Chapter V: Archaic Literary Words in the Dialects (2)

(This--it may be mentioned in passing--is one of the cases where Johnson is quoting from memory, rather than from a printed text, as is shown by slight verbal inaccuracies, v. _Oth._ III. i. 35.) Or again: ‘_To have rather_. [This is, I think, a barbarous expression of late intrusion into our language, for which it is better to say _will rather_.]’ It is a very common phrase in Shakespeare, though Johnson does not here cite his authority.

[Sidenote: _Johnson’s Dialect_
_Johnson’s Treatment of Dialect_]

In the early days of Dictionaries a lexicographer impressed his work with the stamp of his own personality in a way which is impossible in modern times when Dictionary-making ranks among the abstract sciences. Johnson’s Dictionary is pre-eminently personal, betraying the author’s character and opinions at every turn; indeed, certain definitions, such as those of ‘lexicographer’, ‘grubstreet’, ‘pension’, ‘excise’, &c., have become the hackneyed illustrations wherever Johnson’s life and writings are discussed. It is not surprising, therefore, if we find in his treatment of dialect words some points of biographical interest. Certain of his views with regard to literature and language are plainly given in his Preface to the Dictionary: ‘I soon discovered that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve the labour of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty desarts of barren philology.’ Speaking of the difficulty of collecting words, he says: ‘the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of living speech.... That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner’s language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in books; what favourable accident, or easy inquiry brought within my reach, has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up words, by courting living information, and contesting with the sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.’ But even a cursory glance through the pages of the Dictionary show that where the ‘living information’ was his own knowledge of the dialect words of his native county it was a ‘labour’ of love to glean them up and place them among his ‘verdure and flowers’, above the region of ‘boundless chaos’. Just as it can be shown from the internal evidence of their respective Dictionaries that Skinner belonged to Lincolnshire, Levins to Yorkshire, and Cotgrave to Cheshire, so it could be proved that Johnson belonged to Staffordshire, even if we had no other testimony outside his Dictionary. Some of the most striking of these evidences are as follows: ‘Lich.... A dead carcase; whence _lichwake_, the time or act of watching by the dead; _lichgate_, the gate through which the dead are carried to the grave; _Lichfield_, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna parens._’ ‘_Kecksy_. n.s. [commonly _kex_, _cigue_, French; _cicuta_, Latin. Skinner.] Skinner seems to think _kecksy_ or _kex_ the same as hemlock. It is used in Staffordshire both for hemlock, and any other hollow jointed plant.’ ‘Shaw.... A thicket; A small wood. A tuft of trees near Lichfield is called Gentle _shaw_.’ ‘Tup. n.s. [I know not of what original.] A ram. This word is yet used in Staffordshire, and in other provinces.’ In other cases, though he does not mention his own native county, he seems to be so familiar with the word in question, as belonging to rustic speech, that, with the evidence of its existence in the Midland dialects of to-day, we may safely assume that it was current in the Staffordshire dialect of his time. For example: ‘Huff. n.s. [from _hove_, or _hoven_, swelled: he is _huffed up by distempers_. So in some provinces we still say the bread _huffs up_, when it begins to _heave_ or ferment: _huff_, therefore, may be ferment. To be in a _huff_ is then to be in a _ferment_, as we now speak],’ cp. _huff_ (Sh.I. Yks. Lei. Nhp. War.), to swell, puff up; to rise in baking, generally used with _up_. ‘Clees, n.s. The two parts of the foot of beasts which are cloven-footed. _Skinner_. It is a country word, and probably corrupted from _claws_,’ cp. _clee_ (gen. dial. use in Eng.), claw. It represents O.E. _clēa_, the nom. form of the substantive which in the oblique cases has given Eng. _claw_. ‘_Fleet_. v.a.... 3. [In the country.] To skim milk; to take off the cream: whence the word _fleeting_ dish,’ cp. _fleet_ (Cum. w.Yks. Lan. Hrt. e.An. Suf. Ken.), to skim, take off the surface, especially to take off the cream from milk; _fleeting-dish_, a flat dish used in skimming cream from milk. ‘Gleed. n.s.... A hot glowing coal. A provincial and obsolete word,’ cp. _gleed_ (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Chs. Stf. Der. Not. Lei. Nhp. War. Wor. Shr. Glo.), a spark, ember, red hot-coal, &c. ‘To Pound, v.a. [punian, Sax. whence in many places they use the word _pun_].’ The form _pun_ still exists in the following counties: n.Cy. w.Yks. s.Chs. Der. Not. Lei. War. Wor. Shr. Hrf. Glo. ‘Rear. adj.... 1. Raw; half roasted; half sodden. 2. Early. A provincial word.

O’er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear,
Then why does Cuddy leave his cot so _rear_? _Gay._’

Cp. _rear_ (gen. dial. use in Eng.), of meat, eggs, &c.: half-cooked, underdone, O.E. _hrēr_, not thoroughly cooked, lightly boiled. ‘Soe. n.s. [_sae_, Scottish]. A large wooden vessel with hoops, for holding water; a cowl. A pump grown dry will yield no water; but pouring a little into it first, for one bason full you may fetch up as many _soe_-fills. _More._’ Cp. _soa_ (n.Cy. Nhb. Stf. Lin. Bdf. e.An.), a large round tub, gen. with two ears; used for brewing or carrying water, O.N. _sār_, gen. _sās_, a large cask. ‘Suds. n.s.... 1. A lixivium of soap and water. 2. _To be in the_ Suds. A familiar phrase for being in any difficulty.’ The same phrase is still extant in n.Lin. and s.Wor. ‘To Toot. v.n.... To pry; to peep; to search narrowly and slily. It is still used in the provinces, otherwise obsolete.

I cast to go a shooting,
Long wand’ring up and down the land,
With bow and bolts on either hand,
For birds and bushes _tooting_. _Spenser’s Past._’

[Sidenote: _Johnson’s Scottish Assistants_
_Johnson’s Treatment of Scots Words_
_‘Low Words_]

Cp. _toot_ (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Yks. Lan. Chs. Der. Lin. Rut. Lei. Nhp. War.), to peep, and pry about; to spy, O.E. _tōtian_, to peep out. ‘To Trape. v.a. [commonly written _to traipse_: probably of the same original with _drab_]. To run idly and sluttishly about. It is used only of women,’ cp. _trape_ (Cum. Wm. Lin. Nrf. Suf.), to walk in a slovenly manner, especially with the dress trailing; and _trapes_ (gen. dial. and colloq. use in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), used in the same sense. One striking example of accurate knowledge of a word belonging only to a very limited locality is the entry: ‘Sarn. n.s. A British word for pavement, or stepping stones, still used in the same sense in Berkshire and Hampshire,’ cp. _sarn_ (Shr. Brks. Hmp.), a culvert; a pavement; stepping stones, cp. Wel. _sarn_, pauimentum. The word _atter_ Johnson introduces on the authority of Skinner: ‘Atter. n.s.... Corrupt matter, A word much used in Lincolnshire. _Skinner._’ It is used to-day only in certain northern counties, and in East Anglia. The information concerning words then current ‘in the northern counties, and in Scotland’, was probably supplied by Johnson’s assistants. Out of his six amanuenses, five were Scots.[1] A few examples of these words are: ‘Fain. adj.... 1. Glad; merry; chearful; fond. It is still retained in Scotland in this sense.’ ‘Flit. v.n.... 2. To remove; to migrate. In Scotland it is still used for removing from one place to another at quarter-day, or the usual term.’ ‘Grout. n.s. [... In Scotland they call it _groats_.] 1. Coarse meal.’ ‘Haver is a common word in the northern counties for oats: as, _haver_ bread for oaten bread.’ ‘Kirk. n.s.... An old word for a church, yet retained in Scotland.’ ‘To Lout. v.n.... In Scotland they say, a fellow with _lowtan_ or _luttan_ shoulders; that is, one who bends forwards; his shoulders or back,’ cp. _looting_, ppl. adj. stooping, bending, now occurring in Sc. dialects only. ‘Leverook. n.s.... This word is retained in Scotland, and denotes the lark. The smaller birds have their seasons; as, the _leverook_. _Walton’s Angler._ If the lufft faa ’twill smoore aw the _leverooks_. _Scotch Prov._’ This proverbial saying is still found in Sc. dialects, used in speaking to those who expect unlikely evils to befall them. Other examples of extant Scottish words noted by Johnson are Ambry, Bannock, Jannock, Lyart, Lope, Piggin, Sark, Skep, Thrapple, Throdden. Numbers of modern dialect words are to be found in Johnson’s Dictionary stigmatized by him as ‘low’. Without making a complete collection of them, and submitting them to careful linguistic study, it is impossible to say definitely in each case why he thus marked them off from polite speech. One is, however, tempted to think that he sometimes thus disposed of a word simply because he did not happen to know it in his own dialect; for some of his ‘low’ words have no worse history than others which he admits as ‘provincial’. For example: ‘To dag. v.a.... To daggle; to bemire; to let fall in the water,’ is given as ‘a low word’, while the synonymous ‘To daggle’ is admitted without comment; cp. _dag_, to trail in the dew, wet, or mire, to bedraggle, now essentially a Midland word, and _daggle_ (n.Cy. Yks. Chs. Lei. Nhp. War. Oxf. e.An. Suf.), with the same meaning. Others of his ‘low’ words yet current are: ‘To Collogue, v.n.... To wheedle; to flatter; to please with kind words’; ‘A Clutter, n.s.... A noise; a bustle; a busy tumult; a hurry; a clamour’; ‘To dizen. v.a.... To dress; to deck; to rig out.’ On the other hand, modern usage confirms Johnson’s opinion in the case of: ‘Souse. adv. With sudden violence. A low word’; ‘To Swop. v.a. [Of uncertain derivation.] To change; to exchange one thing for another. A low word’; and so with many other words, which are to the present day, not dialect, but colloquial and slang expressions that have never worked their way up into ‘polite usage’, as has been the better fortune of: ‘To budge’; ‘To coax’; ‘Quandary’; ‘Touchy’; and a few more, which were once also under the ban of Johnson’s opprobrium, and were each branded with his stern, judicial dictum, ‘a low word’.

[1] ‘For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the _Lives of the Poets_ to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.’--Boswell, _Life of Johnson_, sub anno 1748. Ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (1887), vol. i, p. 187.

[Sidenote: _The Survival of Rare Words_]

We have already seen that numbers of familiar words which we were wont to look upon as dead bodies embalmed in the prose or verse of bygone centuries, are yet alive and active in the dialects of to-day. But not only have the familiar words been thus preserved, but also, sometimes, the rare and unfamiliar. Where scholars have been unable to discern the true meaning, or where the sense has been merely deduced from the context, the discovery of the living word in some rustic dialect has supplied the missing clue, or turned vague conjecture into well-grounded certainty. There exists in Sussex and Hampshire the word _crundel_, used to denote a ravine, or a strip of covert dividing open country, always in a dip, usually with running water in the middle. In the _Codex Diplomaticus_ edited by Kemble, more than sixty _crundels_ are mentioned, but the meaning of the word had always remained a puzzle. Sweet, in his _Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_, defines it as a cavity, a chalk-pit(?), a pond(?); Bosworth-Toller as a barrow, a mound raised over graves to protect them; Leo as a spring or well; Kemble as a sort of watercourse, or a meadow through which a stream flows. It was the discovery of the existence of the word in the dialects which placed the correct meaning beyond doubt. In the Old English epic poem _Beowulf_, occurs the following passage: _Ofer þǣm hongiað hrinde bearwas_, Over which [lake] hang ... woods. The question as to the meaning of _hrinde_ has formed the subject of frequent discussion, and various translations have been suggested, e.g. barky, rustling, placed in a ring or circle, standing in a ring, or gnarled(?), v. _Beowulf_, by W. J. Sedgefield, Litt.D., 1910. Dr. Richard Morris, however, proved fairly conclusively that the right meaning should be rimy, frosty. The word _hrinde_ was taken to be a corrupt form of O.E. _hrīmge_, rimy, covered with hoar-frost, and this amended reading was adopted in subsequent editions of the text. Now the word for hoar-frost in several northern dialects is _rind_, and from a philological point of view, it is quite possible to connect the two words, and justify the retention of the MS. reading, whilst corroborating the accepted translation.

[Sidenote: _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_]

About the middle of the fourteenth century were produced four remarkable poems, _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_, a romantic story of the adventures of an Arthurian knight; _Pearl_, a Vision; _Cleanness_; and _Patience_, stories taken from the Bible. We know nothing of the life of the author, we do not even know his name. Perhaps the little ‘Marjory’ who ‘lyfed not two yer in our thede [country]’ was the poet’s own daughter, and the _Pearl_ the _In Memoriam_ outpouring of his life’s sorrow. If so, it is the only shred of his biography which we possess, and some scholars would rob us even of that, by affirming that the lost ‘Pearl’ was purely a poetic creation. We can only guess at the man through his works. Judged by them, he appears to have been a literary country gentleman, born and bred in Lancashire, a man equally at home in his study, pen in hand, describing armed knights, and embattled castles, the tumultuous surgings of the Deluge, and the woes of Jonah in the ‘maw’ of the ‘wylde walterande whal’; or, in the saddle, following the ‘wylde swyn’, or ‘reynarde’ ‘þe schrewe’ to the sound of horn and bugle and the ‘glauerande glam of gedered rachchez’ [yelping cry of a pack of hounds]. He possessed, on the one hand, a real vein of poetic imagination, coupled with learning and knowledge, and on the other, all the instincts of a keen sportsman. He was a lover of nature and outdoor life, with extraordinary powers of accurate observation, and an artist’s eye for picturesque detail. Thus his memory was stored with a rich and varied vocabulary which the exigencies of his alliterative verse brought into full play. Many of the words he used are not found recorded anywhere else in literature, but they have remained in the dialect of the district to which the poet belonged. _Sir Gawayne_ especially, by reason of its more secular subject-matter, abounds in words which are common in the North-country dialects of to-day, and it is these modern instances which have brought to light previously hidden meanings, and have confirmed contextual deductions, and thus enabled us to appreciate more fully the skilful handling of a wide range of vocabulary which characterizes this unknown poet, sportsman, and man of letters. In the description of the wondrous caparison of the Green Knight’s horse are mentioned ‘his molaynes’. The Glossary to the text gives this word as signifying: round embossed ornaments, but with a query. Stratmann’s _Dictionary_ gives ‘_Molaine_, sb.? some ornament of a shield’. No other instance of the use of the word occurs in literature, but it is found in the Midland and South Midland spoken dialects: _Mullen_, the head-gear of a horse; the bridle of a cart-horse. Similarly, ‘toppyng’, another word peculiar to this poem. The Glossary and Dictionary suggest the meanings ‘mane(?), or top, head(?)’; the correct meaning as shown by the dialects is: a horse’s forelock. When the Man in Green ‘gedereȝ vp hys grymme tole, Gawayn to smyte’, he ‘mynteȝ at hym maȝtyly’, l. 2290. Obviously the verb ‘mynt’ means, as the Glossary says, to aim, or strike, but the more exact sense, and the one required by the story, is shown by the modern dialect _mint_ (Sc. Irel. and n.Cy. dialects), to make a feigned attempt at, to make a movement as if to strike a blow but without doing it. The Green Knight had appointed his ‘grene chapelle’ as the place where Sir Gawayne was to receive this blow, and it proves to be ‘nobot an olde caue, Or a creuisse of an olde cragge’:

Now i-wysse [of a truth], quod Wowayn, wysty is here.
l. 2189.

This word ‘wysty’ is translated in the Glossary by: desert, waste, but with a query; the marginal paraphrase gives: ‘a desert is here.’ The word does not, as far as I know, occur in any other literary monument, but it has been preserved in the poet’s native dialect, cp. _wisty_ (Lan. Chs.), spacious, empty, bare, large, often used in the sense of needlessly spacious. This meaning is exactly in accordance with the rest of the speech, and it adds a realistic touch, which was wanting in ‘desert’. Sir Gawayne was looking into the chapel, and he sees it all big, and bare, and empty--it was an uncanny place:

Now I fele hit is þe fende, in my fyue wytteȝ,
Þat hatȝ stoken [set] me þis steuen [tryst], to strye [destroy]
me here.
...
Hit is þe corsedest kyrk, þat euer I com inne.
ll. 2193-6.

[Sidenote: _Cleanness_]

In the poem called _Cleanness_, beginning with the parable of the Marriage Feast, occurs the word ‘trasches’:

For what vrþly haþel [man] þat hyȝ honour haldeȝ
Wolde lyke, if a ladde com lyþerly [badly] attyred.
...
With rent cokreȝ [gaiters] at þe kne & his clutte [clouted]
trasches.--ll. 35-40.

The Glossary gives: ‘Trasches = trauses or trossers, ... trousers?’ and Stratmann’s _Dictionary_ favours the same suggestion, but there is no longer any doubt that the word is correct as it stands, and that it is the same as the modern _trash_ (w.Yks. Lan. Chs. Stf. Der.), an old worn-out boot, shoe, or slipper. The combination ‘cockers and trashes’ appears in Grose’s _Provincial Glossary_, 1790: ‘Cockers and Trashes. Old stockings without feet, and worn-out shoes. North.’ The next line of the poem runs:

& his tabarde to-torne & his toteȝ oute.--l. 41.

Here both the Glossary and Dictionary suggest that ‘toteȝ’ is a corrupt form meaning ‘toes’, the suggestion being made to fit the word ‘oute’, regardless of the fact that the lad’s feet had already been described in the previous line. In all probability ‘his toteȝ oute’ means: his locks disordered, hanging loosely about, cp. _tot_ (Lan. Sus. Hmp. Som.), in forms _tooat_, _tote_ (Lan.), a tuft, as of grass, hair, &c. The poem _Patience_ is the story of Jonah, enlarged, and pointed with a moral. When Jonah is told to rise up quickly and take his way to Nineveh, he fears the consequences:

I com [if I came] wyth þose tyþynges, þay ta [take] me bylyue,
Pyneȝ me in a prysoun, put me in stokkes,
Wryþe [bind] me in a warlok, wrast out myn yȝen.--ll. 78-80.

[Sidenote: _Patience_]

Both Glossary and Dictionary translate ‘warlok’ by prison, which, besides being a superfluous repetition of ‘prisoun’ in the preceding line, does not harmonize with the verb ‘wryþe’. A far better sense is gained by taking ‘warlok’ to mean chain, fetter, cp. _warlock_ (Lan. Chs. Som.), to tighten the rope or chain which binds the load upon a wagon; sb. a method of tightening the rope or chain of a wagon-load, the fastening thus made, cp. ‘Warloke, or fetyr lock: Sera pedicalis uel compedalis,’ _Prompt. Parv._ circa 1440.

These are only a few examples out of very many which could have been cited from these fourteenth-century poems alone, to illustrate the way in which the study of modern dialects helps us to a better understanding and appreciation of our older literature.

[Sidenote: _Surnames and Place-names_]

Before leaving the subject of the preservation of old words in the dialects, one other store-chamber of words no longer current in the standard speech is worth a passing notice. Many old words which have ceased to be used as common nouns, have become crystallized in surnames, and it is interesting to compare them with the existing cognates in the dialects. I am aware that any attempt to go etymologizing among surnames or place-names is treading on dangerous ground. It is so easy to rush in with a fair sounding derivation, which is in reality nothing more than a worthless guess. I shall not, therefore, venture far afield.

Amongst the names here brought together, I have not included those which have now no living representative, as for example: Hordern, which is the O.E. _hord-ærn_, a treasury, a storeroom, lit. a hoard-house. The word _ærn_ is, as far as I know, wholly obsolete, all except its final _n_ remaining in _barn_, literally, a barley-house. Or again, Newbottle, Newbold, which contain the forms O.E. _botl_, _bold_, a house, a dwelling, now no longer used as a simple word, remaining only in surnames and place-names.

[Sidenote: _Words denoting Occupations_]

The O.E. suffix _-estre_ was originally used in forming feminine _nomina agentis_, but already in later O.E. we find _bæcestre_ used to denote a male as well as a female baker, the name changing hands with the trade. During the M.E. period _-estre_ became _-ster_ and was felt to be only an emphatic form of the masculine _-er_, and could be used indifferently for men or women, so that when baking, brewing, dyeing, weaving, &c., ceased to be feminine pursuits, the terms bakester, brewester, litester, webster ceased to convey any tinge of feminine gender, and in course of time they became the surnames Baxter, Brewster, Litster, Webster. To sit and spin was, however, an occupation to which the ladies held undisputed claim, and spinster continued to designate a woman as distinct and apart from a man, even when the trade was forgotten, so the term has never become a surname. As a common noun _backster_ for baker is known in a few northern dialects, but its use is dying out. In the form _bakester_ it is, however, used in Cornwall. In the same districts _brewster_ for brewer holds a similar position. _Litster_ for dyer is practically obsolete now, though the verb _lit_, to dye, remains in Scotland and the North. It is a Scandinavian word, from O.N. _lita_, to dye, already occurring in M.E., cp. ‘That thi fote be littid in blode,’ Hampole, _c._ 1330, _Ps._ lxvii. 25. _Webster_ belongs also to Scotland and the North, but it is rapidly disappearing in favour of the ordinary word weaver. Where the A.V. has: ‘My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,’ _Job_ vii. 6, Wyclif wrote: ‘My daies passiden swiftliere thanne a web is kit down of a webstere.’

[Sidenote: _Words denoting Physical Features_
_Streams, Meadows, Woods, &c._
_Todhunter_]

The name Brewis means broth, pottage, cp. _brewis_, _browis_ (Sc. Nhb. Yks. Lan. Chs. Wal. Der. Shr.), broth, or bread soaked in hot water, gravy, &c., originally a French word, O.Fr. _broez_, broth, in M.E. _brouis_, _brois_, cp.:

And y shal yeue þe ful fair bred,
And make þe broys in þe led.--_Havelok_, ll. 923, 924.

Bentley is the grassy meadow, Broadbent, the broad field, or hill-side, cp. _bent_ (Sc. Irel. and in gen. use in n. and midl. counties and e.An.), any coarse grass, especially that found on moorlands or near the sea, also a sandy hillock or knoll covered with coarse grass, a hill-side. The word is used by Chaucer, and by many other early writers. Brock means a badger, cp. _brock_ (Sc. Irel. n. counties to Chs., also Lin. Lei., &c.), a badger; but the word is obsolescent. Chapman is a word that occurs frequently in M.E. literature, meaning merchant, trader. It is closely connected with _cheap_, and _chaffer_, cp. _chapman_ (Sc. Irel. Yks. Lan. Lei. Nhp. Shr. e.An.), a pedlar, a small dealer. Clough, Fairclough, signifies a ravine, cp. _clough_ (n.Cy. dialects), a ravine, chasm, narrow glen. It occurs in Barbour’s _Bruce_ (1375) in the form _clewch_: ‘In a clewch ... All his archeres enbuschit he,’ xvi. 386. Garth is the Norse form of our word _yard_, cp. _garth_ (Sc. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. Nhp.), a small piece of enclosed ground, usually beside a house, O.N. _garðr_, a small enclosure of land. Ginnell is probably the same word as O.Fr. _chenel_, or _chanel_, a channel, cp. _ginnell_ (Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Chs.), a narrow passage or entry between buildings. In Scotland it denotes a small channel for water, a street gutter. Greaves is an old form of _groves_, cp. _greave_ (Irel. Lan.), a grove, a division of a forest, O.E. _grǣfa_, a bush. Chaucer has the word in a well-known passage:

The busy larke, messager of daye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe graye;
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte,
That al the orient laugheth of the lighte,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes, hongyng on the leeves.
_Knightes Tale_, ll. 633-8.

[Sidenote: _Streams, Meadows, Woods, &c._]

Hayward means literally hedge-warden, cp. _hayward_ (Chs. Lin. Wor. Glo. Oxf. Bdf. Sus. Hmp. Dor. Som.), a manorial officer whose duty it is to see that fences are kept in repair, to look after the stock, and to impound stray cattle. One of the earliest instances of the use of the word in M.E. occurs in the _Ancren Riwle_ (_c._ 1210), or Rule of Nuns, where reasons are given in support of the Rule that a nun should keep no beast but a cat only. Among the worldly cares and employments which would come upon her if she were to keep a cow, is that she would have to flatter the ‘heiward’. Holt, Hurst, Shaw are common words in the dialects for wood, copse, O.E. _holt_, _hyrst_, _scaga_, cp. ‘Gaillard he was as goldfinch in the shaws,’ _Cokes Tale_, l. 3. Inge means a meadow, cp. _ing_ (Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Not. Lin. e.An. Ken. Sur. Sus.), a meadow, pasture, especially low-lying land by the side of a stream or river, M.E. _eng_, O.N. _eng_. Kemp originally meant a fighter, cp. _kemp_ (Sc. Nhb. Cum. Wm.), a champion, a bold impetuous person, O.E. _cempa_, a soldier, warrior, O.N. _kempa_, M.E. _kempe_, a soldier, a champion. In the _Lay of Havelok_ (_c._ 1280) we read concerning ‘þe starke laddes’ who ‘putten with a mikel ston’:

Hwo so mithe putten þore
Biforn a-noþer, an inch or more,
Wore he yung, or wore he hold,
He was for a kempe told.--ll. 1033-6.

[Sidenote: _Todhunter_]

Murgatroyd, the moor-gate-royd, means the moor-way clearing. This _gate_ has nothing to do with _gate_, an opening, but we have it in _gait_, with specialized meaning. It is from O.N. _gata_, a way, cp. _gate_ (var. dial. uses in Sc. Irel. and Eng.), a way, path, road. It is very common in M.E. writings. _-royd_ is related to Icel. _ruð_, a clearing in a wood, cp. _royd_ (Yks. Lan.), a clearing in a wood, now generally found in place-names and field-names. Pargeter means a plasterer, and is borrowed from French, cp. _parget_ (n.Cy. Yks. Lan. Chs. Lin. Nhp. War. Hrf. Glo. Ken. Sur. Sus. Som.), to plaster with cement or mortar, also to whitewash; _pargeter_, a plasterer. Fr. (Norm. dial.) _porjeter_, crépir, couvrir une muraille d’un enduit, O.Fr. (Norm.) _pargeter_, projeter, jeter et répandre en avant. Wyclif has: ‘Seie thou to hem that pargiten without temperure, that it schal falle doun,’ _Ezek._ xiii. 11. Ruddock denotes a robin, cp. _ruddock_ (n.Cy. Nhb. Yks. War. Wor. Suf. Ken. Wil. Dor. Som. Dev. Cor.), the robin, O.E. _rudduc_. Chaucer mentions ‘the tame ruddok’ in his _Parliament of Foules_. Rutherford means cattle-ford; the more common form of the word is found in Rotherhithe, literally cattle-harbour, cp. _rother_ (n.Cy. Lan. War. Wor. Hrf. Sus.), a horned beast, horned cattle. John of Trevisa, writing of this country in 1387, says: ‘Þis ylond ys best to brynge forþ tren, & fruyt, & roþeron, & oþere bestes.’ Slade means a valley, a hollow, a grassy plain between hills, the side or slope of a hill, and is found in many dialects. Snell is originally an adjective, meaning quick, prompt, cp. _snell_ (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Dur. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lin.), quick, sharp, acute, keen; and of the weather: cold, piercing, O.E. _snell_, quick, active. Souter means a shoemaker, cp. _souter_ (Sc. n.Cy. Yks. Nhp.), a shoemaker, a cobbler, O.E. _sūtere_ (from Lat. _sutor_), M.E. _soutere_, cp. ‘A somer-game of souteres,’ _P. Plow._ Bk. V, 413. Todhunter is the fox-hunter, cp. _tod_ (Sc. Irel. Nhb. Cum. Wm. Yks. Lan. Lin.), a fox. An early occurrence of the word is found in one of Ben Jonson’s poems. Wong means a field, cp. _wong_ (Yks. Not. Lin. Lei. Nhp.), a field, a meadow, low-lying land, O.E. _wang_, _wong_, a plain, mead, field, M.E. _wonge_:

And þe lond þat þor-til longes,
Borwes, tunes, wodes and wonges.
_Havelok_, ll. 1443, 1444.