SOME OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Agnition: acknowledgment of a fault.

Albricias: reward for one who brings good tidings

Alce: also

Alconomye: alchemy.

Alchochoden: the giver of life and years, the planet which bears rule in the principal places of an astrological figure, when a person is born.

Alder-best: best of all

Almandin: made of almond

Almany: Germany

Almicantarath: alchemical, meaning a circle drawn parallel to the horizon

Almodza: alchemical term for tin

Almute: astrological, a governing planet

Altification: an alchemical term

Amit: admit

Avenant: graceful, beautiful, becoming

Avenauntliche: beautifully

Avisand: took up

Ax'd out: said of an affianced couple upon the third reading of the bans, that they are ax'd out

Axen: ashes; ie of erthe and axen, felle and bone = of earth and ashes, hill and bone

Beth: be; be ye

Ye braid of the miller's dog!: you're just like the miller's dog!

Braist: break, ie "braist free o' the grave"

Bouce-jane: a dish in cookery

Yon bowdikite: contemptuous name for a mischievous child

Bowdled like a hen: swelled out with rage

Cazami: an old astronomical term, denoting the center or middle of the sun. "The crystal shone like the cazami of the sun ..."

Ce: place: "some tugge, sum drawe fro ce to ce."

Clack-box: tongue

Clavers: talk

Copple-crowned: spoken of a boy with hair standing up on the crown of his head, of a bird with a tuft of feathers on its crown.

Ding-thrift: a spendthrift. "The act of a ding-thrift widgeon."

Dirl: a thrill of pain. "He felt a dirl of pain."

Dizzard: a clown, a fool.

Dutch-gleeked: drunken

To durze out: spoken of corn so ripe that the grains fall out very easily.

Dust: noise

Dwyne: to faint, to pine, to disappear

Eanling: a new-born lamb

Earsh: a stubble-field

Eft: again

Erre: a sore, a pock-mark. "Stank and rotten erres ere ma."

Erthedoune: an earthquake

Erthing: burial

Esclaunder: slander, reproach

Evil-eye: an eye which charms

A fals file: a worthless coward

Farish on: advanced in years

To fare foul with: to use someone badly

A fantome fellow: a light-headed person

Fear-babes: an empty terror, a bugbane set up to scare children

Fermentation: in alchemy, the sixth process: the mutation of a substance into the nature of the ferment, after its primary qualities have been destroyed

Fever-lurgan: the disease of idleness; ie "You have the fever-lurgan!"

Fi (fico) : term of disgust and reproach, originally applied to anything that stank. This term is still used in Lincolnshire for the penis.

Fighting farand: belligerent, ready for a fight

By fine force: by absolute power or compulsion. Of fine force, of necessity

Fire-flaught: lightning

Fire-leven: lightning "...will find fire-flaught, fire-leven and erthemovinge!"

Fiz a putain: son of a whore

For-sette: to shut in, to close in.

By frith and fell: by hedge and hill, a common phrase in old poetry

Goff: oaf, fool

Godphere: a godfather

God's-sake: a child kept for God's sake, a foster child

To go quit: to escape a danger

Goathouse: a brothel.

Harslet: a pig's chitterlings. "A haggise, a chitterling, a hog's harslet."

Hart-of-grease: a fat hart

Heyle: to hide

Hubbleshow, hubble-te-shives: confusion; tumult

Hucker-mucker: in secret; clandestinely

Huckle-duckle: a loose woman

Hurribob: a smart blow.

Jamballs: rolls made with sweet bread

Jolifant: to ride jolifant is to ride pillion, two on one horse

Kimaya: a Persian herb which brings the dead back to life; ie, the philosopher's stone.

"Liar liar lick dish!": proverbial address to a schoolyard liar.

Lich: corpse

Lichfoul: the night-raven

"To lie with a latchet": to tell a monstrous lie.

Loblolly: thick spoon meat or stew

Lues: venereal disease

Mucksen: muck-spout, a foul-mouthed person

Mucksen up to the hucksen: dirty up to the knuckles

Muck-suckle: a filthy untidy woman

"Nettle in, dock out, dock rub nettle out!": an old country chant.

To nick with nay: to deny

Philosopher's egg, the name of a medicine for the pestilence.

Prute: to wander aimlessly

Putery: whoredom

Pyke: to move or go off.

Rake: to go, to rush

Shinder: to shiver in pieces

Shoe: to tread the shoes straight, to be upright in conduct. To tread the shoe awry, to fall away from virtue; "A woman to play false, enter a man more than she ought, or tread her shoe awry."

Shore: a sewer. "She in plain terms unto the world doth tell / Whores are the hackneys which men ride to hell / And by comparisons she truly makes / a whore worse then a common shore or jakes."

Shortening: anything put in flour to make the cakes short (ie crisp) - a man who is easily put in a passion is said to have had too much shortening in him.

Shrap: a snare for birds

Shred-pies: mince-pies

Shrick: to shriek

Shride: to hew or lop wood

Shright: shrieked

Sparple: to run wildly, in all directions

Waving amain: waving a sword as a signal for the ships in a flotilla to strike their top-sails. Strike amain: to let the top-sails fall at their full run, not gently. Amain: all at once.

As white as whale's bone: a very common simile

Whorrell-winde: a whirlwind

Whay-worms: pimples; ie "having wild whay-worms in their heads"

Wide-where: widely, far and near. "What would you do with such a man, that thou hast sought so wide-where, in divers londys farre and nere."

Widgeon: a silly fellow

Wowl: to howl, to cry

Wrack: wreck. "In the eight, short life, danger of death in travell. In the ninth, in peril to be slaine by theeves. In the tenth, imprisonment, wracke, condemnatio, and death by means of princes. In the eleventh, a thousand evills, and mischiefs for friends. In the twelfth, death in prison." Art of Astrology, 1673.

Wreche: anger, wrath. "Dragons galle her wyne shal be / Of addres venym also, saith he / That may be heled with no leche / So violent thei are and ful of wreche."

Hunting terminology:

Beat counter: go backwards.

Break field: to enter before the hunt.

Go to vault: a hare's going to ground

Hounds babble: giving tongue before they actually have the scent.

Hunt at force: to run the game down with dogs (as opposed to shooting it).

Hunt change: what hounds do, when they take a fresh scent and veer off the original quarry.

Hunt counter: what hounds do, when they take a false scent

Prick: a hare's track or footprints.

Run riot: to run wild at the whole herd.

Seat form: the lodgement of a hare.

Sink: to lie down cunningly in hiding

Skirt: to run round the sides, keeping close to cover

Strain: when at full speed

Tappish: to lurk or skulk.

Trajon: to cross or double.

Watch: to attend to the other hounds, taking advantage of their skill at following the scent.

Posted May 10th 1999 by Sylvia and Lisa

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