WILTSHIRE DIALECT WORDS from the past - coutesy Wiltshire Family History Society
Anneal (nealded) - heated oven
Arse over tip, pitchfalling - to fall headlong
Badge(r) - a corn dealer, so called because he was licensed to deal and wore a badge
Bargain - small landed property or holding e.g. house, garden, land
Batters - embankment
Belluziz - bellows for lighting a fire
Belly Button - navel, as opposed to Billy Buttons meaning a dimwit, fool, also term for woodlouse
Bide - to stay, keep still - 'bide here with me'
Billy Buttons - a dimwit, fool, also a term for woodlice
Blind-house - local lock up with no windows
Brack - to crack, break, fracture - can also mean feeling sick
Brave - good health
Brown - a brown day, a gloomy day
Budgy - moody, sulky
Bulragging - nagging, haranguing
Bunt - nudge, shove up, push
Buttery - pantry
Butty - a workmate
Cack-handed - left handed, clumsy
Caddle - trouble, confusion, disorder as in 'I'm all in a caddIe'
Call - 'no call to be so rude'
Chooky pig - woodlouse
Comical - funny tempered, not well also see Queer
Count - to expect or think as in 'don't count on it', 'don't expect it'
Crowdy - apple turnover, apple crowdy
Cubby-hole - warm place, a snug corner
Dab - as in 'a dab hand' - an expert
Daps - plimsolls
Dadacky - ricketty or unsafe.
Dewpond - a constructed pond on the Downs not fed by a spring, river or stream but which depended on mist, dew and rain to fill it (the parish of Imber had dewponds)
Dicky - weakly, ill health in people, in plants
Dimmet (dimpsy) - dusk, twilight-time
Dodder, dudder, duther - bewilder, deafen with noise
Dozey - sleepy, stupid
Drag - a harrow
Drane - drangway, drung - a narrow passage between houses
Dribs and drabs - bits and pieces/odds and ends, in tatters
Drowner - man who attended to the hatches by maintaining the water supply
Dry as a gix - a gix is a dried nettle stem.
Dryth/druth - very dry, a drought
Duckstone - a game played with stones
Dummel, domel, dumble - stupid, dull, foolish
Dung pot-a dung cart
Dunny, dunnikin - an earth closet
Emmet - an ant
Faggot - woman/girl of bad character
Fardingale - quarter of an acre
Favour - to resemble in features
Flump - to fall heavily
Fogger - a man servant, groom, labourer ;-- man who took cows their fodder morning and evening - a corruption of 'fodder'
Frame - skeleton
Frickle/Fuggle - to potter about/fidget/worry
Fuckling/friggling - tiresome, something which involves much attention to detail
Gaapus/gawpus - a fool, stupid person
Galley-bagger/galley-crow - a scarecrow
Gammer - woodlouse
Gapps/Grapsey - gape or stare
Gibbles (pronounced as 'jibbles')/Chipples - Spring onions
Gill - low four wheeled timber carriage
Glory-hole - place/cupboard for rubbish/ odds
Gooding Day - St Thomas' Day -21 December
Goosegog - gooseberry
Gossiping - christening;- Gossips - godparents
Grizzle - complain, grumble, whine, cry
Griggle -small apple
Hacker/hagger - tremble as with the cold
Gurt as in 'gurt big 'un' meaning 'great big one
Half-baked - dimwitted, stupid
Hallantide - All Saints' Day - 1 November
Handin' post - a signpost
Hanglers/pot hangels - pothooks
Helyer - a tiler
Hike - to hook or catch Hilp wine - sloe wine
Hodmandod/hodmedod - short and clumsy
Hollardy day - Holy Rood Day - 3 May
Home to be called - to have banns of marriage published
Hookland/Hitchland - portion of the best land in a common field
Hooset, Heusset, Wooset - Skimmington ride (public disapproval of marital infidelities - rough justice)
Horse's leg - a bassoon
Hudgy - clumsy, thick
Hurdle footed - club footed
Hurkle - to crowd together
In-a-most - almost
Jack and his team/Dick and his team - the Great Bear/the Plough
Jarl - quarrel
Jaw-bit - labourers' elevenses (also see Nammet)
Jibbets - small bits and pieces
Jobbet - small load
Jonnick - honest/fair
Junk-a solid piece - hunk/hunch - bread & cheese, a lump of wood or coal
Junket - a treat, out on a spree
Kiver - a cooler (used in brewing)
Lannock - long narrow piece of land
Lear/leer - very cold/extremely hungry/starving
Leaser - gleaner
Licket - all in pieces
Lollop(er) - to loll about: lazy lout
Loppity - to feel weak or out of sorts
Lot-meads - common meadows divided into equal sized pieces
Lug - land measure (pole or perch) in Wiltshire can be 3 lengths - 15, 18 or 16 & 1/2 ft (statute perch)
Lummekin - ungainly, heavy, clumsy
Main - good, excellent
Marlbro' handed - awkward, clumsy
Mere - boundary line/bank of turf as a boundary
Mere stone - boundary stone
Middling - ailing or tolerable as in 'I be fair to middling'
Mistpond - see Dewpond
Mommet/mommick - scarecrow
Mooned up - spoilt, coddled
Mop - Statute fair for hiring servants - held in several Wiltshire towns eg. Chippenham, Marlborough, Wootton Bassett.
Moral - likeness
Mucker - miserly person (in other counties this can mean a pal, workmate, friend)
Mump/mump about - sulky
Nammet, nummet;- Nunchin/nunchin bag - noon meat, lunch, midday snack. Lunch, lunch bag
Nanny fudging - nonsence
Narration - fuss, commotion - 'what a narration about nothing'
Naumpey - weak, foolish minded person
Next akin to nothing - very little
Nine holes - children's' game
Nineter - regular scamp/worthless/skinflint
Ninny hammer - foolish, silly person
Nuthen - nothing
Out-axed - when banns were called for the third and last time
Pantony - pantry
Peck - pickaxe, also a measure of weight
Peel - a lacemaking pillow
Pegged it - to run well fast
Pelt - in a passion or a rage
Pigged, picked, picky - a sickly looking person
Pitch - steep place
Pitchin - paving with large flat stones 'pitching' with small uneven stones set on edge (usually on a steep or slippery slope)
Plim - to swell out
Pot-walloper - someone possessing house with a 'pot-well' (fireplace) for cooking. In Wootton Bassett pot-wallopers had voting rights
Pucksey - quagmire (dirty, messy, muddy)
Purler - to have a heavy fall -'her went a right purter'
Put about - to worry, fret
Quar(r) - stonequarryman
Quean - a woman
Queer - not well, also see Comical
Quidly or Quiddle - a fussy person
Quilt - to swallow
Plock - alog of firewood, just large enough to fit into the grate.
Rag-mag - ragged beggar (male/female)
Rannel - extremely hungry
Raves/Reaves - waggon rails
Rawmouse - bat
Rawney/Rowney - thin person or thin poor and uneven as in manufactured cloth
Reeve - to draw up as in 'her skirts is all reeved up', wrinkle
Remlet - remnant
Revel - parish/village festival also as in Club Feast
Rick/wrick - to twist or wrench - as in a turned ankle
Rhine (pronounced reen) - water course
Rough - feeling unwell; to sleep outdoors - 'sleeping rough'
Roughband/rough music - see Housset
Scaut - to strain, push, to carry a heavy load
Scram - awkward, scrammy handed (left handed)
Shandy - a row about nothing in particular
Shard - a gap or hole in a hedge, generally large enough for a child to crawl through.
Shitsack/Shock-shack Day - King Charles' day - 29 May when children carried shitsack (springs of young oak or ash) in the morning and powder-monkey or Even-ash leaves in the afternoon.
Shot of/shut of - to rid oneself of a thing
Shrammed - cold - perished with cold -cold to your very bones
Scag/skag/skeg - ragged tear in clothes - to scag on something.
Skiffley - showery
Skillin(g) - pent house/outhouse/cowshed
Slammock/Slummock - slatternly woman
Slewed - the worse for drink
Smart - a second swarm of bees
Somewhen - sometime
Spreeved - sore skin, hands and legs, caused by cold weather.
Teg - sheep
Tegman - shepherd - teg was a Wiltshire name for sheep
Tallet, tallot - hayloft over a stable
Tasker - casual labourer
Teart - very cold, sore as in a small sore cut on a finger, a graze
Tranter - a haulier
Trumpery - rubbish, cheap and tawdry; weeds left in cultivated ground
Tuffin/tuffin hay - late hay made from the rough grass left by cattle
Tump/tumpy - hillock, hillocky - uneven
Tun - chimney or chimney top; to pour liquid through a 'tun-dish' into a barrel
Turn/torn - spinning wheel
Unbelieving - disobedient (as with naughty children)
Up-along - a little way up the road (as in 'down-along' - down the street)
Upping-stock - horse block
Vag - to reap with a broad reap hook (vagging hook)
Vamplets - gaiters
Want-catcher/cont catcher - mole catcher
Whipland - land measured out by the whip's length when ploughed
Whissgig - to have a bit of fun, to lark about
Wisp, wish, west - a stye in the eye
Yardland - Quarter of an acre (a quarter of an acre was a landyard wide)
Yer/Yertiz - here/here it is or your.
Yuckle - Woodpecker
Zammy - a simpleton