Pages

Translate

Friday, May 22, 2015

OD&D - Old Forgotten English Words - 016

Continuing the list of olde archaic words for your enjoyment and enlightenment:

Groaning-cheese - Cheese provided on the occasion of child-birth. It was the practice to cut the groaning-cheese in the middle, and by degrees to form it into a large kind of ring, through which the child was passed on the day of christening.

Rat-rhyme - To repeat from memory without attaching any meaning to the words; anything repeated by rote.  The fanciful idea that rats where commonly rhymed to death in Ireland arose probably from some metrical charm or incantation used there for that purpose.

Snapper-back - in foot-ball, a center rusher . . . Neither the snapper-back nor his opponent can take the ball out with the hand until it touches a third man.

Ruckle - A loose heap or pile; figuratively, a ruckle of bones, a very lean person.

Fowerty-frappers - Fireworks of any kind.

Simmiting - An inclination or fondness for a person of the opposite sex; related to simmity, to look after admiringly, to pay attention to.

No comments:

Post a Comment