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eardly (adjective or adverb)

Lincolnshire

Very, exceedingly. Spellings include eadly, eadily, heedly, and yeardly. Its various uses are all to do with increased size or strength. ‘A great eardly tonup [turnip]’ – unusually large. ‘He preaches eadily’ – forcefully. The source is an Old English word heardlice, which developed into hardly – but in its original sense of ‘vigorously’ (long before it weakened to mean ‘barely’).

eptish see aptish

ernful (adjective or adverb)

Kent, Sussex

Sad, lamentable, sorrowful. From Kent: ‘ernful tunes’, ‘ernful sick’. There’s clearly a link to yearn, earlier spelled yern, which had an adjective form yernful that was still being used in the nineteenth century. Expressions such as my yernful heart would easily transmute into my ernful heart.

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