saidment (noun)
Yorkshire
A report or statement about someone, especially if malicious. ‘The’s been monny saidments aboot him, and noo the’v cum’d thrue [now they’ve come true]’. Across the Pennines, in Lancashire, a report or statement previously made was a said-so.
sammodithee (noun)
Norfolk, Suffolk
A form of reply to a salutation or toast: ‘the same unto thee’. A traveller in Norfolk reported that, when saying ‘Good evening’ to a ploughman or boatman, this was the expression he most often heard by way of response.
sang (noun)
Cumberland, Durham, Gloucestershire, Ireland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Scotland
An oath – literally, a translation of the French word for ‘blood’. It was usually heard as part of a phrase, such as my sang or by my sang. From Dumfriesshire: ‘My sang, ye weel deserve a thackin’. A variant in Northumberland was sankers.
scarcify (verb)
Lancashire
To absent oneself. ‘Aw think aw’ll scarcify misel’ – make myself scarce. Scarce proved to be a useful source for several dialect words, such as Somerset scarceheed (‘scarcity’), south-east England scarcey (‘scarce’), and Irish scarcen (‘lessen the number’).
scaum (noun)
Yorkshire
An appearance of scorn; scornfully abusive language – the vowel-sound is the same as in lawn. ‘I reads Mrs. Burneston like a book, for a’ t’scaum in her face’. The word is a phonetic adaptation of scorn, which in dialects had a wide range of meanings. It could be used lightly, in the sense of ‘banter’. And to think scorn of someone was to think lightly of them. Scaum was used in similar ways. ‘That’s like his scaum’ – meaning the trick of his talk, being insincere in his speech.
scawvey see scovy
sclatch or sklatch (noun)
Scotland
An unseemly mass of something semi-liquid; a large clot of mud or filth; a large spot or mark on the skin. From Banffshire: ‘He hiz a red sklatch on’s broo’. The word also developed an intensifying sense, meaning ‘heavily, violently’: ‘He fell sklatch our o’ [over on] the green’. And it would have been quite an insult to call someone ‘a sclatch’. The word is probably echoic in origin, with influences from related words such as squelch and patch. Several similar-sounding words expressed the same meanings, such as sclute and sclyte.
sclum or sklum (noun or verb)
Cornwall, Devon
To scratch as a cat – or like a cat. From Devon, a child’s nurse said, apologizing for her untidiness, ‘’Tis the baby sklummed me’. The result would have been a sclum on her face. A spiteful person was a sclum-cat. Probably it’s an adaptation of scratch with an echoic ending suggestive of unpleasantness (as in glum, slum, scum, etc.).
scoll or skole (noun or verb)
Scotland
The drinking of health, a toast. It’s interesting to see this well-known Scandinavian word (e.g. Danish skaal, ‘cheers’) establishing itself in Scotland, and I wonder if it ever had any usage south of the border in Danish-influenced areas. It was also used as a verb: people would talk about ‘scolling and drinking’.
scomfish see scumfish
scorrick or skorrick (noun)
Cheshire, Cumberland, Derbyshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Scotland, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Warwickshire, Westmorland, Worcestershire, Yorkshire
A fragment, the least particle. From Yorkshire: ‘Ah thowt ther would ha bin summat left, bud ther waant a scorrick’. The word turns up with several vowels, such as scerrick, scirrick, and scurrick, and the spellings with k are as common as those with c. In the form skerrick, it came to be common in colloquial Australian speech. The etymology isn’t known, but it sounds like a word with an Old Norse origin.
scouk or skook (noun or verb)
Scotland
To scowl, look angry; go about in a secret or guilty manner. Scots poet James Hogg curses Whigs (in ‘Geordie Whelps’ Testament’) and the way ‘They girn, they glour, they scouk, and gape’. As a noun, it was a frown or scowl. From Aberdeenshire: ‘Wi’ horrid scouk he frowns on a’’. The word is a local pronunciation of skulk.
scovy or scawvey or skovey (adjective)
Cornwall, Devon, Somerset
Uneven in colour, blotched, streaky, mottled, smeary. The word was usually applied to cloth. From Somerset, of a piece of woollen stuff: ‘I can’t think how ’tis, he come out so scovy’. But anything that was badly cleaned or painted would attract the word. From Devon: ‘You haven’t half cleaned this window; it’s all scawvey now’. The etymology isn’t clear. It may be related to scove, used in Cornish tin mining for ore that is so pure that it needs little cleaning. The development of a meaning opposite to its original is common enough in the history of words (as today, when wicked started to mean ‘excellent’).
scranky or skranky (adjective)
Lincolnshire, Scotland, Yorkshire
Lean, lank, thin, scraggy; withered, wrinkled. From Scotland: ‘He is a shrewd, canny-going, skranky-looking individual’. Badly formed writing would also be described as scranky. The word is probably related to shrink, as there was often an alternation in early English between words beginning with sk- and those with sh-. (We see it in place-names too, such as Shipton and Skipton.)
scrattle (verb)
Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cumberland, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire
To labour hard; to scrape and save. From Leicestershire: ‘The’ manage to scrattle on’ – gain a precarious livelihood. The origin is scratch, which became scrat, and then (adding a nuance of repeated action) scrattle. It was first used to describe the repeated scratching of an animal, such as a hen in a yard or a dog at a door; but it also developed a range of figurative senses. Writing with a pen was sometimes described as scrattling, from the scratching sound it made.
scrawlation (noun)
Devon
Confusion, disorder. ‘Aw, yer’s a purty scrawlation. ’Tweel take me an hour to put thease drawer strite and vitty [fit]’. One of the meanings of scrawl was ‘toss about in a disorderly way’. Corn blown about by the wind was said to be scrawly.
scrigs (noun)
Wiltshire
Small fruit left after the gathering of a crop. Anyone who sees an apple tree at the end of a growing season will find the word useful. It has a phonetic origin, with the short i vowel expressing a feeling of smallness, seen again in scriggins (the same sense) and scriggle (an undersized apple left on a tree as worthless), recorded also in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.
scrink or skrink (verb)
Cornwall
To wrinkle, screw up, especially to peer with half-closed eyes. ‘Yiew may winky and skrinky as long as yiew do plase’. A related verb was scrinkle, also recorded in Norfolk and Suffolk, where the sense was more ‘shrivel up’, as might be said of old fruit. The forms are clearly of phonetic origin, and related to such verbs as screw and wink.
scroggins (interjection)
Westmorland
An exclamation of astonishment. The word may simply be an invented form, but it could also be a distant echo of God, via Gog and other phonetic modifications to form a euphemism – in much the same way as we have gosh, golly, and others. There may even be a link with one of the phrasal euphemisms, such as gadzooks (‘God’s hooks’, i.e. nails). In nearby Cumberland, another oath was scurse (‘God’s curse’).
scrunty or skrunty (adjective)
Cumberland, Ireland, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Scotland, Yorkshire
Stunted in growth, thin, meagre, scraggy, worn down. From Northumberland: ‘He’s a poor, sitten-on, scrunty body’. Trees and plants could be scrunty, as well as people. The ‘meagre’ nuance led to a sense of meanness. From Cumberland, said to a niggardly tradesman: ‘Divent be saw scrunty’. The base of the word, scrunt, seems to be an adaptation of scrunch or stunt, or probably both.
scumfish or scomfish (verb)
Cumberland, Durham, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Scotland, Westmorland, Yorkshire
To suffocate, stifle, choke – generally used of heat, smoke, or a bad smell. From Lothian: ‘Fair scomfist wi’ the heat’. From Yorkshire: ‘T’grund’s scumfish’d wi’ wet’. The word looks as if it is made up of scum + fish, hence the bad smell, but the etymology is more pedestrian. The alternative spelling provides a clue. Scomfish was a shortened form of discomfish, which in turn was an adaptation of discomfit (‘defeat’), a relative of discomfort.
seemth (noun)
Northamptonshire
Appearance. Another instance of the largely disappeared -th noun ending in English (see chilth, dryth, feelth above). ‘By the seemth of the thing’.
semi-demi (noun)
Lincolnshire
One who is weak, small, or of no account. ‘I call him nobbut a semi-demi wheare a real man cums’. The source is musical: semi-demi quaver.
shakaz (verb)
Cheshire
To shirk work. ‘Raggazin’ [wandering around] and shackazin’ about’. The adjective shackazing also developed the sense of being untrustworthy. The word may be no more than a local variant of shirk, but shackle also has some relevant senses to do with idling about. Shackle-bag was recorded in Cheshire and in Somerset, meaning ‘a lazy loiterer’.
shalligonaked (adjective)
Cheshire, Cornwall, Dorset, Shropshire
Of clothing: flimsy, light, scanty; unsuitable for outdoor wear. From Shropshire: ‘Whad good ool that fine shalligonakit thing be? – it’ll cut a poor figger on a wet day’. It’s unusual to see a whole sentence turn into an adjective, but the variant spellings around the country, such as shally-go-naked, suggest it was quite a popular expression.
shazzaas (verb)
Devon
To make a curtsey, to be extremely polite. ‘You should have zeed Mary Andrews come into the room a-shazzaasing avore her betters like the first lady in the land’. The unusual spelling hides the source: chassez, from the French verb chasser, ‘to chase’.
sheddle (verb)
Yorkshire
To swindle. From Yorkshire: ‘Thar’t a bonny un’ ar’n’t tuh, to goa sheddle a chap art o’ fifty pound’. The swindler, or a defaulting debtor, was a sheddler. To sheddle out was to back out of an engagement in a dishonourable way. To sheddle off was to take a hurried departure. All derive from a dialect version of schedule.
shivvy (adjective)
Yorkshire
Feeling rough, as caused by a new undergarment. ‘This calico is rather shivvy’. The source is a Germanic word, shiv or shive, describing the husk of oats, or a particle of chaff, and thus any small piece of a foreign substance that gets into woollen materials.
shobble (verb)
Worcestershire
To do odd jobs. ‘E’ve got a ’oss an’ cart, an’ does bits o’ jobs for one an’ the t’other, an’ gooes about shobblin’ like’. He’s a shobbler, in other words – someone with no regular employment. The etymology isn’t clear. It may be a pronunciation coming from job.
shram (verb)
Berkshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Somerset, Sussex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire
To shrink with cold, benumb, stiffen. From the Isle of Wight: ‘Let’s get avore the fire, vor I be ver’ neer shrammed’. To be all of a shram was to be benumbed with cold. The source seems to be an Old English verb, scrimman, with the same meaning, which had a past tense scramm. The pronunciation shift between scr- and shr- is found in several words from that period.
shucky (adjective)
Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire
Rough, uneven, jolting. From Berkshire: ‘The roads be’s so rucky and shucky’. The source is a dialect pronunciation of shake. We see the same sort of transfer of meaning in the use of shucky to talk about the weather: unsettled, windy, cold – anything that might cause you to shiver. From the Midlands: ‘It’s impossible to do any hay-making this shucky weather’. In the south-east they preferred shuckish.
shupernacular (adjective)
Shropshire
Superior, excellent. Apparently the word was used to describe any liquor of a fine quality. It’s presumably an invention combining super and spectacular. The sh- onset possibly has an alcoholic rather than a philological origin.
sidth (noun)
Lancashire, Norfolk, Shropshire, Yorkshire
The length or depth of a side of something. A Shropshire source shows three of the rare -th nouns in English brought together: ‘Lenth, width, and sidth’. The pronunciation is like Sid, following the pattern of wide > width. In Norfolk, the word was shortened, presumably for ease of pronunciation: ‘The width and the sith’.
sillified (adjective)
Oxfordshire, Surrey
Silly, foolish, delirious. From Surrey: ‘He was quite sillified yesterday’. Silly turns up in many combinations. In Cumberland, a simpleton was a sillican. In Norfolk and Suffolk, an impertinent or impudent person was a silly-bold.
skenchback (adjective)
Northamptonshire, Yorkshire
Having strong personal or family characteristics; remarkable in appearance, easily recognizable. From Yorkshire: ‘I should know yon man anywhere; he’s skenchback enough to pick out of a thousand’. The word seems to be related to askance, and also to sken, a form of squint, which both suggest something that is visually out of the ordinary.
skitterways or skitaway (adverb)
Isle of Wight, Surrey, Sussex
Diagonally, from corner to corner, irregular, not straight and even. From Surrey: ‘There, look at old Johnny! He will go skitaway over that there grass-plot’. Skitter was a local pronunciation of scatter, a verb that was used in a broad range of senses, all to do with unpredictable movement. Talking of which, skitterful, skitterish, and skittery were widely used in England and Scotland for a bout of diarrhoea, though here the origin is more likely to be squirt. People still talk about having ‘the skits’ or ‘squits’.
sklatch, sklum, skoll, skook, skorrick, skovey, skranky, skrink, skrunty see sclatch, sclum, scoll, scouk, scorrick, scovy, scranky, scrink, scrunty
skurreboloo (noun)
Westmorland
A chase, stampede. ‘He gev it a regular skurreboloo fer aboot hofe an hoor’. The word is an interesting combination of two forms, each of which has a rhyming repetition (or ‘reduplication’) in its history. Scurry seems to be a playful formation based on hurry, as in hurry-scurry. Hullabaloo shows the reduplication of a hunting call – halloo-baloo.
skype (noun)
Scotland
A mean, worthless fellow; a lean person of disagreeable manner and temper. From Selkirkshire: ‘If he durst I would claw the puppy hide of him! He is as great a skype as I know of’. The dialect meaning was presumably unknown to the founders of a well-known internet messaging service.
slamp (adjective)
Derbyshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire
Soft, loose, empty, tottering. From Derbyshire: ‘As slamp and wobbly as an owd corn boggart [scarecrow]’. If you were clumsy you were slampy. Shoes were said to slamp, if you kept slipping on them. The word suggests a playful combination of slack and limp, but it could also be derived from slump.
slawterpooch (noun)
Cornwall
A slovenly, ungainly person. ‘Now, a slawterpooch Lisbeth certainly was not, a neater trimmer woman could hardly have been found’. A clue to the word lies in nearby Devon and Somerset, where slatterpouch was a dirty worn-out bag full of holes. Slatter was used all over the country in a range of negative senses, and gave rise to such words as slattery (‘dirty’) and slattern.
slench (verb)
Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Westmorland, Worcestershire, Yorkshire
To hunt about privately with a view to stealing food, as a cat or dog – and thus, to pry about. From Westmorland: ‘Wer olas hankerin [always loitering] an slenchan aboot’. A related word, slenk, suggests the origin: an Old English verb slincan, ‘slink’. From Lakeland: ‘He’s slengkt hissel off ta bed without weshen [washing]’.
slod (verb)
Norfolk, Suffolk
To wade through mire, melting snow, etc.; also, as a noun, the accretion of mud on one’s boots. The word is probably echoic of the sound made by heavy feet. Further north, people would talk about slodder and slodge in the same way, and of course sludge and slush are known in standard English. In Lincolnshire and Norfolk, fen-dwellers, whose lives must have involved a lot of wading, were called slodgers.
slonky (adjective)
Ireland, Kent, Northumberland, Scotland
Having muddy places, wet hollows. From Northern Ireland: ‘That slonky road’. Slonk was widely used to name any sort of depression in the ground. There may be a link with the Old English word sloh, ‘slough’, but – as with slod, above – there’s probably an echoic element in the word, reflecting the sound of walking through mire.
sloonge (noun)
Yorkshire
A heavy blow with the open palm. ‘Thoo’ll get a sloonge ower heead thareckly [directly]’. The origin is probably lunge (originally a term used in fencing for a thrust), with influence from such words as slap. In the same part of the country we also find slounging, for any sort of heavy blow.
sloum (noun)
Cambridgeshire, Cumberland, Durham, Ireland, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Scotland, Westmorland, Yorkshire
A light doze – from Old English sluma, slumber, and found in a huge range of spellings, such as slaum, slowm, and slum. From Tim Bobbin, the Lancashire dialect-writer: ‘Aw cudno [couldn’t] tell whether awr in a sleawm or waken’. In Cumberland, the word was also used to describe the slow and silent motion of water in a deep pool. And there was a widespread use of sloomy to mean not just sleepy, but idle or dull.
smeddum (noun)
Bedfordshire, Durham, Scotland, West Country
Force of character, spirit, liveliness, intelligence. From Selkirkshire: ‘I wish I could get Geordie weel droukit [drenched], it wad tak the smeddum frae him’. Smeddum was the name given to the powder or finest part of ground malt. It’s from Old English smedma, ‘fine flour’. In Yorkshire, it turns up as smithum.
smittling (adjective)
Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire
Contagious, infectious. From Lincolnshire: ‘It must be something smittling, for it has gone thruff [throughout] the house’. You would also hear it described as smittlish. The word comes from smittle, which adds a nuance of repeated effect to smite – as when we’re ‘smitten’ with the plague, love, an idea . . .
snaff (verb)
Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Scotland
To sniff in a noisy, surly, or derisive manner. From Leicestershire, someone was described as ‘snaffing and gurning [grimacing]’. An interesting development was a more positive sense, in the idiom to say snaff if another says sniff. It expressed the notion of ‘consenting readily’, and was especially useful when courting. From Herefordshire: ‘If ’e said sniff, er’d say snaff in a minute’.
snaggilty (adjective)
Ireland
Likely to tear or cut. You might ‘reive [tear] your ould coat-sleeve agin one of their bits of snaggilty wire’. The source is snag, an Old Norse word in its sense of ‘sharp point, spike’, which led to snaggle, and thence several derived forms, such as snaggly and snaggish.
snickup (noun)
Norfolk, Suffolk, Yorkshire
An indefinable illness, not easily cured. From East Anglia: to say of a man that he has ‘got the snickups’ means that he rather fancies himself ill rather than really being so. The word comes from the rhyming part of the expression hiccup-snickup. In Suffolk, a recommended cure for the hiccups was to repeat the following charm three times while holding your breath: ‘Hiccup – sniccup – look up – right up – Three drops in a cup – is good for the hiccup’.
snoove (verb)
Northumberland, Scotland
To move with a smooth, equal motion. The word applied both to physical movement, such as walking with a steady pace, and more abstract states of affairs. From Dumfriesshire: ‘Here in your dear hame Life snooves awa sae cannily’. If you really wanted to emphasize the steadiness, you could reduplicate. From Edinburgh: ‘Up cam the two lights snoov-snooving, nearer and nearer’.
snot-snorl (noun)
Northumberland
A kink or twisted bend in a rope or line – or, these days, a hosepipe. ‘The rope’s a’ run inti snot-snorls’. Snorl and snirl were verbs meaning ‘tangle’, related to snarl, in its sense of ‘make a tangle of’ – in other words, ‘snarl up’. Snot is probably a form of snotch, ‘notch, knot’.
snozy (adjective)
Leicestershire
Comfortable. A woman, asked how her husband was, replied: ‘Well, now, thankye, ma’am, he’s very snozy to-day’. The etymology is unknown. It may be a blend of such words as snooze and cosy. Similar words with this meaning occurred elsewhere. In Dumfriesshire, a fat, comfortable man was called a snoshie.
snyirk (verb)
Shetland Isles
To creak, make a harsh grating noise. ‘We heard dir aers [oars] snyirkin ipo’ da kabes [rowlocks]’. It is virtually impossible to coin a word that exactly echoes the sound of oars moving against the sides of a boat, but this comes close.
soce (noun)
Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire
A word used when addressing someone, either individually or as a group: Friends! Companions! Pronounced ‘sohce’. From Wiltshire: ‘Well, soce, an’ how be ye all to-day?’ From Somerset: ‘Come, soce! here’s your jolly good health!’ The spelling varies a lot – for example, soas, sose, zose, zuez – but the sense is constant. The origin seems to be Latin socius, a word used when itinerant monks would address a congregation – the vocative form of the noun being socii. It’s a usage that continued in standard English of a fairly academic kind in the sense of ‘colleagues, associates’.
solacious (adjective)
Scotland
Cheerful, comforting – giving solace. From Aberdeenshire: ‘So reall a freind, and so solatious a commrade’. It used to have quite a wide literary use, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it gradually became dialectal.
solemncholy (adjective)
Scotland
Solemn, sober. ‘He’s a very solemncholy youth’. An obvious blend of solemn and melancholy, but solemn in the sense of ‘serious’ or ‘grave’ rather than ‘formal’ or ‘dignified’.
someness (noun)
Surrey
A sort, kind. ‘Oi, minester didna mean it, oi’m a someness o’ serten, or else he be goan wrung in’s headworks’. It’s unusual to find the -ness ending added to a grammatical word, but there are other cases, such as much of a muchness.
soodle (verb)
Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Warwickshire, Yorkshire, and further north
To go unwillingly, linger, dawdle, saunter. From Lincolnshire: ‘Soodling along the hedge-side as if he hed nowt to do’. You would have a soodly gait. The etymology isn’t known. It sounds like an echoic formation, perhaps influenced by sidle.
sot-whol (noun)
Cumberland, Westmorland
A place which was formerly a public-house, and now used for some other purpose. It is, quite literally, ‘a hole for sots’ – drunkards.
spaw (verb or noun)
Lancashire, Yorkshire
To go on a pleasure-trip, or go to the seaside. From Yorkshire: ‘Yo’re allus [always] spawin’ off somewheare’. You would go to a spawing-spot. The source is spa, from the time when a trip to the nearest place with spaw-water was a regular day out for many.
splatherdab (noun)
Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire
A chatterer, gossip, scandal-monger. The act of dispensing news in this way is splatherdabbing. The first element is a variant of splatter – to splash water around, continuously and noisily. Dab also has a sense of ‘spread about’. A related word in the same part of the country was splatherdash, describing a great deal of talk over a trivial matter. From Warwickshire: ‘What a splatherdash you are making about it’.
splawt or splort (verb)
Derbyshire, Shropshire
To spread or stretch out the feet. From Derbyshire: ‘He splorted all over the place’. The word is a variant of splay, which in turn is a shortened form of display. It was also used for people who talked at length, as in this Derbyshire example: ‘Some o’ these chaps is splortin’ about as there should be a list o’ poor folk’.
splute (noun)
Scotland
Someone who exaggerates. From Ayrshire: ‘Robin was aye a terr’ble splute’. It’s one of several dialect words that evolved out of splutter, referring to different ways of talking. In Berkshire, splut was recorded in the sense of ‘make a fuss’. In Staffordshire it meant ‘talk indistinctly’. Spluther was widely used in both of these meanings.
spong (verb)
Kent, Surrey, Sussex
To sew, mend, cobble, especially in a careless, clumsy manner. From Kent: ‘Come here and let me spong that split in your gaberdin [smock]’. The etymology isn’t known. It could be related to the spon of spon-new, ‘brand new’, a southern variant of span-new, which came into English from Old Norse in the Middle Ages.
sprunt (adjective)
Northumberland, Oxfordshire
Smart, spruce; brisk, lively. From Northumberland: ‘Mheyk thee sell [thyself] leuk varra sprunt’. The ‘lively’ meaning indicates the etymology. The word is related to sprint.
squinch (noun)
Devon
A narrow crack in a wall or a space between floorboards. ‘I lost sixpence thro’ a squinch in the floor’. A long narrow window could also be called a squinch, which helps with the etymology, as a similar aperture in a church, through which worshippers in the aisles could see the main altar, is called a squint.
squit (noun)
Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Warwickshire
Silly talk, nonsense. From Warwickshire: Your talk’s all squit’. It was often used along with slaver, which also could mean (dribbling) nonsense. From East Anglia: ‘Some people may look upon this correspondence as a lot of squit and slaver’. The etymology isn’t clear, but there’s a likely link with squirt and skit.
steehop (verb)
Devon, Somerset
To gad about, be frivolous, romp. From Somerset: ‘Her is always steehopping about; better fit her would abide at home and mind her house’. The source is ‘stay up’, but popular usage has turned the second element into hop. The original sense is more evident when the word is used in the plural, meaning ‘festivities’. From Devon: ‘What with frawzies [feasts] and steops I had a jolly time’.
steg (verb)
Scotland, Yorkshire
To walk with long rapid strides, stalk about; be awkward in gait and manner, go about stupidly; stare vacantly. This plethora of meanings has a single source: they reflect the way a steg – a gander – moves about in a farmyard. It’s an Old Norse word, meaning a male bird, which came to be used all over the British Isles. From Galloway: ‘Auld Anton went stegging over the hills’.
sticklebutt (adverb)
Lancashire, Yorkshire
Headlong, with great impetuosity. From Yorkshire: ‘He went stickle-butt into it’. The associated verb (‘to run headlong at a thing’) could also mean ‘to persist in an opinion, whether right or wrong’. It’s a combination of stickle (‘stick’) and butt (‘head-thrust’).
stime or styme (noun)
Cumberland, Durham, Ireland, Lancashire, Northumberland, Scotland, Westmorland, Yorkshire
The faintest form of any object, a glimpse; a gleam of light. It usually occurred in the phrase to see a stime. From Northern Ireland: ‘It was so dark I couldn’t see a stime before me’. But it could also be used for the notion of ‘smallest particle’. From Northumberland: ‘They hadn’t a stime o’ breed i’ the hoose’. The etymology isn’t known, but stime was also used for a disease of the eye, and along with stimey, ‘dim-sighted’, it suggests there may have been a link with stye.
stirriner (noun)
Yorkshire
A trial ball in a game, such as cricket. ‘Send me a stirriner!’ The notion seems to be one of ‘stirring things up’.
stitherum (noun)
Lincolnshire
A long, dull tale. ‘He tell’d me a straange stitherum all aboot a Rantin’ preacher call’d Bywater’. Stither was common in this area to mean ‘chatter’ (possibly a variant of stutter). The ending is mock Latin. Whoever first thought this word up must have found his Latin lessons boring.
stog or stug (verb)
Berkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset, Wiltshire
To stick fast in mud. From Berkshire: ‘Going athert [across] the field we was pretty near stogged’. It sounds like a neat combination of stick and bog. The alternative spelling, recorded in Devon, is also very close to stuck. There may also be a link with stodge, judging by the meaning of ‘surfeit with food’ recorded in Wiltshire: ‘He could eat enough to stog a pig’.
stramash (noun)
Scotland, Yorkshire
A noise, uproar, tumult, hubbub; a disturbance, fuss. From Scotland: ‘What a thing to mak’ sic a stramash about!’ It’s a phonetic coinage, most likely using smash as its base and elongating the first syllable, and perhaps influenced by slam. It was also used to mean ‘crashing about’ or ‘state of destruction’. From the North Country: ‘He made a sad stramash amang the pots and pans’.
strollop (verb)
Lancashire, Wales, Yorkshire
To stride or walk about aggressively; to go about in an untidy, slovenly manner; to stretch the legs wide in sitting or standing. From Lancashire: ‘And women strollopin’ abeaut’. The noun shows a clear link with trollop, as well as stroll, used in dialects both negatively (‘a slovenly, untidy woman’) and positively (‘a lively, extrovert girl’).
struncheon (noun)
Lincolnshire, Yorkshire
A portion of a tune, a song; a portion of an address. From Yorkshire, of a nearby thrush: he was ‘giving us a struncheon’. In a speech, if the speaker decided to introduce a parenthetical series of remarks, away from the main topic, that too would be called a struncheon, as would any long and involved story. The etymology isn’t known. There may be a link with truncheon, which in its original sense meant ‘fragment’.
strunt (noun)
Cumberland, Ireland, Northumberland, Scotland
A pique, a fit of ill humour or sulkiness. It was especially used in the phrase to take the strunt or strunts. From Selkirkshire: ‘What gart [made] ye take the strunts o’ the young laird?’ – what upset you so much? The word was often linked alliteratively with another, as in these Scottish examples: ‘Strunt and stirt are birds of ae feather’, ‘In a strunt or a strife he’s regardless of life’. There could be a link with stunt, in the sense of ‘arrested growth’, used figuratively, with echoic influence from grunt.
stuffment (noun)
Cumberland, Westmorland
Anything worthless; doubtful information. In Cumberland: ‘A pedder [pedlar] wi’ stuffment, she sauntert aw roun’’. In Westmorland, an old man’s tale was described as ‘sad drowsy stuffment’.
stug, styme see stog, stime
suant (adjective)
Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Somerset, Sussex, Wales, Wiltshire
Smooth, even, regular – pronounced syooant or sooant. It could be used for land that was well ploughed, or a piece of cloth that was well woven, or a level road, or more generally, a well-modulated voice or gentle continuous rain. Anything that was pleasant or agreeable could be said to be suant. From Devon, a demure maid on her way to her wedding was described as ‘a zuant blishin bride’. From Cornwall, after drinking thirstily, you might hear someone say, ‘Ah! that’s suant’. The source is suant, a form of the Old French verb sivre, modern suivre, ‘to follow’, and thus ‘be suitable’.
suddenty (noun)
Scotland, Yorkshire
Suddenness, but only used in phrases, such as upon a suddenty or all of a suddenty. From Yorkshire: ‘It cam doon amang us all on a suddenty’. From Scotland: ‘My father’s tongue was loosed of a suddenty’. The -ty ending seems to add a more concrete or dramatic nuance than is expressed by the abstract ‘state of being’ of -ness.
sumph (noun)
Scotland, Yorkshire
A stupid person, simpleton, fool, often used as an insult. From Aberdeenshire: ‘Ye muckle useless sumph!’ But it was used more darkly for any surly or sulky person, and one Scottish writer in an 1899 essay took pains to distinguish the two senses: ‘A sumph is essentially an ill-conditioned fellow. Surliness is part of the character of a sumph. A simpleton can’t help himself; a sumph is wilfully disagreeable’. The word is clearly phonetic in origin, the sounds themselves being used to convey the meaning.
surree (noun)
Ireland, Scotland
A social gathering. A Scottish writer describes it as an occasion ‘where tea and speeches are given, a sort of homely conversazione, often in connexion with churches, Sunday schools, etc.’. An Irish writer sees it more as ‘a subscription dance, a little more elaborate in its arrangements than are the kaleys [ceilidhs] or conversazioni’. The source is French: a soirée.
swaggle (verb or noun)
Cheshire, Cumberland, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Shropshire, Suffolk, Warwickshire
To swing; sway to and fro, as a liquid in a vessel; to reel and stagger as a drunken man. From Warwickshire: ‘What are you swaygling on that gate for?’ The word is a blend, capturing a meaning intermediate between sway and waggle. In Shropshire it was also used for a child’s swing.
swick (noun)
Scotland
A cheat, fraud, deceit. From Aberdeenshire: ‘I expec’it a gowd [gold] watch, nae less. Sic [such] a swick!’ A deceiver was a swicker, who would be swickful or swicky. The source is Old English swician, ‘to deceive’. Swick also developed a positive sense: the art or knack of doing something properly. From Banffshire: ‘He hiz a gey gueede [very good] swick o’s wark’.
swid (verb)
Yorkshire
To tingle or smart, as a wound or burn. ‘My hand swidded’. The source is an Old Norse verb, sviða, meaning ‘to singe, smart’ which is also recorded across the Midlands and North of England as swidge, swidden, or swither. The meaning is always one of superficial burning, admirably illustrated in this Yorkshire prayer: ‘O, Lord, tak ahr Jack an’ shak’ ’im ower hell fire till his clogs drop off. But dunnot hurt him, Lord, nobbut gi’e im a bit ov a swither’.
swip (noun)
Scotland, Yorkshire
The exact image or likeness. From Yorkshire: ‘The varry swip of his father’. The word was also used as a verb, ‘to resemble closely’. Also from Yorkshire: ‘They swip yan another varry mitch’. It’s from an Old Norse word, svipr – ‘likeness’.
swotchel (verb)
Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire
To walk lazily, roll in walking. From the Isle of Wight: ‘Jack swotchels along the road as if a dedn’t keer where a vell down or kept upright’. He would have been described as swotchulting. The etymology isn’t known, but there are phonetic resemblances to several words of related meaning, such as sway and lurch.