Category: Language & Communication
The following pages must not be considered as comprising an exhaustive Glossary of our Wiltshire Folk-speech. The field is a wide one, and though much has been accomplished much more still remains to be done. None but those who have themselves attempted such a task know how di...
*=Trip=. A brood or flock, as 'A vine trip o' vowels (fowls).' In a MS. in the Bodleian a herd of tame swine is defined as a _trip_, while one of wild swine is a _sounder_.--S.W...
11. Part 11=Pot=, or =Put=. (The latter is the usual S. Wilts form.) *(1) A tub or barrel (D.).--Obsolete. (2) A two-wheeled cart, made to tilt up and shoot its load (D.).--N. & S.W. Manur...
14. Part 14'A custom upon two farms ... of feeding six oxen through the full range of all the summer ground belonging to the hither Beversbrook ... being the Home Close, the Middle Marsh,...
13. Part 13=Snake-flower=. (1) _Verbascum nigrum_, L., Black Mullein. Children are cautioned not to gather it, because a snake may be hiding under the leaves.--S.W. (Salisbury.) (2) _Stell...
7. Part 7'On past the steep wall of an ancient chalk-quarry, where the ploughboys search for pyrites, and call them thunderbolts and "gold," for when broken the radial metallic fibres gl...
12. Part 12=Rumpum-Scrumpum=. _n._ A rude kind of musical instrument, made of a piece of board, with an old tin tied across it as a bridge, over which the strings are strained. It is playe...
10. Part 10=Naked Boys=. _Colchicum autumnale_, L., Meadow Saffron, the flowers and leaves of which do not appear together (Aubrey, _Nat. Hist. Wilts_, p. 51, ed. Brit.). _Naked Lady_ in C...
5. Part 5=Daps=. (1) 'He's the daps on his feyther,' the very image of him (S.).--S.W. (2) 'He got the daps o' he's feyther,' he has the same tricks as his father.--N.W.
6. Part 6=Fantag=, =Fanteague=, &c. (1) _n._ Fluster, fuss. ~Fantaig~ (S.).--N. & S.W. (2) Vagaries or larks, as 'Now, none o' your fantaigs here!' At Clyffe Pypard, N.W., 'a regular fan...
3. Part 3=Blow=. Sheep and cattle 'blow' themselves, or get 'blowed,' from over-eating when turned out into very heavy grass or clover, the fermentation of which often kills them on the...
9. Part 9=Loggered=. A boy who is at plough all day often gets so _loggered_, or weighed down with _loggers_, all the time, that he comes home at night quite exhausted.--N.W. (Clyffe Pyp...
15. Part 15=Vag=. To reap in the modern style, with a broad 'rip-hook' and a crooked stick, chopping the straw off close to the ground, so as to leave little or no stubble (_Walks in the W...
2. Part 2The periphrastic tenses are often used in S. Wilts, as 'I do mind un,' but in N. Wilts the rule is to employ the simple tenses instead, merely altering the person, as 'I minds u...
16. Part 16'When the springs doe breake in Morecombe-bottom, in the north side of the parish of Broade Chalke, which is seldome, 'tis observed that it foretells a deer yeare for corne.'--A...
8. Part 8=Honey-suckle=. (1) _Lamium album_, L., White Dead Nettle, sucked by children for its honey.--S.W. (Salisbury.) (2) Also applied to both Red and White Clover, _Trifolium pratens...
18. Part 18Most of the works comprised in the following list have lately been read through, and compared with our own _Glossary_, and references to many of them will be found in the forego...
4. Part 4=Chisley=. _adj._ Without coherence, as the yolk of an over-boiled egg, or a very dry cheese. When land gets wet and then dries too fast, it becomes chisley. Compare:--'_Chizzly...
1. Part 1The following pages must not be considered as comprising an exhaustive Glossary of our Wiltshire Folk-speech. The field is a wide one, and though much has been accomplished much...
19. Part 19=Teft=--to teft a thing is to judge of its weight by taking it in the hand i e--what Heft do you think this Bundle is--I dont know Let's teft it--i.e. let me take it in my hand