WILTS GLOSSARY (continued 4)

Waps, Wopse. A wasp (A.S.). A.S. wœps.—N. & S.W.

Warnd, Warn. To warrant (A.S.). 'You'll get un, I warnd.'—N. & S.W.

Warning-stone. See Gauge-brick. Also see Addenda.

Wart-wort. (1) Chelidonium majus, L., The Greater Celandine, the juice of which is used to burn away warts.—N. & S.W. (2) Euphorbia Peplus, L., Petty Spurge.—N.W.

Wassail. A drinking-song, sung by men who go about at Christmas wassailing (A.B.).—N.W.

Wassailing, Waysailing. Going about singing and asking for money at Christmas (A.B.).—N.W.

*Wasset-man. A scarecrow (A.B.G.H.Wr.); also Wusset (H.Wr.).—N.W.

Watch. If a hay-rick is so badly made that it heats, the owner is often so ashamed of it that he attempts to set the matter right before his neighbours find it out. If a passer-by notices him poking about the hay as if searching for something in it, the ironical question is asked—'Have you lost your watch there?'—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.) Cp. 'To drop your watch in the bottom of the rick.'—Upton-on-Severn Words, p. 34.

Watchet, Wetched, Wetchet. Wet about the feet. Wotshed at Cherhill. Wetched (A.).—N.W.

'Either way, by lane or footpath, you are sure to get what the country folk call "watchet," i.e. wet.'—Wild Life, ch. vi.

'You'd best come along o' me to the lower lands ... for it be mighty wet there these marnins, and ye'll get watshed for certin.'—The Story of Dick, ch. xii. p. 142.

*Water Anemone. Ranunculus hederaceus, L., Ivy-leafed Crowfoot.—S.W. (Zeals.)

*Water-blobb. Nuphar lutea, Sm., The Water-lily (A.B.). See Blobbs.

*Water-buttercup. Ranunculus Flammula, L., Lesser Spear-wort.—S.W. (Zeals.)

Water-Cuckoo. Cardamine pratensis, L., Lady's Smock. See Cuckoo.—S.W.

Water-lily. (1) Caltha palustris, L., Marsh Marigold.—N. & S.W. *(2) Ranunculus aquatilis, L., Water Crowfoot.—S.W. (Charlton All Saints.)

*Wayside-bread. Plantago major, L., Plantain (English Plant Names). Cp. M.E. wey-brede in the 'Promptorium.'

Weather-glass. Anagallis arvensis, L., Scarlet Pimpernel. See Shepherd's Weather-glass.—N. & S.W.

Weeth. (i) adj. Tough and pliable (A.B.C.S.).—N.W. (2) adj. Of bread, moist and yet not too soft. 'I puts my lease bread on the pantony shelf, and it soon gets nice and weeth.' Often pronounced as wee.—N. & S.W.

Weffet, Wevet. A spider.—S.W., occasionally.

Weg-wants. See Wag-wants.

Weigh-jolt. A see-saw (A.B.H.Wr.).—Formerly in common use at Clyffe Pypard, N.W.

Welch-nut. A walnut (MS. Lansd.).—N. & S.W.

*Well-at-ease. In good health, hearty.—N.W. (Malmesbury.)

Well-drock. The windlass over a well.—S.W.

West (pronounced Waast). A stye in the eye. See Wish.—S.W.

Wheat-reed. Straw preserved unthreshed for thatching (D.). See Elms and Reed.—S.W., obsolete.

*Wheeling. 'It rains wheeling,' i.e. hard or pouring.—N.W. (Lockeridge.) Whicker, Wicker. (1) To neigh or whinny as a horse, bleat as a goat, whine as a dog, &c. (S.; Village Miners; Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. xxii. p. 114).—N.W. (2) To giggle.—N.W. *(3) 'To find a wicker's nest,' to be seized with an irrepressible fit of giggling (Village Miners).—N.W.

*Whip land. Land not divided by meres, but measured out, when ploughed, by the whip's length (D.).

Whippence. The fore-carriage of a plough or harrow, &c. (D.).—N.W.

Whipwhiles. Meanwhile (S.). A Somersetshire word.—S.W.

Whissgig. (1) v. To lark about. Wissgigin, larking (S.).—N. & S.W. (2) n. A lark, a bit of fun or tomfoolery. 'Now, none o' your whissgigs here!'—N.W.

Whissgiggy. adj. Frisky, larky.—N.W.

*White. 'Cow white'=cow in milk. 'Calf white'=sucking calf.

'All the small tithes such as wool and lamb, cow white and calf &c. throughout all parts of the parish unexpressed in the several foregoing particulars. The usual rates at present being fourpence a cow white—sixpence a calf ... the sheep, lambs and calves are due at St. Mark's tide—the cow white, and fatting cattle at Lammas.'—Hilmarton Parish Terrier, 1704. See Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. xxiv. p. 126.

Usually defined as above, but perhaps more correctly written as cow-wite and calf-wite, i.e. the mulct or payment for a cow or calf.

'Tythes of Wool and Lambs and Calves, and three half pence which is due and payable at Lammas being Composition Money for the Tythe White of every Cow.'—Wilcot Parish Terrier, 1704.

As regards the ordinary derivation, compare white-house, a dairy, white-meat, milk, whites, milk.

'Wheatly (On the Common Prayer, ed. 1848, pp. 233-4) quotes from a letter of one G. Langbain, 1650, as follows:—"certe quod de Lacte vaccarum refert, illud percognitum habeo in agro Hamtoniensi (an et alibi nescio) decimas Lacticiniorum venire vulgo sub hoc nomine, The Whites of Kine; apud Leicestrenses etiam Lacticinia vulgariter dicuntur Whitemeat."'—Smythe-Palmer.

White Couch. See Couch.

White-flower. Stellaria Holostea, L., Greater Stitchwort.—N.W. (Huish.)

*White-house. A dairy (H.Wr.).

White-livered. Pale and unhealthy-looking (S.).—N. & S.W. At Clyffe Pypard the word has a yet stronger idea of disease about it, and a 'white-livered' woman is popularly supposed to be almost as dangerous as was the poison-nurtured Indian beauty who was sent as a present to Alexander the Great. How the 'whiteness' of the liver is to be detected is not very clear, but probably it is by the pallor of the face. At any rate, if you discover that a young woman is 'white-livered,' do not on any account marry her, because the whiteness of the liver is of a poisonous nature, and you assuredly will not live long with a white-livered young woman for your wife. It is most unhealthy, and if she does not die, you will! The word is so used of both sexes.

White Robin Hood. Silene inflata, L., Bladder Campion.—S.W. (Zeals.)

White-wood. Viburnum Lantana, L., Mealy Guelder-rose.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.) White-weed.—S.W. (Farley).

*Whitty-tree. Viburnum Lantana, L. (Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Wilts, p. 56, ed. Brit.)

Whiver. (1) To quiver, hover, flutter. Wiver (S.).—S.W. (2) To waver, hesitate.—S.W.

*Who'say, Hoosay. An idle report.—N.W. (Malmesbury.)

Wicker. See Whicker.

Wig-wants. See Wag-wants.

Wild Asparagus. Ornithogalum pyrenaicum, L., Spiked Star of Bethlehem.—S.W. (Som. bord.)

Wildern (i short). An apple-tree run wild in the hedges, as opposed to a true crab-tree.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.)

*Wild Willow. Epilobium hirsutum, L., Great Hairy Willow-herb (Great Estate, ch. ii).

Will-jill. An impotent person or hermaphrodite.—N.W. Compare Wilgil and John-and-Joan in Hal.

*Willow-wind. (1) Convolvulus, Bindweed (Great Estate, ch. viii). (2) Polygonum Fagopyrum, L., Buckwheat (Ibid.).

Wiltshire Weed, The. The Common Elm. See notice in Athenaeum, 1873, of Jefferies' Goddard Memoir, also Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. x. p. 160. This is a term frequently occurring in books and articles on Wilts, but it would not be understood by the ordinary Wiltshire folk.

Wim. To winnow.—S.W.

Wind-mow. A cock of a waggon-load or more, into which hay is sometimes put temporarily in catchy weather (D.), containing about 15 cwt. in N. Wilts, and a ton elsewhere.—N. & S.W.

Wing-wang. See Wag-wants.

Winter-proud. Of wheat, too rank (D.), as is frequently the case after a mild winter. See Proud.—N.W.

Wirral, Worral, or Wurral. Ballota nigra, L., Black Horehound.—S.W. (Som. bord.)

Wish, Wisp. A sty in the eye.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard, &c.)

Wissgigin. See Whissgig (1).

Withwind, or Withwine. Convolvulus sepium, L., Great Bindweed, and other species (A.B.D.S.). Wave-wine or Wither-wine (Cycl. of Agric.); Withywind on Som. border.—N. & S.W.

Wivel, Wyvel. To blow as wind does round a corner or through a hole.—N.W.

Wivelly, or Wivel-minded. Undecided, wavering, fickle, and untrustworthy (Village Miners).—N.W.

Wiver. See Whiver.

Womble. v. To wobble about from weakness, &c. (Dark, ch. iv, where it is used of children who come to school without having had any breakfast).—N. &. S.W., occasionally.

Wombly. adj. Wobbly (Dark, ch. iv).

Wonderment. (1) n. A sight or pastime of any kind.—N.W. (2) n. Any occupation that appears fanciful and unpractical to the rustic mind. Thus a boy who had a turn for inventions, drawing, verse-making, butterfly-collecting, or anything else of a similar nature which lies outside the ordinary routine of a labourer's daily life, would be described as always 'aater his 'oonderments.'—N.W. (3) v. To play the fool, waste time over unprofitable work.—N.W.

*Wood-sour. adj. Of soil, loose, spongy. Also Woodsere.—N.W., obsolete.

'The strong red land on the high level parts of the Downs ... once wood-land, and sometimes expressly called "wood-sour" land.'—Agric. of Wilts, ch. xii.

'A poor wood-sere land very natural for the production of oaks.'—Aubrey, Miscell. p. 211.

'It is a wood-sere country abounding much with sour and austere plants.'—Aubrey, Nat. Hist. of Wilts, p. 11, ed. Brit.

Wood-wax. *(1) Genista tinctoria, L., Dyer's Greenweed (D.), Aubrey's Nat. Hist. Wilts, pp. 34 and 49, ed. Brit.—N. & S.W. (2) Genista Anglica, L., Needle Whin.—S.W. (Farley.)

Wooset. See Houssett.

Wooster-blister. A smack in the face or box on the ear.—S.W. (Som. bord.) Cf. Som. Whister-twister, and Dev. Whister-poop.

*Works. In a water-meadow, the system of trenches and carriages by which the water is brought in and distributed (Agric. of Wilts, ch. xii).

Worsen. v. To grow worse. 'You be worsened a deal since I seen 'ee laast, I d' lot as you bean't a gwain' to live long.'—N. & S.W.

Wosbird. A term of reproach (A.),=whore's brood. There are many variants, as Hosebird, Husbird, and Oozebird. Much commoner in Devon.—N. & S.W.

'They're a couple o' th' ugliest wosbirds in the vair.'—Wilts Tales, p. 89.

In his Dictionary of Provincial English, Wright defines this as 'a wasp,' a mistake too amusing to be passed over! Probably his informant heard a rustic who had got into a wasp's nest, and been badly stung, 'danging they wosbirds,' and on asking what he meant by 'wosbirds' was told that they were the 'wopses,' and not unnaturally concluded that the two words were synonyms.

Wout. A carter's order to a horse to bear off. The opposite to Coom hether.

Wrap. n. A thin strip of wood. See Rap.

Wrastle. To spread, as cancer, fire, roots, &c.—N.W.

'These fires are, or were, singularly destructive in villages—the flames running from thatch to thatch, and, as they express it, "wrastling" across the intervening spaces. A pain is said to "wrastle," or shoot and burn.'—Wild Life, ch. iv. p. 68.

*Wreaths. The long rods used in hurdle-making (D.).

Wrick, Rick. To twist or wrench. 'I've bin an' wricked me ankly.' M.E. wrikken.—N. & S.W.

Wridgsty. See Ridge-tie.

Wrist. To twist, especially used of wringing the neck of a rabbit or fowl (Amateur Poacher, ch. xi).—N.W.

Wug, Woog. Order to a horse (S.).—N. & S.W.

Wusset. See Wasset-man.

Wusted. Looking very ill, grown worse.—N.W.

Y. Many words beginning with H, G, or a vowel, are usually sounded with Y prefixed, as Yacker, acre; Yeppern, apron; Yat, or Yeat, gate; Yeldin, a hilding; and Yerriwig, earwig.

Verbs ending in y often drop that letter. Thus empty and study become empt and stud.

The free infinitive in y was formerly much used, but is now dying out. It was used in a general question, as 'Can you mowy?' Were a special piece of work referred to, mowy would not be correct, the question then being simply 'Can you mow thuck there meäd?'

The following example of the 'free infinitive' is given in Cunnington MS.:—

'There is also here a Peculiar mode of forming active verbs from Nouns, which are generally in use as apellations for professions—take an Example. Well Mary, how do you get on in Life? what do you and your family do now to get a Living in these times—Wy Zur we do aal vind Zummut to do—Jan, ye know, he do Smithey [work as a smith] Jin the beggist wench do spinney the Little one do Lace makey—I do Chorey [go out as a Chore Woman] and the two Boys do Bird keepey—that is One works as a smith—one spins one makes Lace one goes out as a Chore woman & two are Bird keepers which Latter term were more to the purpose if expressed Bird frightener or driver.'

Yap, Yop. (1) To yelp as a dog (S.).—N. & S.W. (2) To talk noisily. 'What be a yopping there for?'—N.W.

*Yard-land. Land sufficient for a plough of oxen and a yard to winter them; an ancient copyhold tenure (D.).—Obsolete.

*Yard of land. A quarter of an acre, because formerly, in common lands forty poles long, the quarter acre was a land-yard wide (D.).—Obsolete.

Yea-nay. 'A yea-nay chap,' one who does not know his own mind.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.)

Yeemath. Aftermath (B.). Youmath (A.B.). Yeomath (A.H.Wr.). Probably = young math, cp. young grass in W. Somerset. Cp. Ea-math, Ameäd at Cherhill, Ea-grass in S. Wilts.—N.W.

Yees. An earthworm. See Eass.

Yelding, Yeldin. n. A hilding (A): a woman of bad character (Wilts Tales, p. 3).—N.W.

'I've allus bin respectable wi' my women volk, and I wun't ha'e no yeldin' belongin' to ma.'—Dark, ch. xix.

Yellucks. See Hullocky.

Yelm, Yelms. See Elms (S.).—N. & S.W.

*Yellow-cups. Buttercups in general.—S.W. (Zeals.)

Yellow-Thatch. Lathyrus pratensis, L., Meadow Vetchling.—N. & S.W.

*Yoke. See Fork (Wild Life, ch. vi).

Yop. See Yap.

*You. This word is often thrown in at the end of a sentence, sometimes as a kind of query—'Don't you think so?'—but usually to give a strong emphasis to some assertion.—N.W.

'A' be a featish-looking girl, you.'—Greene Ferne Farm, ch. i.

'Fine growing marning, you.'—Ibid. ch. i.

'That be a better job than ourn, you.'—Hodge and his Masters, ch. vii.

Yuckel, Yuckle. A woodpecker (A.H.Wr.). So called from its cry, Yuc, yuc.—N.W.

Yaught, Yawt. To swallow, to drink. 'There's our Bill—he can yaught down drenk like anything,' or 'He can yaught a deal.'—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard, Huish, &c.)

Z. Among the old people S is still usually sounded as Z, as Zaat or Zate, soft; Zound, to swoon; Zorrens, servings, &c. See S for many such instances.

*Zaad-paul. This term used to be commonly applied about Aldbourne to an utterly good-for-nothing fellow, but is gradually dying out now. It probably means 'soft head.' See Saat.

*Zam. To heat anything for some time over the fire, without letting it come to the boil.—N.W. (Malmesbury.)

Zammy. (1) n. A simpleton, a soft-headed fellow (S.).—S.W. *(2) adj. 'Zammy tea,' half-cold, insipid tea.—N.W. (Hullavington.)

Zam-zodden. Long-heated over a slow fire, and so half spoilt. This and the last two words belong to Som. rather than Wilts. A.S. sām-soden, half boiled.—N.W. (Malmesbury.)