Now! Then! Ralph Thoresby of Leeds sends a list of “local” dialect words to the naturalist and linguist John Ray – an alphabet of your compiler’s favourites

27 April 1703: Ralph Thoresby of Leeds sends a list of “local” dialect words to the naturalist and linguist John Ray – an alphabet of your compiler’s favourites

Edwin Lankester, Ed. 1848. The Correspondence of John Ray. London: Ray Society. Get it:

Excerpt

Arvil: a funeral treat (Halifax). Beiling: matter mixed with blood running out of a sore. Clunter: an unnimble stumbler. Dingthrift: a spendall, prodigal. Elt: to beat in the dough with more meal and yeast. Fleyk: a hurdle made of hazel, or other wands raddled, for the clothiers to swing or beat their wool upon. Gladden: a void place, free from encumbrances. Hackstaver: hasty, slovenly fellow, both in habit and deed; but it has a peculiar respect to speaking ill, naturally or morally. Ing: a plain even ground (mostly meadows) by the waterside. Junket: a wicker long wisket to catch fish. Konny: little as well as fine. Laughter: all the eggs a hen will lay that time. Millums: watery places about a mill-dam. Nogs: shank-bones, hence playing at nogs, or nine-pins, because the bones of the shanks of cattle are used therein. Ournder: afternoon drinkings. Pig-tail: candle, the least, put in to make weight. Rinish: wild, jolly, unruly, rude. Slamtrash: a slovenly dirty person. Turlings: coals about a fist’s bigness. Urchion: a hedgehog, urchin. Wawks: corners of the mustachios. Yeender/earnder: the forenoon (Halifax).

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

The inclusion of a word from Worcester in the west Midlands makes one wonder what Thoresby meant by “local”, and Ray was candid in his response:

The Supplemental Catalogue of Northern words, you were pleased to send me, was very acceptable, and, if that trifle come to a third edition, shall be made use of. I find in it many words of frequent use with us here and elsewhere, in the east and southern parts of England, which must needs happen, unless you had lived and conversed long hereabouts. Be pleased to send me the remaining part of it at your leisure (Hunter 1832).

Lexemes with Scots etymology are perfectly feasible in Yorkshire. Here’s Skeat on Northern English:

We should particularly notice Dr Murray’s statement, in his essay on The Dialect of the Southern Counties of Scotland, at p. 29, that “Barbour at Aberdeen, and Richard Rolle de Hampole near Doncaster, wrote for their several countrymen in the same identical dialect.” The division between the English of the Scottish Lowlands and the English of Yorkshire was purely political, having no reference to race or speech, but solely to locality ; and yet, as Dr Murray remarks, the struggle for supremacy “made every one either an Englishman or a Scotchman, and made English and Scotch names of division and bitter enmity.” So strong, indeed, was the division thus created that it has continued to the present day; and it would be very difficult even now to convince a native of the Scottish Lowlands unless he is a philologist that he is likely to be of Anglian descent, and to have a better title to be called an “Englishman” than a native of Hampshire or Devon, who, after all, may be only a Saxon. And of course it is easy enough to show how widely the old “Northern” dialect varies from the difficult Southern English found in the Kentish Ayenbite of Inwyt, or even from the Midland of Chaucer’s poems (Skeat 1911).

Perhaps someone better qualified than I will comment on the list, and identify any uniquely Yorkshire terms.

The transcription of non-Latin characters is abominable – pending.

In 1691 Francis Brokesby described phonological differences between East Riding English and literary (Early) Modern English (Brokesby 1691). Did he ignore other differences (e.g. lexical) because he did not regard them as salient?

I am now looking out for Bohemian waxwings in Leeds.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

Mr. THORESBY to Mr. Ray.
Leeds, April 27, 1703.
HONOURED SIR,—This additional list of local words is larger than I expected, and therein you will quickly observe several words already inserted in your very curious and accurate collection; but then it is either when the same word has a different signification (which is not uncommon) or pronounced after so different a manner, as considerably to alter the orthography; or lastly, when the etymology has fallen in my way in the perusal of some of our Saxon authors, as Wheelocks, Bede, Somner, Spelman, Hicks, &c.

I am tempted to think the German Silk-tail [Bombycilla garrulus], registered in the Philosophic. Trans., No. 175, is become natural to us, there being no less than three killed nigh this town the last winter:-

Alack, alas.
Alas-a-day or Alas-at-ever, alas, a form of pitying.
After-maths, q. after-mowings, the grass in the meadows, that grows after the mowing the eddish; roughings we take for that rough coarse grass the cattle will not eat.
Arls or Earls, earnest.
An Arvil, a funeral treat; the word and practice retained in the Vicarage of Halifax. I was at one for an ancient minister a few months ago.
As or Asse, ashes, var. dial.
As tite, as soon; titter, sooner.
An Ashler wall, freestone hewed with a mason’s axe into smoothness, q: Axtler.
Aud-farand, out of fashion when applied to elder persons; and witty above their age, when to children.
Aukardly, opposite to towardly.
An Awmoss, alms, from French aumosnes.
Awn, own, var. dial. As aʒen.

Backus, bakehouse.
Very Bain about one, officious, ready to help.
Bang his Banes, beat his bones.
Bawks, the large timber beams that support the roof by sign-trees, under the side-wavers, and a prick-post under the rig-tree, summers or summer-trees are never contiguous to the roof, but only the main-beams in a chamber-floor.
Bannock, &c. Tharfe cakes.
A Barn, a child, S. bearn, Matth. ii. 18.
A Barn, a garner, S. Matth. iii. 12.
A Barr, a gate of a town or city, Mickelgate, from S. mycel, not St. Michael.
Bawt, without.
A Bawl, bowl.
Beiling, matter mixed with blood running out of a sore.
Beneson, benediction.
A Benkit, a small wood vessel with a cover that is loose, and fitted with notches to two prominent legs that have a string through them to carry it by.
To Bezle, waste, embezzle.
To Bid or Bead, to pray, from S. bea𝔡e, oratio.
To Blare, to put out the tongue .
To Blate or Bleit, proper to a calf’s or sheep’s voice.
Bleak, exposed to the weather; it stands bleak.
A Binding, a hazel rod, or thorn, two or three yards long, so called, because used for binding the hedge-tops.
Blew Milk, skimmed milk.
Blind-mans-buffe, a play.
Bloa, black and blue.
A Blowse or Blawze, proper to women; a blossom, a wild rinish girl, proud light skirts.
A Bloated look, a bloa, dusky, dark countenance, caused by intemperance mostly.
To Boken, to nauseate, ready to vomit.
The Booght of the elbow.
Boons or Booyns, fowl, and sometimes labour, to be given to the landlord, over and above the rent, from the French boon.
The Boyl of a tree.
A Booyse, or Buyse, same as boose or stall.
Brakons, fern, brakes.
A Brandred or Rid, a trivet, or iron.
You Braid of the miller’s dog.
Bown, as whither art thou bown, i.e. going or bound.
A Breid, a shelf, or board, var. dial.
To Breiden, to spread or make broad.
A Brock, a badger.
A Bridle-sty, a way for horse only, not cart or carriages in common.
A Broych, a small spike of iron or wood to put coppins on.
To Broych, or broach, as masons an atchler, when, with the small point of their axe, they make it full of little pits, or small holes.
To Bruzzle, to make a great ado, or stir.
A Bumper, a glass or mug brimful.
A Bur-tree, an elder or dog-tree.
A Burk-tree, or rods, birch, var. dial.
Bytte (Warwickshire) a bottle or flagon, ab S. bytte, uter, dolium.

To Cadge, a term in making bone-lace.
A Cankerd cart, or froward fellow.
To Cape a wall, to crown it.
A Carding of wool.
A Caw, cow, var. dial.
A Cawl, or Coul, a lump rising in the head through a knock.
To Caure down, to ruck down.
To Cast or Kest, to vomit.
A Caup, as a muck caup.
A Chare, or Char-woman, one hired by day (not a fixed servant) to wash.
Chaffer, to chaffer, exchange.
To Chase a laughter.
Chid, rebuked, S. cidde.
Chizzel, wheat-bran.
To Clatter, make a noise, talk fast and loud.
A Clawt, a tattered cloth, or rag.
Cleam’d, daubed on as with a trowel.
Clem’d, or Clam’d, pined, hungered.
Clinch, or clunch-fisted, covetous.
I’th’ Clout, drunk.
A Clughe, a valley between two steep hills.
Clumps, bungling
Clukes, clutches.
Clots, clods, var. dial.
A Clumpst fellow, i.e. plain-dealing, that speaks at the mouth, Prov.
A Clunter, an unnimble stumbler.
Coap, fight.
Cobby, saucy.
Coits, Coats, var. dial. Thou’rt a lad i’ coits, spoken to men ludicrously.
Coddy, joined with little, to diminish, as a little coddy lamb, bird, fly — is exceeding little, perhaps but a var. dial. for conny.
Cokend, choked.
Com, came, S. com, Matt. ii. 21.
To Con, i.e. ply a lesson as schoolboys.
A Coppin of yarn.
A Cottrel, a piece of iron with a hole in to fasten.
A Cragg, a stony, rocky bank, &c.
A Dish Cratch, same with the cradle.
Crawse, jolly, brisk.
To Creak as a door.
Cree’d Wheat, hulled and boiled.
To Crinkle, to crouch, to yield sneakingly.
Cowks, or cinders, coals burnt in common fire, not charred.

To Daker, to work for hire after the common day’s work is over, at 2d. an hour.
To Darne, i.e. sow up holes, so as not to pucker, but fill them up.
A great Deal or dele, S. Sælar parts, Matt. ii. 22.
To Deeght ing, spread mole-hills.
To Dither, to quiver with cold.
A Dingthrift, a spendall, prodigal.
To Dizen, to be curious and look big, to sit in state, as if great.
Dodges on, keeps poorly doing.
Dog-tree, elder.
A Dole, Dool, or Doal, a share or part in a townfield; also money or bread distributed at a funeral to the poor.
To Dree, to be able to go through to the end of the journey.
A Dribble, an iron pin that carpenters use to drive out wooden pins.
Drigh, long, tedious.
A Dubler, a platter.
A Dub, a puddle, or plash of water.
The Dule, devil, var. dial.
He Dung, or Dang it down, threw it down.
To Durseis to dress; to durse the house, horses.
To Durse the ing, to spread the molehills and dung that is in fields.

Mine Eam, my uncle, S. eame, avunculus.
For Eance (once) and use it not.
An Eapns, hands full.
Earnder, forenoon drinking.
Edge you brethren, make room, give way.
Eeen for eyes.
To Eek, enlarge, S.ican augmentare.
Eeen for even, var. dial.
To Elt, to beat in the dough with more meal and yeast.
Murk i’th’ Eemin, dark in the evening.
Eeen, evening, per Aphæresin.

The Fag end, the hinder or latter end.
I’ Fake, Faith (an oath).
Far, for farther, as the far bank.
Fastne’s een, the Tuesday before the Dies Cinerum, or Ash Wednesday.
Fat (in composition), vessel, as in guile Fat ab S. pat, vas.
Faugh, fallow ground.
To Faugh, to plough, and let it lie fallow a summer or winter.
Faw / Fawl, foul, dirty.
Fear’d, frightened, afraid, S. apares.
Feer, or Fere, wife, S. gepera, socia.
To Fest, i.e. put out apprentice.
To Fitter, to kick smartly with the feet, as children do when pettish, metaphorically to be in a passion, a pelting chase.
To break or tear all to Fitters, is to reduce to the smallest bits.
A Filly-foal, from S. pytian to follow the mare.
A Flacket, a wood or leather vessel.
A Flask for water to wash in, ab S. pater plaxan.
To Fling, to throw.
To Flire, or Fleur, laugh scornfully.
Flaughter’d, affrighted.
A Fleyk, a hurdle made of hazel, or other wands radled, for the clothiers to swing or beat their wool upon.
He Float me, chid or scolded.
Flue-full, brimful, flowing full.
A Flurts, a light housewife.
Yau’r mains Flush, full-handed, prodigal, wasteful.
To Fodder, i.e. give hay or straw to cattle.
Fogg, or Edish, is the second growth of grass (after mowing).
To Foreheight, predetermine.
A Fodder of lead.
Forspoken, bewitched, forespoken.
Frayn, (Lanc.) ask, S. bepran, interrogare.
Freem, handsome.
A Frosk, frog.
A Fruggan, applied to stirring women.
To Frust, trust for a time.
Fulsum, nasty, foul.
Fur, far, var. dial.
A Fur or Foor, a furrow.

To Gang, to go, S. gang.
Gant, lusty, hearty and healthful.
Gar’em ken us ale, prodigious strong, make them know us.
A Garsom, a foregift at entering a farm, a Godspenny.
To Gaup, to stare about with open mouth.
A Gauster, a hearty loud laughter.
A Gawd, a guise, custom, fashion.
Gawk / Gallock, left hand.
Gara, go we, let us go.
Geen, given.
Gemean mather, the common sort, S. gemæne, Matt. viii, 29, from whence the present Dutch Gemeyn, common, vulgar.
Gestings, q. Geestlings, young geese.
Gif, if, s. gip, si.
Do you Gawm me, understand, or mind me.
A Gladden is a void place, free from encumbrances.
To Glawm, to look sad.
To Glee, to look asquint. (Yorks, as well as Linc.)
To Glizzen, glister or sparkle, as stars in frost; it freezes hard, and een glizzens, (in which sense alone it is used).
Gloppen’d, surprised.
To Glore, to look staringly.
Goyts of mills, where the stream passes out.
To Grar before the ague fit.
Graut, wort, sweet drink, ale before it is wrought with barm.
Greese, or Greece, stairs.
The Groyn of a swine, the snout.
A Groop, the hinder part of the mystall, where the cattle dung.
Griesly, ugly, grisled.
Guizend, oddly and sluttishly habited.
A Gyste for cattle, to be pastured.

A Hackstaver, hasty, slovenly fellow, both in habit and deed; but it has a peculiar respect to speaking ill, naturally or morally.
To Haggle, to cut irregularly.
A Haking fellow, an idle loiterer.
Hala, bashful, nicely modest.
Hame, home, S. ham.
Happens, perhaps.
Hard, for covetous, and in some places for half drunk.
Harenut, earthnut.
Harns, brains (Yorkshire).
Havers, manners.
To Heald, to lean to one side.
A Hebble, a narrow, short, plank-bridge.
The Heck is ordinarily but half a door, the lower half.
Hen-harrow, a kind of kite harrier.
To Hent, to catch a flying ball.
Height, called, &c.
To Height, to threaten.
To Higle, to loiter long in buying.
Hineberries, raspberries.
Hippins, steppings, large stones set in a shallow water at a step’s distance from each other, to pass over by.
Hitter, eager, keen.
Hoast, cough, à S. Pporta.
A Hoppet, a seed basket; also that in the mill in which the corn is put to grind.
A Hooyze, a half cough, proper to cattle.
A Host, a cough.
A Hullet, (a howlet) an owl.
To Hype, to gird at, to cast out disgraceful words.
A Hott, a wood, S. polt, sylva.

An Ing, a plain even ground (mostly meadows) by the waterside.
To dress the Ing, that is the molehills, and dung, which is durst or drest, i.e. spread abroad with an ing-rake.
An Inkling, an intimation, or notice.
An Ize-bone, the huckle-bone, the coxa.

A Junket, a wicker long wisket to catch fish.

To Keive a cart, whelm on one side.
A Keiver, a bumper, or brimmer of liquor.
A Kitt, a milking or water-pail with one or two ears, with or without a cover.
A Kiting, a term of reproach.
It stands Kittle, i.e. ticklishly, ready to fall.
Knogs, nine-pins.
A Konny thing, a little, as well as a fine thing.
A Kivver, or Kimlin, a powdering tub.

To Lag, to come last behind, as if tired, flag.
Laird, (Scoticè) lord, S. plapond.
To Lake, play.
Lang, long. var. dial. S. lanz.
Langholds, spaniels upon horses’ feet, fastened with a horse-lock to keep them from leaping wrong;
To Lane nothing, to conceal nothing.
To Lant ale, to put urine into it.
Laughter, laying as a hen lays her laughter, that is, all the eggs she will lay that time.
To Lawk, i.e. weed corn.
Lass-a-day, (alas!) an expression of condolence.
I’d as Leive do so, as willingly, it is equal to me.
Leathcake, limber, pliable.
Leasing, lying, à S. Icasunz, mendacium.
Leath, ease or rest.
Leer, laugh deridingly, flear.
Leet you, pretend.
Ley, fallow ground.
To Leyse, to pick the slain and trucks out of wheat.
A Libhorn, a sow-gelder.
To Litt, to colour or dye, whence the name Lister or Litster.
Listring, thickening, (Yorkshire as well as Ches.)
To Loup, or Laup, to leap.
To Lug, to pull one by the hair, or ears, lugs.
A huge Lunshin of bread, a large piece.

Maine, as by might and main, S. mægen.
To Maine, to lame.
A Malkin, a cloth at the end of a pole, wherewith, whetting it, they cleanse the bottom of the oven; applied to a slut.
Mare, more, var. dial., S. mare.
Mate, match.
My Maugh, my brother-in-law.
A Mawkin, a dirty frow.
Mawm, tender, friable, short, mellow.
A Mazed Goose, applied to a person astonished, amazed per aphæresin.
Meedless, without measure.
Just Meet, exact.
Meeterly, indifferently, meeterly, as Megge Rylay danced.
Mensfull, neat and clean.
Menya, a family, a house menya, S. Memo, Matt. viii. 1.
A Midge, no gnat, but the smallest of all flies.
Millums, watery places about a mill-dam.
A Minstre, cathedral, S. Mynstre, Chri.
Miscryed, discovered.
It Mizzles, rains small, like the falling of a mist.
To Mobb, to dress awkwardly.
A Moofin, a wheat cake, baked upon a bake-stone over the fire, as oat-cakes.
Moolter, toll of a mill.
A Miln and Milner, for a mill and miller.
Welnee Moyder’d, almost distracted.
To Mooysen, i.e. wonder, from musing.
Mucky, dirty, as the streets in rainy weather; muck, towngate mire, as well as dung.
It Muggles, rains small, mist-like.
Munsworn, foresworn.
Munt, hint, as I know your meaning by your munting.
Mystall, mewstall for cattle, oxen, and cows.

Nar, nearer.
A Nawt-heard, neat-herd.
Nawt-foot-same, the oil or grease that is boiled out of a neat’s foot.
A Neave, a fist.
I did not Neigh it, came not nigh it.
My Neame, or Neme, my uncle.
To Net, to wash clothes, give them a net.
A Nether, or Nedder, an adder à S. neddra, Matt. iii. 7.
Nifles, are glandules, kernels, which being hid and covered with fat, perhaps might either be denominated from, or denominate covert and secret filching of things, Nifling, Nifle.
Nise, strange, nice work, strang.
Nise, applied to a person, is precise, opposite to free and hearty.
He Nim’d it, took it, S. nim, Matt. ii. 20.
Nogs, shank-bones, hence playing at nogs, or nine-pins, because the bones of the shanks of cattle are used therein.

Onters, many onters, pretences, allegements, scruples.
An Oskin of land, an oxgang contains ten acres in some places, in others sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four, and fifty in some part of Bradford parish.
Ossell, perhaps.
Ounsel, a title of reproach, sometimes applied (as by Mr. Garbut, in his ‘Demonstration of the Resurrection of Christ’) to the devil.
Ournder, afternoon drinkings.
An Ows, an ox.
An Ox-Boyse, an ox-stall, à S. bosih, præsepe, a boose.

A Paddock, or Parrock, a small narrow close, that is an appendix to a greater, for the most part.
Pan, that described as the pan in a building, is properly the wall-plate; the pan is that piece of timber in wooden houses that lies upon the top of the posts, and upon which the balks rest, and the spar-foot also.
Parrisht, starved with cold, qu. perished.
Pash, I’ll pash thy harns out.
Pat, fit, proper, pat to the purpose.
To Pee, is also look near and narrowly.
Peel the pot (cool it), with the ladle, taking out and pouring in again.
Peil, stir, what a peil keep you?
Perepoint, a perepoint wall made of a thinner sort of hewn stone, set upon the edge.
A Pig-tail candle, the least, put in to make weight.
A Plat, a place.
Pock-arr’d, marked with the smallpox.
To Poyt the clothes off.
A fire Poit, an iron to stir up the fire with.
A Prigge, a little brass skillet.
To Pucker, to draw up like a purse, unevenly.
A Puddle, a fat body.

Quite for wholly is general, for quit, Northern, ‘t will not quit cost.

Radlings, hazel or other boughs, put within the studs of a wall to be covered with lime or mortar.
A Raup, a hoarseness.
To Raume, to reach.
The Reefe, the itch; reefy, itchy.
To Reek, to smoke, à S. nec, smoke.
What a Reuls here? / You make a nise rent, i.e. work, mad work
Rinish, wild, jolly, unruly, rude.
A Riggald, abusively, applied to men as well as to cattle.
Roky, misty.
To Rooyse, to extol.
A Roup, a hoarseness.
Rudd, red stone.
A Rudle, a riddle.
Ryndta, used to cows to make them give way and stand in their stalls or booyses.

I Sagh, I saw.
Samme milk, butter in the churn, after the milk breaks into butter, à S. sammam, conglobare.
Saur, sour, mend like sour milk in summer, Prov.
Sawl, soul, var. dial., S. sagel.
I’ll Saul him, beat him.
To Sawce, Rustic. pro sowce, box the ears.
To Scream, cry aloud.
Scruby-grass, var. dial. for scurvy-grass.
Scug of a hill, the declivity or side.
Seaves, pilled rushes, of which they make seav candles.
Sel, Seln, self.
Sere, several, sere ways, several ways.
A Setle, a seat, à S. serl.
To Shaffle, a Shaffles, a bungler.
To Shale (proper to the feet), in with the heels and out with the toes.
No Sheds, no difference.
To Shill, as peas, to take them out of the swads.
A Shive of bread, cut off the loaf.
Shoe, or Shou, illa, she, var. dial.
Shooen, or Shune, shoes.
Shool, shovel, var. dial.
Shooyts, shovel-board, where the shillings are directed as at a mark in shooting.
Cow Sharn, or dung.
Shrogs, a company of bushes, of hazel, thorns, briers.
The Sile, used in straining milk.
It Siles, i.e. rains fast.
To Sipe, to let all the water or liquor out which cleaves to the sides of a vessel after the main is poured out.
Skath or Scath, loss, S. à Scade, nocumentum, as the scath came in at his own fence, Prov.
A Skeel, a kit or milking-pail.
Skeller’d, warped – Yorkshire as well as Derbyshire.
Skeer the esse, vide esse.
Skanskback, easily knowable, having some special mark.
To Skimmer, shine, look bright.
A Slamtrash, a slovenly dirty person.
To Slap one, i.e. beat, à sono verborum, vox óvonatot.
To Slart, to plash with dirt.
To Slap out the tongue.
To Sleat a dog.
Slim, sometimes signifies crafty, knavish, a slim customer.
To Slive, to clear, to rive.
A Sliving, a lazy fellow.
To Slot the door, to bolt it when shut.
A Slough, a watery boggish place, item, the cast skin of a snake.
A Slush, wasteful.
To Slush through work, to do much, but slimly, carelessly.
A Smithy, a smith’s shop.
To Smoar, to smother, per contrac.
To Snaffle, to speak through the nose.
A Snaffle-bridle or Bit, snape bit.
A Snap, a lad or servant, now mostly used ludicrously, à S. Snapa, puer, Matt. viii. 13
To Snattle, to linger, delay, magno conatu nihil agere.
To Snavle, snivel, speak through the nose.
Snever, slender, smooth.
To Snift, to draw the wind smartly up the nose.
A Snicket, one that pincheth all to nought.
To Snite, is to blow the nose; to wipe, is to dry it.
A Sod, a turf, is thin and round, or oval, taken from the surface of the earth; a sod thick and square, or oblong mostly.
Soncy, cunning.
To Sonter, to loiter, a santering or sontring body, one that squanders the time in going idly about.
To Sosse, proper to dogs.
To Souse or Sawse on the ears, i.e. box.
Snuffers for the nose, or nostrils.
A Spaniel. Qu. If not the S. name for N. Langholds, we have in these parts no other name but Cow-ty.
To Sparkle away, disperse, spend, waste.
To Speer, inquire the road, à S. Spynian, scrutari.
A Spelk, a wooden splinter tied on, to keep a broken bone from bending or unsetting again.
Spick and span new, that has never been worn.
To be Spurr’d, is to have the banns of marriage asked.
To Squat down, to cower down suddenly.
A Stawk, i.e. stalk of plants.
Stark, stiff, weary; also covetous.
Staupings, winter steps, the holes made by the feet of horses and cattle in miry highways and other places.
Stavers, hedge-stavers, i.e. stakes.
Stav’d, stawv’d, as a hedge that is cut.
To Steim, to bespeak a thing.
Stevon, a strong-sounding voice. à S. Stern.
A Stiddy, an anvil.
A Stigh, a ladder.
Storcks Bill, to storken, proper to fat growing cold, and so hard.
Stowd, cropped as horses’ ears.
Stradling, strutting and striding.
Strea, straw.
To Streik, stretch out the limbs.
A Stroak of corn with us is but half a bushel, or two pecks.
A Stroom, Strawm, the instrument to keep the malt in the vat, that it run not out with the liquor.
Strunted, cut off short.
A Swaithe, the row of grass cut down with the scythe. Laid o’ th’ swaithe bank, is spread abroad.
Swamous, modest.
A Swamp, a boggy bottom, a soft rushy piece.
A Swatch, a shred of cloth.
To Sweal, as a candle with the wind.
A Swine-coat, hog’s-stye, à S. Cote, domuncula.
To Swinge, scourge, à S. Spingan, to thresh.
To Switch a hedge, i.e. to cut off the outlying boughs.
To Swither, to singe.

Taplash, small beer, or thin drink.
A Tarrant (forte pro tyrant), a crabbed froward fellow.
A Tavern, a cellar.
To Tawr with the hand.
A water Tawv, a swooning fit.
A Teathy body, peevish, crabbed.
A Teeming-woman, i.e. child-bearing woman.
A Tether, tedder, var. dial.
Thar-cake, hearth-cake.
Tharms, pudding-skins.
Thaw, thou, var. dial.
To Thoyl, afford.
To Thraw, to turn wood with a tool.
A Threave of straw, a burden of it.
A Thwang for a shoe, the latchet, S. Špang, a thong.
To Tifle, to stifle, overset.
A Tifled Horse, when broken above the loins.
To Tipe over, fall, or overturn.
Tiper-down, strong drink, for tiping over.
Tipsy, almost drunk, from tipling.
Titter and better, sooner.
To Topple down, fall.
Toota well, very well, too too well.
A Tooming, wool taken off the cards.
Topsy-turvy, upside-down.
Trawth, as faith and trawth, S. Treopde, fides.
A Trippet, a quarter of a pound.
To Trush, to run through all the dirt, à sono, óvoji.
To keep Tutch, to be as good as the promise.
Tuta, too too; thou’rt tuta earnest, clamorous, covetous, importunate, unsatisfiable.
Turlings, coals about a fist’s bigness.
Twills, quills.

Uncouth, strange, uncommon, unusual, à S. uncoð, unknown.
An Urchion, a hedgehog, urchin.
Uvver, for upper, or over, var. dial.

Varsall, universal.

A Waag, a lever.
To Wade the water.
Wae’st heart, a condolence to the same purport with Wae’s me, woe is the heart, &c.
To Waite, to blame.
Walker’s earth, for scouring cloth.
A Waugh-mill, fulling-mill.
Waugh, insipid, unsalted, and so unsavoury.
The Wawks, or corners of the mustachios.
Wamb, womb, var. dial. S. pamb.
Wane, decline; the moon is in the wane. S. panian, minuere.
War, stand aside, give way, beware.
Warld, i’th’ varsal warld, universal world.
Warse, worse, var. dial.
To Wax, grow, S. peaxan, crescere.
A Wee-bit, a tiny wee-bit, a small piece (a pure Yorkshireism).
Weet, i.e. wot, know, I weet full well.
Weeting, urine.
Weiky, moist.
To Ween, think, à S. penan, opinari.
Welling, boiling
To Welt, to totter.
To Welt or Wolt, overturn cart or wain.
Wellaneering, alas.
Wel-nee, well-nigh; it’s wel-nee night, almost.
Wesh, or wash, urine.
To Whakker, tremble, shake every joint.
Whaint, strange, odd, implying naughtiness, whaint wark.
A Whamire, a quagmire, var. dial.
Wharm, Whelm, overwhelm, is whawmed over.
A Whein, a quean.
A Wheel-pit, whirlpool.
Wheemly, neatly.
Whak’t, for quaked, whence.
Whakers, for quakers, les trembleurs.
Whart, quart; meit m’a whart o’ ooyl, i.e. measure me a quart of oil.
Whilk, which, S. philc.
Whilkin, whether.
White, for quit; it will not white cost.
To White, to cut sticks with a knife, and make them white.
Whiskin or Whisking, adjectively is great, applied to almost anything, as floods, fire, winds.
Whisking is also switching; there will be whisking for’t, also beating, swinging, whipping.
Whreak, to speak in gutture, and whiningly.
A Why, an heifer.
Wight, swift.
Wind-raw, grass or hay raked into long rows for drying.
Wine-berries, not grapes, but gooseberries, pin-berian, Matt. vii. 16.
A Wither, strong fellow.
A Wogh, any partition, whether of boards or mud-walls, or laths and lime; as a boardshed-wogh, studded wogh.
A Woggin, a narrow passage between two houses.
To Wolter (as welter).
Wormstall, shelter for cattle in hot weather.
Wote, know.

To Yall, and to Yawl, or Yowl; the latter appropriated to dogs, the former to bawlers. In yall the a sounds as in that, in yawl as in the rustic caw for cow.
A Yawd, a horse.
Yeast, barm.
To Yeather, to beat with a long hazel, thorn, &c.
Yecke, itch.
Yield, i.e. reward.
The Yeender, or Earnder, the forenoon, Halifax, in Yorkshire.
Yew, you, var. dial. S. gep.
Yews, for ewes.
Yooyle, yule, de Yule, vide Mareschalii Observ. in Version. Anglo-Sax. Evang. p.520.