kazzardly (adjective)
Cheshire, Lancashire, Shropshire, Yorkshire
Precarious, risky, uncertain. From Lancashire: ‘It’s a kazzardly onsartin loife we lead’. The word was often applied to the weather: kazzardly weather was changeable and unsettled. Weak or sickly animals were also described as kazzardly. It’s probably a local pronunciation of hazardly, which is recorded in the sixteenth century.
keffel (noun)
Herefordshire, Scotland, Shropshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire
An old or inferior horse; a big clumsy man or beast; anything of inferior quality. From Warwickshire: ‘Mind where yer treadin’, yer great keffel’. The word seems to have spread north and south from the counties bordering Wales, for the origin is certainly Welsh ceffyl, ‘horse’. It came to be widely used throughout the North Country.
keg-meg see cag-mag
kenspeck or kenspeckle (adjective)
Cumberland, Durham, Ireland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Scotland, Shropshire, Westmorland, Yorkshire
Conspicuous, remarkable, easily distinguishable or recognizable. The word appears in a variety of spellings, such as kenspak, kentsback, and kinseback. From Yorkshire: ‘As kenspak as a cock on a church-broach [spire]’. The first element is probably the same as ken, ‘know’ (as in Scots ‘Do you ken?’). It’s also seen in kensmark – a peculiar mark or spot by which anything may be easily recognized – also used across the North of England.
kindiddle see condiddle
knivy (adjective)
Staffordshire
Penurious, miserly, careful to the point of meanness. ‘Her’s too knivy to gie ’em enough to ate’. And if you really wanted to emphasize the point, as in this remark about a recently deceased individual, there was a derived form, knivetious: ‘We allays said he was knivetious, but we dain’t expect he’d leave soo much’. Presumably the word began as an extension of a ‘cutting down’ sense of knife.
kobnoggle (verb)
Lancashire
To pull the hair and then hit the head with the knuckles. From a combination of cob ‘head’ and knock or nobble. Evidently an ancient Lancastrian rite of passage.
kysty (adjective)
Cumberland, Lancashire, Westmorland, Yorkshire
Dainty, fastidious, difficult to please. From Cumberland, said to a child who was being fussy about his meal: ‘Thu lyle kysty fairy’ – you little unthankful imp. The word was also spelled coysty in Yorkshire, which suggests a link with being coy.