Glossary of Words in Use in Cornwall, Volume 7, Issue 2 |
Common terms and phrases
Antrim applied ballan wrasse beat bird blow boat Bottrell boys braave bread called Camborne Carrickfergus cheeld child clothes coarse cock cold common corn Cornish Cornwall crab Creem Delabole dialect dirty door drink ears East Cornwall English fellow fire fish fishermen flax flowers grass hand head heap hedge hole hook horse Irish iron kind little grebe Lostwithiel Lough Neagh marbles meat milk Mousehole mouth neck noozling northern diver Peize Penzance person piece pilchard pisky play plough Polperro Polwhele potatoes pron quantity rope round saying scat scolding shoe Shrove Tuesday slap sometimes sore stick stone straw T. Q. Couch term thin thing Towednack turf Uncle Jan Trenoodle walk weather wind woman wood wooden word young Zennor
Popular passages
Page 79 - lame; kloppik, a cripple. Clout, a napkin for infants. When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets To swaddle infants, whose young breath Scarce knows the way; Those clouts are little winding-sheets Which do consign and send them unto death. HERBERT, Church Mortification. Cluck, to crouch; stoop. E. g.
Page 88 - As you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of ground.— BACON'S Essays. Knap-kneed, knock-kneed. of no very decided meaning; but it signifies to put off, as much as to say, "You don't mean what you say," "Go along with you.
Page 80 - To pray for her ? What is she crying out ? Lovell. So said her woman; and that her sufferance made Almost each pang a death. Cuckoo-spit, the froth of the insect, Cicadia
Page 94 - short of decomposition. Peize, to weigh; to poise. I speak too long, but tis to peize the time To eke it, and to draw it out in
Page 90 - pholis. Malkin, a mop of rags fastened to a long pole, and used to sweep out an oven. Metaphorically, a dirty slut. Manchent, a small loaf. No manchet can so well the courtly palate please As that made of the meal fetch'd from my fertil leaze.
Page 104 - Jack the lantern, Joan the wad, That tickled the maid and made her mad, Light me home, the weather's had.—POLPEKRO. Wadge, to bet or lay a wager. Waive, to wallow. Wang, to hang about in a tiresome manner. Want, the mole, Talpa Europoea. Waps, wasp. Warn, warrant.
Page 95 - square of glass. Some ask'd how pearls did grow, and where; Then spoke I to my girl To part her lips and show me there The
Page 70 - I can speak no Saxonage. However, he says of the old Keltic speech, "The English doth still encroache upon it, and hath driven the same into the uttermost skirts of the shire;" the fate also of the old Kymric on the opposite shores of Wales and Brittany. The English which the East Cornish speak
Page 72 - of time.' Nieve, sb. the fist, or closed hand. Nievy. ' Nievy, navy, nick nack. Which han' will ye tak", The right or the wrang, I'll beguile ye if I can.' Nignay, Nignoy, v. to do what is useless; to do something, but with no good result. Nignays, Nignoys, sb. pi useless profitless doings. Nigh
Page 91 - First Henry IV., II. iv. 450. The moon in the wane, gather fruit for to last, But winter fruit gather when Michel is past; Though michers that love not to buy or to crave Make some gather sooner, else few for to have.