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Thursday, May 21, 2015

OD&D - Old Forgotten English Words - 013

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

Snickle - A snare for birds, constructed of horsehair.

Invalid's table - At Yale college in former times, a table at which those who were not in health could obtain more nutritious food than was supplied at the common board.

Queer rooster - An informer that pretends to be sleeping, and thereby overhears the conversations of thieves in night cellars.

Fangast - A marriageable maid.

Quill-driver - A scrivener, a clerk, satirical phrase similar to "steel bar driver,"  a tailor.

Cramp-rings - Ring(s) made out of old coffin-lead , and worn as a preservative against cramp. 

Aroint - A word of aversion, to a witch or infernal spirit, of which the etymology is uncertain . . . It occurs in Shakespeare's Macbeth, "Aroint thee, witch, the rump-fed ronyon cries" 

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