Category Archives: ADOTW

Archaic Definition of the Week – Ballicatter

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ballicatter n, usu pl. Variants chronologically arranged: ballicadoes, ballacarda, ballicater, balacadas, batlicaders, belly-carders, ballicatters, ballycatters, belly-catter, batlycadders, ballacarters, ballycater, ballaclauters, ballacaters, ballacatters, ballacader

1 Ice formed by the action in winter of spray and waves along the shore-line, making a fringe or band on the landward side.

2 A narrow band of ice formed in winter in the salt water along the foreshore or ‘landwash’; … ~ ICE; large slabs, chunks and fragments of this ice after break-up.

3 A floating ice-pan.

4 Frozen moisture around the nose and mouth.

– Dictionary of Newfoundland English edited by G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson.

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Belly

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BELLY

What the educated call an abdomen, the uneducated a stomach, and the puerile a tummy.

Belly is a good practical word of Anglo-Saxon derivation which is being edged out of use by the over-sensitive.  It is closely related to bellows: their common ancestor being a Saxon word for bag. It

– The Wordsworth Dictionary of Obscenity & Taboo by James McDonald.

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Archaic Definition of the Week – ‘Ammáríya

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publishingعمّارية _ ‘ammáríya _ camel-borne sedan and the virgin riding in it to battle.

– The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic edited by J M. Cowan.

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Funk

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publishingFunk. In a funk or blue funk, To be. The word may derive from Old French funkier, ‘to smoke’, though the connection is uncertain.  A funk is a state of apprehensive fear or abject fear.  The word first appeared at Oxford in the first half of the 18th Century.

“If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk.” – THOMAS HUGHES: Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Pt I, ch ii (1857)

– Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Sixteenth Edition revised by Adrian Room.

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Futtocks

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publishingFUTTOCKS, the middle division of a ship’s timbers; or those parts which are situated between the floor and the top-timbers …

As the epithet hooked is frequently applied in common language to any thing bent or incurvated, and particularly to several crooked timbers in a ship, as the breast-hooks, fore-hooks, after-hooks, &c. this term is evidently derived from the lowest part or foot of the timber, and from the shape of the piece. Hence.

– Wm. Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine (1780).

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Picus (Woodpecker)

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publishingThe PICUS (woodpecker) gets its name from Picus the son of Saturn, because he used the creature in auguries. For they say that this bird is something of a soothsayer by the following evidence, viz: in the trees on which it builds its nest, one cannot stick a nail where it sat, or anything else that remains fixed for a long time, without its falling out at once.

– The Book of Beasts : Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century Made and Edited by T. H. White (1954).

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Ewer

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publishingewer __ A large water pitcher with a wide lip.

HISTORIC. Before internal plumbing, the common bedroom lavatory consisted of a ewer, a large wash basin, and a floor receptacle into which used wash water could be poured. (Or the water was often thrown out the window.)

– A Second Browser’s Dictionary and Native’s Guide to the Unknown American Language by John Ciardi (1983).

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Glebe

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publishingglebe. The soil; cultivated land; especially, land assigned to a clergyman as part of his benefice…  Gleby soil … is rich, fertile soil.

– Dictionary of Early English by Joseph T. Shipley (1955).

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Archaic Definition of the Week – New Year's Gifts

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New Year’s gifts The giving of presents at this time was a custom among both the Greeks and the Romans, the latter calling them strenæ… Nonius Marcellus says that Tatius, king of the Sabines, was presented with some branches of trees cut from the forest sacred to the goddess Strenia on New Year’s Day… Magistrates were formerly bribed with gifts on New Year’s Day, a custom abolished by law in 1290.

– Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Sixteenth Edition revised by Adrian Room.

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Archaic Definition of the Week – Jolly!

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Jollies Another name for the Royal Marines.  Originally all soldiers carried on board a British warship were known as “jollies,” with a “tame jolly” being a militiaman and a “royal jolly” a marine.

– Ship to Shore: A Dictionary of Everyday Words and Phrases Derived from the Sea by Peter D. Jeans.

HAVE A JOLLY CHRISTMAS!

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