at public houses. (Brock- 
 ett.) Sometimes, though not often heard here. 
 
 Shot of, for freed from. (Brockett.) The usual 
 pronunciation is as spelt in the Hallamshire Glossary, 
 shut. I never heard the word but in Chester County, 
 Pennsylvania, and there it is common. The early set- 
 tlers of that county were Quakers, and most of these, I 
 
100 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS, 
 
 believe, from the North of England. A widow, once 
 importuned by a man whom she did not care much 
 for, though her worldly substance was too considera- 
 ble to be neglected by a prudent man, married him, as 
 she said, to get sliut of him. They also say, to get 
 shut of a farm, or a horse. Shot is also the past parti- 
 ciple of shut, or, as it is written in Chaucer, shette; 
 did you shette the door? it was shot; who shot the 
 door ? This way of using shot and shette, for shut, is 
 common in New England, and among farmers in Penn- 
 sylvania. They have the authority of Chaucer. 
 
 Shuffle and cut. A superior step in vulgar dancing. 
 (Brockett.) And so continues; and another step or 
 movement in the same species of dancing, called the 
 double-shuffle, is perhaps, and for all we know, an im- 
 provement on this caper of our ancestors. 
 
 Sic-sic. Said to pigs, when called to the trough, by 
 those who little think that they are speaking pure 
 Saxon, in which sic is a pig. (Hallamshire Glossary.) 
 This is very true; no doubt, when the farmers call 
 their pigs, it does not enter their heads that they are 
 addressing them in an unknown tongue, nor do the 
 pigs think so, though they seem to understand it 
 with as much facility as a Mormon. 
 
 Sight. What a sight of people ! is our expression ; the 
 
 • same as the East Anglian. But we also say, " a thing 
 is not so by a long sight ;^^ ''you haven't hit it, or 
 guessed by a long sight.^'' The derivation is obvious. 
 
 SiK, siK-LiKE, or SUCK, SUCK-LIKE. (Brockett.) Our 
 people in the country, once, no doubt, made use of 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 101 
 
 sik; they have now approached nearer the more re- 
 fined word such, by using sich and sich-like. "I 
 never seed exactly sich a kind of man afore;" "I 
 guess there is no good in sich-like sort of folks." 
 
 Sit. To sit a woman ; to keep company with her ; to 
 court, or to sit up with her during the night. This, 
 according to the Craven Glossary, is the mode of pay- 
 ing one's addresses in that obscure quarter of York- 
 shire. They have the same custom in Chester County, 
 Pennsylvania. To come on a Sunday afternoon and 
 stay till the next morning, is the fashion there ; whe- 
 ther it exists anywhere else, I do not know. Their 
 reason for doing so is obvious, and a very good one. 
 The incessant duties of the rest of the week prevent 
 them from meeting, except on Sunday. It is their 
 day of general worship at the different shrines. In 
 Tirginia, and perhaps other Southern States, I am 
 told that the slaves walk twelve miles to visit their 
 lady-love, and this after their usual work in the fields, 
 yet are ready on the following morning for their daily 
 tasks. 
 
 Sixes and sevens, in a state of confusion ; in dis- 
 order. (Brockett.) It is strange that this should 
 be supposed peculiar to the North of England, as it 
 is heard wherever English is spoken. 
 
 Skillet. The utensil, a small, shallow iron pot, with a 
 long handle, to which we give this name, is not the 
 same as its English relative. In Suffolk, it is an arti- 
 cle for skimming milk ; in Northamptonshire, a brass 
 kettle, without a lid ; though, in East Anglia, it is a 
 9* 
 
102 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 pot of brass or iron, with a long handle, and proba- 
 bly the same as ours. Shakspeare has the word, and 
 Skelton. 
 
 Skinflint, a niggardly, close-fisted person. (Brock- 
 ett.) A character not as common here as in England, 
 though one is called skinfiint in this country who 
 would be thought generous anywhere else. 
 
 Skurry, for haste, impetuosity. (Brockett.) I have 
 heard this word in Pennsylvania, but not in New 
 England, Hurry -skurry is no unusual phrase. 
 
 Slab. The outside plank of a piece of timber, when 
 sawn into boards. It is a word of general use. Grose 
 gives this as a North Country word ; Brockett does 
 not mention it. We believe it is used in the same 
 way here. A marble slab, is a table of marble. 
 
 Slack. A long pool in a streamy river. (Brockett.) 
 This is not very clearly expressed, or not clear on this 
 side the Atlantic. In rowing a boat, a man may say, 
 "I'll try and get into slack water," by which would be 
 understood that he meant to get out of the current. 
 This may be the meaning of Brockett, and is the only 
 application I know in this country. Slack was used 
 by the earliest writers for slow; slack water, would 
 be the slow water. 
 
 Slam, to push violently; to beat or cuff one. (Grose 
 and Brockett.) AVe say, don't slam the door, for 
 shutting it with violence; and, the shutter slammed 
 to with the wind; but for beat or cuffing, it is un- 
 known, I believe. 
 
 Slammocking, moving awkwardly. (Craven Glossary.) 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 103 
 
 I have heard this word, but its application I forget. 
 I believe, however, it meant rough, awkward. 
 
 Slewed. It is very possible that this is a coinage of 
 our own. It means drunk ; he is confounded slewed, 
 means very intoxicated. It may be from slide, as they 
 say in New England when a sleigh slides, as it is apt 
 to do in going round a corner, that it sleioed round. 
 " Cocked " is a synonym. 
 
 Slick To say a thing was done as slick as grease, 
 you done that slick, were once common in New Eng- 
 land. Sleeken is a Lancashire word for smooth, but 
 slick appears to have deserted England, and become 
 here but a vulgarism. 
 
 Slink. From an Anglo-Saxon word, meaning to crawl 
 or creep, is common here ; as, he slinked away. Also 
 the substantive; as, such a person is a slink. 
 
 Slippy, slippery. (Brockett.) The last is the more 
 common pronunciation, though I have heard the 
 other. A slippery fellow, for one who makes pro- 
 mises with facility, is used here ; but slippy, in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Slat, or slate. To slat on ; to dash against ; to cast 
 on anything. Another North Country word, accord- 
 ing to Grose, though not in Brockett. He slat it on 
 the floor, for dashing down violently, is the only ap- 
 plication I know of the word. Britton defines it, to 
 split, to crack; unknown, I believe, among us in this 
 sense. 
 
 Slop, to spill. (Hallamshire Glossary.) When one is 
 
104 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 carrying a pail full of water, and it falls over at the 
 sides, water is said to dop over. 
 
 Slope. This word has become quite common, within a 
 short time; but seems confined in its application to 
 the movements of persons of doubtful character. A 
 man formerly ran away; he now ''slopes for Texas." 
 It comes, no doubt, from slope, meaning an inclining 
 downward ; as we say, he has gone down South. A 
 modern poet uses the word, though not with our appli- 
 cation. 
 
 " Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West," 
 has somewhat the meaning of slink, or sneak, though 
 a little higher in degree. A mean fellow does not 
 slope, but sneaks or slinks away; a scoundrel, bold 
 and imposing, is he who slopes. The word was 
 heard, I believe, first when Texas became the Ameri- 
 can Alsatia; as, he sloped for Texas, was always 
 understood of one who had cheated his creditors, 
 plundered a bank, or robbed his employers — a villain 
 of lofty and interesting dimensions. When in num- 
 bers, as has been the case more than once in our 
 history, the thing was well understood. Those who 
 sloped, were the rats of business ; the house was fall- 
 ing, credit was cracked, and bankruptcy near at hand. 
 Sloping ceases, when men can neither borrow nor steal. 
 The word is well used, preserving the proper meaning 
 of going down a declivity, though with rather more 
 haste than it really implies. 
 
 Sloshy, wet and dirty. (Brockett.) SlosJiy is the New 
 England pronunciation, or slushy. Jameson defines 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 105 
 
 slush, snow in a state of liquefaction, and derives it 
 from a Gothic word, slask, meaning dirt, mud. 
 
 Slump. To slip or fall plump down in a wet or dirty 
 place. (Grose and Brockett.) This is something 
 near our meaning. If a person is walking in deep 
 snow, softened by the sun or by rain, and falls in, he 
 would say that he slumped through ; or, if the same 
 thing should happen in dirt, of a sufficiently soft and 
 thickened consistency, the same expression would be 
 used. 
 
 Smash. A blow or fall by which anything is broken. 
 (Wilbraham and Brockett.) This extremely common 
 word seems peculiar to the North of England. A 
 thing smashed, is broken to atoms. We also say of 
 one entirely ruined, that he's gone to smash. 
 
 Smock, the under linen of a female. (Brockett.) 
 Othello, after murdering Desdemona, compares the 
 pallor of death to a smock; but to have said, pale as 
 a shift, would have given a romance to that word 
 which it now wants. 
 
 Snacks. A Hampshire and Sussex word, for shares. 
 We also say, let us go snacks, though the expression 
 is not an integral part of speech anywhere, but only 
 an occasional pleasantry. Snack is used here for 
 luncheon: let us take a snack. Snatch appears to 
 be its original. 
 
 Snag. To hew or cut roughly with an ax. (Brockett.) 
 On the Western rivers, a snag is a piece of timber or 
 a tree projecting so far toward the surface of the 
 water as to strike boats, and cause them to sink, by 
 
106 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 penetrating their bottoms. In Tod's Johnson, it is 
 defined as a jag, a sharp protuberance. From a sim- 
 ple and meagre meaning of this sort, it has extended 
 itself to a broader sense. But it is curious that it 
 should be in use nowhere else in this country but in 
 the West. In some parts of England, anag means a 
 giiarl or knob on a tree, also a tooth, and snagging is 
 lopping or cutting. 
 
 Snead, for the sole of a scythe, is heard among farmers. 
 It is an Anglo-Saxon word, and still heard in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Sneak away. Means the same as slink ; and to say a 
 person is a sneak, means a mean fellow, but has no 
 locomotion in it. 
 
 Snivel, sneavel. To speak through the nose, to snuff. 
 (Brockett.) AVhen one has a cold, and draws his 
 breath through his nose, the act or the noise produced 
 thereby is called sniveling, or sniffling. Tod's John- 
 son has a meaning very near ours. 
 
 Snob. A common name for a cobbler. (Brockett.) 
 In this sense, unknown among us, the word cobbler 
 being wholly disused. Shoemaker includes the whole 
 species of makers and menders of shoes. At one of 
 the English universities, a snob is a boy who runs 
 errands for the students. We have imported the 
 word, and apply it to a vulgar person who sets up 
 pretensions. 
 
 Snot. A contemptuous epithet for a useless, insignifi- 
 cant fellow. (Brockett.) Never heard among us, I 
 believe, in this signification ; but for the mucus nasi, 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 107 
 
 from the Saxon sjiote, among vulgar people, it is the 
 common expression. 
 
 Snort, to laugh outright. (Brockett.) When one bursts 
 into a hearty, unrestrained laugh, it is said of him, 
 that he regularly snorted. This is merely a colloquial 
 vulgarism, and the word is generally appropriated to 
 a horse blowing his nose. 
 
 SoA, for he quiet. This has dropped from the human 
 race to cows, and soa-mooley, may be heard at every 
 milking. It is not used to oxen or horses. Whether 
 mooley comes from mulier, I leave to the learned. 
 
 Soft, for silly, simple, foolish. (Brockett.) A soft 
 sort of a fellow, is no unusual variety of our species 
 even here. 
 
 Son of a gun. Implying one irregular or not to be de- 
 pended upon in keeping engagements. "Er so aen 
 afer gaen," there and then off, is Ker's derivation ; and 
 to "as sure as a gun," he gives a Dutch origin. "Was 
 that so V "Ay, as sure as a gun.^'' " Als sij ure haest 
 er gaen," as the hour that has just passed by, can be. 
 
 Sour milk, butter-milk. (Brockett.) Sour milk, 
 with us, is milk soured by long-standing, or by a 
 thunder-storm. With boys who were fond of it — a 
 quantity of sugar being added to render it palatable — 
 it had another name, honny-clahber, or, as the young 
 gentlemen always insisted it should be spelt, "baugh- 
 naugh-claugh-baugh." Tod's Johnson calls it an Irish 
 word. 
 
 Souse. A dish made of the ears, feet, etc. of swine. (Hal- 
 lamshire Glossary.) The dish is common in New 
 
108 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 England, but it always means those articles in a 
 pickle. 
 
 Spanghew, to iliroici with violence. (Brockett.) We 
 introduce this word merely to bring forward another. 
 I know of no such word, but we have one, spank, to 
 slap, that I do not find anywhere. It means a beat- 
 ing with the palm of the hand, in the way and mode 
 practiced by mothers on their children. " He got such 
 a spanking P'' "Charles, Charles! don't do that, or 
 I'll spank you." Moor gives this word as in use in 
 Suffolk, in the sense of slap, more especially in the 
 maternal mode. I think I have heard spanking ap- 
 plied to horses, also slapping ; as, a pair of spanking 
 big blacks, or slapping grays. It means something 
 gay, spirited. Bailey has spank, and derives it from 
 a Saxon word; Britton has spankey, showy; and 
 Forby, spanking, conspicuous, showy. 
 
 Spell. This word is used in two ways in New Eng- 
 land. We hear of a bad spell of weather ; never, I 
 believe, of a pleasant spell; and also, "come, you try 
 it a spell.^'' The first seems peculiar; the last Hol- 
 loway gives as a Sussex and Hampshire phrase. 
 Junius calls it a nautical term, and derives it from an 
 Anglo-Saxon word, meaning a turn of work. This 
 appears the probable origin, as we use turn in a 
 similar sense, as, "he has had a bad turn,''^ used in 
 illness. 
 
 Spick-and-span-new. Those who are curious as to the 
 origin of this word, will find it fully "attempted," we 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 109 
 
 will not say " made out," in Tod's Johnson. Cliaucer 
 has span-new J as — 
 
 "Tliis tale was aie sjuin-neic to beginne." 
 
 Spill, a quantity. There was a good spill of apples 
 this year. (Hallamshire Glossary.) In New Eng- 
 land they use spell, though not exactly in the same 
 way, yet approaching it : we shall have a long spell 
 of bad weather ; he was confined to the house a spell; 
 he had a bad spell of sickness. Whence it comes, we 
 know not. There is a Dutch and German word, spil, 
 and spiel, a game ; also, a Dutch word, spell, a pivot 
 or hinge ; but this meaning is not analagous to that 
 we give the word. Spill and spell appear the same 
 in origin. 
 
 Splash. This word, besides being used for throwing 
 water about, dirty water too, in some places has a 
 more superb application. To cut a splash, was for- 
 merly said of one who, by dress or equipage, endea- 
 vored to make himself very eminent. To cut a dash, 
 is a synonym. We took it from our English ancestors 
 of Hampshire and Sussex. 
 
 Spree, sport, merriment, a frolic. '(Brockett.) This 
 has some slight existence among us. It was imported 
 with "Tom and Jerry," and is continued by the 
 patrons of that firm. 
 
 Sprey, spruce, ingenious. Grose takes this from the 
 
 Exmoor Dialect. Jennings defines it nimble, active, 
 
 which is the common and only way in which it is used 
 
 in New England. " Come, be spry,''^ a Yankee will 
 
 10 
 
110 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 say to one whom lie wislies to urge to haste. He was 
 the " spriest chap ever I see," means one who could run 
 or leap, or was in other ways more than usually 
 active. 
 
 Spunk, mettle, spirit, vivacity. (Brockett.) This and 
 spunky are both in common use in the sense of spirit 
 and spirited. Forby defines spunky, brisk, mettle- 
 some. 
 
 Squat. To bruise, or make flat by letting fall ; said by 
 Grose to be used in the South of England. It is fre- 
 quent in New England, though not confined to a thing 
 let fall; as, his hat was all squat in; his trunk was 
 squat in; in the sense of pressed upon. An old word. 
 Moor gives squat, as meaning to settle ; in Suffolk, a 
 squatter is, then, a settler ; but we, though no doubt 
 taking the word from that county, always use it in a 
 bad sense. Its meaning with us is, to occupy another's 
 land. 
 
 Squirm. To wriggle and twist about briskly, after the 
 manner of an eel; it is usually spoken of that fish. 
 We have extended the application of this word, 
 which Grose mentions as peculiar to the South of 
 England. The signification includes the one above, 
 though modified by circumstances. We do not say an 
 eel, or any other animal, squirms, (for we apply it to 
 all living things,) unless we mean also in agony. See 
 that poor creature squirming ; or, how it squirms, 
 would mean that it was writhing in torture. To a 
 movement brisk and lively with pleasure, I have never 
 heard it applied. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICxVNISMS. Ill 
 
 Stalled. An animal is said to be stalled, who sticks 
 in the mud. Marshall has it as a word in use in the 
 Midland Counties, but I find it nowhere else. It is 
 frequent here. 
 
 Stand. Forby defines this, to behoove, to concern, to 
 interest; as, "it stands you in hand to look to that." 
 This may be heard in New England, and also the 
 Yankee expression, such a thing wall stand you in so 
 much, meaning that it will cost him a certain sum. 
 
 Stang, a long bar; a wooden pole. (Brockett.) Riding 
 the stang, a punishment among the vulgar. From the 
 account given by this gentleman, this punishment is 
 the same as one known in New England as riding the 
 rail ; it also seems to be applied to the same cases. 
 These are generally of a nature which the law could 
 not reach ; very offensive to the morals of small com- 
 munities, though practiced in large ones without 
 notice or rebuke. The word stang, I have never 
 heard. Riding the rail was lately applied to a cap- 
 tain of militia, in Kensington, by his men, for appear- 
 ing on parade intoxicated. 
 
 Stark, stiff, rigid. Used for the state of the body 
 after excessive fatigue ; also as a superlative, as starh 
 blind. (Hallamshire Glossary.) Asa superlative, in 
 the expression, starh staring mad, I have heard this 
 word very often, but in no other way. 
 
 Steeple. Invariably means a spire. (Jennings.) I 
 
 . have seldom heard the word spire in this country, and 
 in England I never heard steeple. The steep)le of the 
 meeting-house, is universal in New England. A 
 
112 dLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 "steeple chase" shows that the word is known in 
 England. 
 
 Stew. In a sad dew, in a state of great perplexity. 
 (Brockett.) Common here, in this sense. 
 
 Stone-de^U), for quite dead; dead as a stone. (Brit- 
 ton.) A word in frequent use among us. 
 
 Stoop, or stoavp, a post, fastened in the earth. (Brock- 
 ett.) In Pennsylvania, a stoop is a porch with a bench 
 on each side, where the summer evenings may be 
 passed in smoking and talking at will. It was brought 
 here from Holland or Germany. 
 
 Store. It is rather strange that the way in which the 
 word is sometimes used in New England is not given 
 in any of the glossaries. We say, everywhere in this 
 country, a store instead of a shop, the only word em- 
 ployed in England ; but they also say, in New Eng- 
 land, "I set no store by it," i.e. I do not value it. An 
 expression, to tell no store, may be found in Chaucer, 
 of precisely a similar meaning to that of New Eng- 
 land. Tod's Johnson, generally so full, has not 
 noticed it. Hollo way has stoar, value, used in the 
 North of England. Cromwell uses the word in one 
 of his letters: *'A great store of great artillery." 
 
 Strapping tall, strapper, a large man or luoman. 
 (Brockett.) Both are common here. He's a straj)- 
 ping big fellow, and, what a strapper, are frequent. 
 
 Stripper. Applied here to cows nearly dry. A word, 
 of the same meaning and origin, strapper, is used in 
 the North of England. 
 
 Stub. He stubbed his foot. I know of no authority 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 113 
 
 for this. In the sense of short and thick, we have it 
 still, from old authority : — 
 
 "Than Margery Mylkeducke 
 Her hyrtill did up take, 
 An ynche above lier kne, 
 Her legges that ye myght se ; 
 But they were sturdy and stubbed.^'' — Skelton. 
 
 Sty. a troublesome and painful swelling on the eye- 
 lid. (Brockett.) This disease, and the mode of cure 
 mentioned by Brockett, are both well known in Xew 
 England. He says that a wedding-ring must be ap- 
 plied to it, and repeated nine times. Excepting this 
 last condition, of which I remember nothing, the rest 
 was always recommended. 
 
 Sure as a gun, absolutely certain. (Brockett.) A 
 common colloquial comparison. 
 
 Swap. Several authorities can be found for this word, 
 and in the same sense in which we use it. 
 
 Soft, I'll not sicojp my father for all this, 
 
 Lilly's Mother Bombie. 
 
 SwEY, to poise, to swing. (Brockett.) To swey from 
 side to side, as a carriage or chaise, is a frequent 
 phrase. 
 
 Swingle-tree. A movable piece of wood, to which the 
 traces of husbandry-horses are fastened. (Brockett.) 
 We use it also for the pieces of wood to which the 
 traces are fastened to carriages. Jamison derives it 
 from a Teutonic word, swinghel en, to move back- 
 ward and forward. 
 
 Smotjcb:, to salute. An old word. (Brockett.) "Salute" 
 10* 
 
114 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED, AMERICANISMS. 
 
 does not mean here bowing or taking off the hat. But 
 it conceals the meaning of smouch, which is neither 
 more nor less than a strong term for a gentle perform- 
 ance, namely, to kiss ; or, as this is reserved for refined 
 society, it implies rather the hearty smack of low life, 
 or a buss, in which conventional restraints are lost. 
 We have, I believe, wholly thrown aside this significa- 
 tion, not, however, the act; and a smouch, or smooch, 
 is, with New England people, a dirty mark along the 
 cheek, as a smooch of paint, or ink, or charcoal — a 
 sad let down from the old luxury. Tod's Johnson 
 has smutch, to dirty with soot or coal ; no doubt the 
 same. 
 Swop, to exchange. I take this from a Vocabulary of 
 Lancashire Words. Britton has it also, among his 
 Wiltshire Words. Jamison derives it from an Ice- 
 landic word. It is in "Chevy Chase," and there 
 means to exchange blows. 
 
 At last the Douglas and the Perse met 
 Lyk to captayns of myght aud mayne; 
 The sicapte together tyll the both swat 
 With wondes that wear of fyn myllan. 
 
 Percy's Reliques. 
 
 In the ballad of the "Battle of Otterbourne," there 
 is the same word. To swap horses, or anything else, 
 is a very common expression in New England, but I 
 have never heard it out of New England. 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 115 
 
 Take on, to grieve. He took on terrible bad, for being 
 depressed by misfortune or loss of friends, is common 
 in New England. I have not met with it in any of 
 the glossaries, yet it must have been in use two or 
 three centuries ago, as it is in Middleton's "Michael- 
 mas Time:" — 
 
 ''Take on for my gold, my land, and my writings; grow 
 worse and worse; call upon the devil, and so make an end;" 
 
 and in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady :"— 
 "Alas, good soul, she cries and takes on!" 
 
 Tarry, to stop, to stay. Won't you tarry awhile longer? 
 Get off your horse, and tarry with us. This is an 
 old and good word, of frequent use in Scripture and 
 in Shakspeare. The first scene in " Troilus and Cres- 
 sida" has it six times. The Persians have a word, 
 tarir, that means tarrying. 
 
 Tatee, for j^otuto. (Brockett.) It is not often heard, 
 though tate7^s, is common. They so call them in Suf- 
 folk, England. 
 
 Thick, for intimate. (Brockett.) They are quite thick, 
 is a frequent phrase. 
 
 Thingumbobs, nameless trifles. Thingumbob is also 
 a vulgar substitute for a person's name, when it is not 
 immediately recollected. (Brockett.) In the latter 
 way this is found very useful, and commonly applied; 
 but it is not so frequent in the first sense. 
 
116 GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Tippy, smart, fine. (Brockett.) That's the tippy! was 
 a boy's note of admiration for anything more than 
 usually fine. 
 
 To, shut, close. (Brockett, who brings it from the 
 Dutch.) Shut that door to, means to close it tight. 
 
 To DO, bustle, confusion. (Jennings.) Here's a to do! 
 would be the exclamation of some dame, on finding 
 that during her absence her things were pulled about 
 and the children squalling. 
 
 Toddle, to ivalk; to saunter about. (Brockett.) This has 
 descended in its application from grown people to 
 children : the little thing is just able to toddle. 
 
 To SQUAT. This word has a meaning peculiar to this 
 country, and very* significant. It means to enter on 
 the lands of another person, and establish yourself, 
 and exercise all the rights of a proprietor. Our 
 government and individuals suffer from this species 
 of robbery. In the wild and frontier portions of the 
 country, the enlightened citizens have a very indis- 
 tinct idea of "meum and tuum," and when once fairly 
 settled, object very much to removing. The law and 
 writs of ejectment avail very little. These highway- 
 men are known as squatters. 
 
 Top, good, excellent. (Brockett.) He's a tip-top fellow, 
 I have heard, but not top alone, in the sense of good. 
 
 ToTHER, TUTHER, for the otJiev. (Brockett.) A very 
 common vulgarism. 
 
 Touchwood. Wood in a state of extreme rottenness 
 and decay, supposed to possess the property of tinder, 
 
GLOSSARY OP SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 11 Y 
 
 from whence the name, as of taking: fire at a touch. 
 (Hallamshire Glossary.) The wood in this condition 
 is called, as Mr. Pickering says, and as I well remem- 
 ber, everywhere in New England, punk; a corruption, 
 no doubt, of spunk — punk meaning something very 
 different from wood in any state. When we found it 
 in the woods, we carried it home, and rubbed pieces 
 of it together in the dark, when it gives a kind of 
 phosphorescent light. 
 
 To VAY, to succeed; to turn out well; to go. This word 
 is most probably derived from the French alter, to go. 
 It don't vay, that is, it does not go on well. (Jen- 
 nings.) In New England they have a word, to fay, 
 to fit : that fays nicely. Is it possible that it comes 
 from vay? To fay, in Tod's Johnson, is altogether 
 a different word. Bailey has, to fey, to do anything 
 notably, and Hollo way gives a phrase, it feys well, 
 as common in Hampshire, for "the thing answers." 
 This is our word and application, and comes proba- 
 bly from faire. 
 
 Towards. Is in Somersetshire invariably pronounced 
 as a dissyllable, with the accent on the last syllable. 
 (Jennings.) It is also so pronounced in New Eng- 
 land, among those whom propriety and polish have 
 not spoiled. 
 
 Transmogrified, transformed; metamorphosed. 
 (Brockett.) It is heard, but only as a burlesque word, 
 never seriously. 
 
 ^RiQ,\i.Y,{ova7^tful, cunning. (Brockett.) Yery common 
 here. 
 
118 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 Trim, to heat soundly. (Brockett.) To trim his jacket; 
 or, he got such a trimming, are both common. 
 
 Trounce. To punish by means of the law. (Britton.) 
 To trounce one, or, to get a trouncing, implies physi- 
 cal suffering, not legal, with us. 
 
 TussEL, or TUSSLE, « Struggle or contest. (Brockett.) 
 I had such a tussle with him. (Hallamshire Glossary.) 
 The word is common, though tustle does not imply a 
 violent contest or fight. 
 
 Twitter, to tremble; a teut; tittern. (Grose, who 
 says it is a word in general use.) It is also in Brock- 
 ett, who derives it from the German zittern. I am all 
 of a twitter, I have heard as a burlesque expression, 
 but it is no way in general use. It is used in Hamp- 
 shire and Sussex, England. Gray has hallowed it, 
 and — 
 
 "The swallow, twitterinf) from liis straw-built shed," 
 
 has relieved it from vulgarity. 
 
 YuRDER, VURDEST, for farther, farthest. (Jennings.) 
 One hears, in New England, furder, furdest. 
 
 YoYAGE. We may hear this word pronounced, in New 
 England, vige : he's gone a vige. I do not see it, in 
 any of the glossaries, so corrupted, but it seems an 
 old mode. In Peel's " Sir Clymon and Sir Clamy- 
 des," who wrote in the sixteenth century, there is this 
 line : — 
 
 **And afterwards having met our vige.'" 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 119 
 
 Micldleton has it in his "Roaring Girl," and Chaucer. 
 The word was once spelt "viage." 
 
 w. 
 
 Wallopping, a slatternly manner. (Grose.) In this 
 sense I have never heard this word used. Jennings and 
 Brockett have wallup, to beat, which was a very com- 
 mon expression in New England. To get wolliipped, 
 or, to get a loolluppiJig, were both frequent a score 
 of years ago. There was, however, another use of 
 this word, that I have heard very often without know- 
 ing at the time what was its application, nor do I now 
 know. Pot was a prefix, and to call one a pot-wol- 
 lupper, was quite common. Tod's Johnson defines 
 wallup/io boil ; thence it attached to persons or to per- 
 sonal character, and a hot, hasty person might be said 
 to wallup, as we say, to boil with indignation, and 
 from this we may have wollopper. But whence 
 comes the pot? Grose has a word, walling, which he 
 says is in frequent use among the salt-boilers at 
 Northwich, and two towns in Cheshire, where there 
 are salt-works. "Perhaps," he says, "this may be 
 the same as wallopjring, whence in some boroughs 
 persons who boil a pot there are called pjot-ioollopers, 
 and entitled to vote for representatives in Parliament.'' 
 We have here, very distinctly, the origin of pjot-wol- 
 lopers in England, but why it was brought to this 
 country, or what it meant when used in this country, 
 
120 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 I am at a loss to say. There was something like ad- 
 miration in the application; I am quite confident, 
 though a burlesque, there was no contempt in it. 
 
 Wax. a lad of icax, is a clever, promising child, but 
 never used except where something of the ludicrous is 
 intended. (Hallamshire Glossary.) I have heard this 
 expression, but it did not seem to mean anything in 
 particular. What it once meant, it is not easy to say. 
 In some parts of England, wax is still used for to 
 groiv; and a half-waxed lad, is one half- grown. 
 Whether a lad of ivax means one arrived at full 
 height, I cannot say. 
 
 Weddiner. In the County of Chester, Pennsylvania, I 
 have heard this word applied to a luedding party. 
 Whether it includes the groomsmen and bridesmaids, 
 I cannot say. It is a most satisfactory and compre- 
 hensive epithet, and should be adopted into general 
 use. In some parts of England they coin a word in 
 a similar way; one who attends meeting, or a dis- 
 senter, is called a meetiner. I find it in the Craven 
 Glossary. Weddiners is in a poem, by John Stagg, 
 written in the Cumberland dialect : — 
 
 "The priest was re.ady, waitin, 
 The weddiiiers just took gluts a piece, 
 Wheyle he his buik was laitin." 
 
 Whack, a loud bloiv; whop, a heavy blow. To whack, 
 to whop, both in the sense of, to beat with violence, 
 as given by Jennings, are heard here, though jocu- 
 larly. Whale, for beat, from a Saxon word, luallan, 
 to weal ; confined to Yorkshire. To be tongue-whaled, 
 
GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 121 
 
 is an expressive term, in the North of England, for 
 a severe scolding ; also tongue-banged. 
 
 Whapper, anything large; a thumper. (Grose and 
 Brockett.) We say of a tale that appears somewhat 
 doubtful, that's a whapper ; it is, however, only used 
 playfully. A large child, also, would be called a 
 whapper. Wapping is an old word, according to the 
 Hallamshire Glossary, and is used by us. 
 
 Whippersnapper, a diminutive, insignificant person. 
 (Brockett.) Whenever heard among us, it is in the 
 last sense. 
 
 Whittle, a knife. (Grose.) Generally a clasp-knife. 
 (Brockett.) As a verb, the Hallamshire Glossary has 
 ichittle, to cut the bark from a switch with a knife. 
 It is used in the country here for any kind of cutting. 
 To ivhittle a stick, is to cut it without any particular 
 design. The restlessness of a Yankee keeps him al- 
 ways in action, and as you pass an inn you will observe 
 the larger portion of those in sight are whittling, if they 
 have no other occupation. It is a word that English 
 travelers have twitted us about, but its pedigree is 
 evidently a good one. 
 
 WiSHYWASHY, for pooT-looMng, weak; not to the point. 
 (Brockett.) InefiQcient, without energy, is nearer our 
 application of the word ; as defined by Jennings, ac- 
 tive, nimble, sharp, I have never heard it. 
 
 Wittle. In Wiltshire they have swittle. 
 
 WoNST, for once. Common here. 
 
 11 
 
122 GLOSSARY OF SUPPOSED AMERICANISMS. 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 Clever. In this country this word is applied exclu- 
 sively to moral qualities : a clever fellow, meaning 
 a good-tempered person. In England it is used for 
 the intellectual, except in Norfolk, where the same 
 meaning as that we give to it is employed. 
 
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