My apologies for being late with the archaism this week. I was on vacation in Florida, so in honor of that I will make the crocodile the subject of this week’s definition.

Latin name: Crocodilus

Other names: Cocatris, Cocodrille, Cocodrillus, Coquatrix, Corchodrillus

A beast that weeps after eating a man

The crocodile is a four-footed beast, about twenty cubits long, that is born in the Nile River. Its skin is very hard, so that it is not hurt when struck by stones. It spends the day on land and the night in the water. It is armed with cruel teeth and claws; it is the only animal that can move the upper part of its jaw while keeping the lower part still. Its dung can be used to enhance a person’s beauty: the excrement (or the contents of the intestines) is smeared on the face and left there until sweat washes it off. Crocodiles always weep after eating a man. Despite the hardness of the crocodile’s skin, there are two animals that can kill it. The sawfish (serra) can cut the crocodile’s stomach, and the hydrus can crawl into the crocodile’s mouth and kill it from the inside.

– Medieval Bestiary at bestiary.ca, edited by David Badke

Bindle punk, bindle stiff: Chronic wanderers; itinerant misfits, criminals, migratory harvest workers, and lumber jacks. Called so because they carried a “bindle.” George and Lenny in Of Mice and Men are bindle stiffs.

Bindle

◦ of heroin: Little folded-up piece of paper (with heroin inside)
◦ the bundle (or “brindle”) in which a hobo carries all his worldly possessions

–Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang, compiled by William Denton

crimp (n.) (1) An unscrupulous recruiter for ships’ companies. In 1758 John Blake wrote,
“a crimp … who makes it his business to seduce the men belonging to another ship.”
(2) An agent for a shipping company. In Franklin’s Autobiography, first published in 1791, he reported that:
“a crimp’s bill was put into his hand.”

–Colonial American English. by Richard M. Lederer, Jr.

NUTS of the anchor, two little prominencies, appearing like short square bars of iron, fixed across the upper part of the anchor-shank, to secure the stock thereof in its place; for which purpose there is a corresponding notch, or channel, cut in the opposite parts of the stock, of the same dimensions with the nuts.

-William Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine.

mose in the chine [unclear meaning] be in the final stages of the glanders TS III.ii.50 [Biondello to Tranio as Lucentio, of Petruchio’s horse] possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine

glanders (n.) horse disease affecting the nostrils and jaws

– Shakespeare’s Words : A Glossary & Language Companion by David Crystal and Ben Crystal

PARBUCKLE, a contrivance used by sailors to lower a cask or bale from any heighth [sic], as the top of a wharf or key, into a boat or lighter, which lies along-side, being chiefly employed where there is no crane or tackle.

It is formed by fastening the bight of a rope to a post, or ring, upon the wharf, and thence pulling the two parts of the rope under the two quarters of the cast, and bringing them back again over it; so that when the two lower parts remain firmly attached to the post, the two upper parts are gradually slackened together, and the barrel, or bale, suffered to roll easily downward to that place where it is received below. This method is also frequently used used by masons, in lifting up or letting down large stones, when they are employed in building; and from them it has probably been adopted by seamen.

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

ULLAGE, subs. (common). — In pl. = drainings, dregs of glasses or casks. [Properly the wantage in a cask of liquor.]

– Historical Dictionary of Slang by J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley

ownshook n also eunchuck, oanshick, onshook, oonchook, oonshik, owenshook. Cp DINNEEN óinseach ‘a fool, esp a female fool’; JOYCE oanshagh ‘a female fool’ …

1 Foolish, ignorant person.
_ 1924 ENGLAND 318 Onshook—[a fool].
_ 1937 DEVINE 35 Ownshook—an ignorant, stupid fellow.
_ 1968 DILLON 149 Boy, Mike is the real oanshik, isn’t he?
_ C 71-99 If she saw someone swimming on a cold day, he would be referred to as an oonshick of a thing.

2 One of the men, usually elaborately dressed, who participated in a mummers’ parade; a Christmas mummer; FOOL.

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

RAFTER _ To lie under your blankets with your knees sticking up.

– Dictionary of the American West by Winfred Blevins.

struggle-buggy: students’ nickname for a car, because making out in one was a struggle.

– The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life from Prohibition Through World War II by Marc McCutcheon, Section Six, “Transportation”