The Dialect of the West of England; Particularly Somersetshire Part 6

To Count, _v. n._ To think; to esteem.

Cow-baby, _s._ A coward; a timid person.

To c.r.a.p, to c.r.a.ppy. _v. n._ to snap; to break with a sudden sound; to crack.

c.r.a.p. _s._ A smart sudden sound.

Craup. _preterite_ of creep.

Cre'aped. Crept.

Creem. _s._ Sudden s.h.i.+vering.

Creemy. _adj._ Affected with sudden s.h.i.+vering.

Creeplin. _part._ Creeping.

Crips. _adj._ Crisp.

Criss-cross-lain. _s._ The alphabet; so called in consequence of its being formerly preceded in the _horn-book_ by a cross to remind us of the cross of Christ; hence the term. _Christ-Cross- line_ came at last to mean nothing more than the alphabet.

Crock, _s._ A bellied pot, of iron or other metal, for boiling food.

Croom. _s._ A crumb; a small bit.

Crowd-string, _s._ A fiddle-string.

Crowdy-kit. _s._ A small fiddle.

Crow'ner. _s._ A coroner.

To be Crowned. _v. pa.s.s._ To have an inquest held over a dead body by the coroner.

Crowst. _s._ Crust.

Crow'sty. _adj._ Crusty, snappish, surly.

Crub, Crubbin. _s._ Food: particularly bread and cheese.

Cubby-hole. _s_. A snug, confined place.

Cuckold _s._ The plant burdock.

To Cull. _v. n._ To take hold round the neck with the arms.

Cute. _adj._ [Acute] sharp; clever.

Cutty. _adj._ Small; diminutive.

Cutty, Cutty-wren._s._ A wren.

D.

DA'. _s._ Day.

Dayze. Days.

Dade. Dead.

Dad'd.i.c.k. _s._ Rotten wood.

Dad'd.i.c.ky. _adj._ Rotten, like dadd.i.c.k.

Dame. _s._ This word is originally French, and means in that language, _lady_; but in this dialect it means a mistress; an old woman; and never a lady; nor is it applied to persons in the upper ranks of society, nor to the very lowest; when we say _dame_ Hurman, or _dame_ Bennet, we mean the wife of some farmer; a school-mistress is also sometimes called dame (dame-schools).

Dang. _interj._ Generally followed by p.r.o.noun, as _dang it_; _dang em_; _od dang it_: [an imprecation, a corruption of _G.o.d dang it_ (_G.o.d hang it_) or more likely corruption of _d.a.m.n_.]

Dap, _v. n._ To hop; to rebound.

Dap. _s._ A hop; a turn. _To know the daps of a person_ is, to know his disposition, his habits, his peculiarities.

Dap'ster. _s._ A proficient.

To Daver. _v. n._ To fade; to fall down; to droop.

Dav'ison. _s._ A species of wild plum, superior to the bullin.

Daw'zin. _s._ The pa.s.sing over land with a bent hazel rod, held in a certain direction, to discover whether veins of metal or springs are below, is called _Dawzin_, which is still practised in the mining districts of Somersets.h.i.+re. There is an impression among the vulgar, that certain persons only have the gift of the _divining rod_, as it has been sometimes called; by the French, _Baguette Devinatoire_.

_Ray_, in his _Catalogus Plantarum Angliae, &c._, Art.

_Corylus_, speaks of the divining rod: " Vulgus metallicorum ad virgulam divinum, ut vocant, qua venas metallorum inquirit prae caeteris furcam eligit colurnam." More may be seen in John Bauhin.

Des'perd. _adj._ [Corrupted from desperate.] Very, extremely; used in a good as well as a bad sense: _desperd good_; _desperd bad_.

Dewberry, _s._ A species of blackberry.

Dibs. _s. pl._ Money.

Did'dlecome. _adj._ Half-mad; sorely vexed.

Dig'ence. _s._ [g hard, _diggunce_, d.i.c.kens] a vulgar word for the _Devil_.

Dird. _s._ Thread.