tunding

When all were thus assembled, and before the singers commenced, the culprit who had been sentenced to a tunding stepped out, pulled off his gown, and received from the hands of one deputed by the "prefect of hall," and armed with a tough, pliant ground-ash stick, a severe beating. I never had a tunding; but I have no doubt that the punishment was severe, though I never heard of any boy disabled by it from pursuing his usual work or his usual amusements. It was judiciously ordered by the "prefect of hall" for offences deemed unbecoming the character of a Wykehamist and a gentleman, and only for such.

1887, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, “At Winchester”, in What I Remember […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley and Son […], →OCLC, page 112:

(British, school slang, archaic) A caning.


vesses

(UK, obsolete) A kind of worsted, or the cloth made from it.


Blairista

(chiefly British, informal, derogatory) A supporter of Tony Blair, British prime minister 1997-2007, or his policies.


gobstruck

en-adj

gobstruck (comparative more gobstruck, superlative most gobstruck)

more gobstruck (comparative)
most gobstruck (superlative)

(slang, chiefly UK, Ireland) gobsmacked; astonished; astounded


OPRAF

Office of Passenger Rail Franchising
w:Office of Passenger Rail Franchising

(UK, railways, historical) Initialism of Office of Passenger Rail Franchising.


pindown

solitary confinement
solitary confinement

(UK) solitary confinement, formerly used as a method of punishment in children's homes


access course

(UK) An academic course intended to equip students with the skills they need in order to take further courses.


gooden

en-verb

gooden (third-person singular simple present goodens, present participle goodening, simple past and past participle goodened)

goodens (present singular third-person)
goodening (participle present)
goodened (participle past)
goodened (past)

From good + -en. Compare Middle English goden, godien (“to make good, become good, endow with goods”), from Old English gōdian (“to improve, get better; make better; endow, enrich”). More at good.

cog

(intransitive, UK dialectal) To grow; improve; prosper.


ongang

From Middle English *ongang, *ongong, from Old English ongang (“entrance, incursion, irruption, assault, attack; worship”), equivalent to on- + gang.

inh

(UK dialectal, obsolete) A start-up; beginning; commencement (of activity, work, machinery, etc.); a setting in motion.

(UK dialectal, obsolete) Rowdy or unrestrained behaviour; antics.


rowt

en-verb

rowt (third-person singular simple present rowts, present participle rowting, simple past and past participle rowted)

rowts (present singular third-person)
rowting (participle present)
rowted (participle past)
rowted (past)

(chiefly UK) Alternative form of rout To make a loud noise.


rowt

(chiefly UK) Alternative form of rout A loud noise.


LPI

en-noun

LPI (countable and uncountable, plural LPIs)

limited price indexation
limited price indexation#English

(UK, finance) Initialism of limited price indexation.


laugh up one's sleeve

en-verb

laugh up one's sleeve (third-person singular simple present laughs up one's sleeve, present participle laughing up one's sleeve, simple past and past participle laughed up one's sleeve)

laughs up one's sleeve (present singular third-person)
laughing up one's sleeve (participle present)
laughed up one's sleeve (participle past)
laughed up one's sleeve (past)

laugh in one's sleeve
laugh in one's sleeve#English

(UK, Canada, idiomatic) Alternative form of laugh in one's sleeve.


bezzy

Value your bezzies

2002, Imelda Pilgrim, quoting Sugar Magazine, Basic Skills in Neab GCSE English, page 76:

Sandy, my bezzy, we've held each other up for almost ten years.

2010, Cara Aikin, Family Experiences of Bipolar Disorder, page 10:

I'll miss the times when I paint Mum's toenails for her before she goes somewhere special like Goodmayes Social, 'cos it's not like we get on that well usually, but just for those five minutes we're like bezzies and Mum always fiddles about with my hair and I always call her feet 'hooves' and she laughs her head off.

2011, Grace Dent, Diary of a Chav 3 - Too Cool for School:


bezzy

You great big humans might not notice me if you come to my house, but you'd notice my mate all right. My chum, my pal, my bezzy mate, he'd eat you in one gulp, if you were rude to me.

2003, Arabella McIntyre-Brown, The Dragon that Squeaked:

I went to the bommie party with my bezzy friend, and we watched the fireworks together.

2008, Letts Educational, KS2 Success SATs English, page 73:

Mohimbo is there for five minutes and he's already bezzy mates with the most successful producer on the planet, the man who helped make Lady Gaga what she is today

2010, Paul Lester, “New band of the day - No 845: Mohombi”, in The Guardian:


hickwall

From Middle English hyghwhele; also highwale (1500s) or highawe (1600s). Rarely attested before the sixteenth century, making the original form difficult to trace. Probably imitative of the bird's cry; compare yaffle (“green woodpecker”). Possibly influenced by witwall, woodwall.

lesser spotted woodpecker
lesser spotted woodpecker

Dryobates minor
Dryobates minor#Translingual

(UK, regional) A lesser spotted woodpecker (Dryobates minor).

[…]at Shenington for example, the churchwardens paid 4d for each Hickwall (green woodpecker) killed, but there is no record of any payment for weasels, which were worth 3d at Bodicote. One would like to know if Hickwalls were rare at Bodicote and weasels at Shenington, or if in fact they were not considered to be vermin in these parishes.

1975, Banbury Historical Society, Cake & Cockhorse, volume 6, page 126:

European green woodpecker
European green woodpecker

Picus viridis
Picus viridis#Translingual

(UK, regional) A European green woodpecker (Picus viridis).

Tomtit, Blue Tomtit, Nun, Blue-cap, Blue-bonnet, Billy-biter, Hickwall, Blue Mope. One of the most impudent of an impudent lot.

1861, John Christopher Atkinson, British Birds' Eggs and Nests, Popularly Described, page 43:

Cyanistes caeruleus
Cyanistes caeruleus#Translingual

(UK, regional, archaic) A blue tit, Cyanistes caeruleus.


no through road

en-noun

no through road (plural no through roads)

(UK, Australia) A cul-de-sac; a dead end road.


forfight

en-verb

forfight (third-person singular simple present forfights, present participle forfighting, simple past forfought, past participle forfought or forfoughten)

forfights (present singular third-person)
forfighting (participle present)
forfought (past)
forfought (participle past)
forfoughten (participle past)

From Middle English forfighten, forfehten (“to fight for, defend; exhaust with fighting”), equivalent to for- + fight.

(transitive, UK dialectal) To exhaust or overfatigue (oneself) with fighting.


town and gown

[H]owls, curses, flights of brickbats, stones shivering windows, groans of wounded men, cries of frightened females, cheers of either contending party as it charged the enemy from Carfax to Trumpington Street, proclaimed that the battle was at its height. In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with twenty-four pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance—it was a Town and Gown row.

1856, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Codlingsby”, in Burlesques:

Everybody was quiet now, both town and gown; the students were at their dinners and so were the burghers.

1919, Booth Tarkington, chapter 14, in Ramsey Milholland:

[T]he first archives of this University were burned in the ‘Town and Gown’ riots of 1381 by the Townsmen.

1920, Arthur Quiller-Couch, On The Art of Reading, Lecture V—"On Reading for Examinations"

(chiefly UK, idiomatic, sometimes capitalized) On the one hand, the members of the city, borough, or similar community near a university and, on the other hand, the students and faculty of the university itself, especially when understood as rivals in a state of tension or conflict.


above stairs

(British, historical) In or pertaining to the part of a large house, typically the above-ground rooms, in which the owning family lives, contrasted with below stairs where the servants are accommodated.


chinless wonder

en-noun

chinless wonder (plural chinless wonders)

The term is derived from the characteristic recessive chin of some aristocrats, popularly thought to be caused by inbreeding and associated with limited intelligence, and from the idea of a robust chin being an indication of masculinity. The use of wonder is ironic.

This was probably the most insufferable social event of a very dull season. The bride blushingly gave her age as forty-two, but the old battle-axe could have been an eye-witness to the San Francisco Fire. At long last, little Dagmar's folks have got her married off to Morty, the chinless wonder. He couldn't hold down a job as grocery clerk, and will be manager of father-in-law's wholesale grocery firm.

1948, Saturday Review of Literature, volume 31, page 18:

She is thin, starved to near perfection […] He, a chinless wonder, a credit to Carnaby Street; they stand hand in hand before the enquiry desk

1967, The Assistant Librarian, volumes 60–61, page 24:

[Actor] John Harding personified the idle spirit of the times as a tennis-possessed chinless wonder.

1979, The Spectator, volume 243, number 1, page 25:

(UK, slang, derogatory) An ineffectual upper-class man, typically dim-witted and of a weak or indecisive character, frequently one who gained his position through nepotism or social connections.


lorks

[...] immediately upon his entrance, they straightway rose, to a woman, and each, with alarm in her countenance, ejaculated, " Oh lorks!"

1849, E. P. Roswell, “A Story about an Execution”, in Ainsworth's Magazine, volume 16, page 31:

(UK, euphemistic, dated) oh dear, oh my God.


accommodation on arrival

(travel, UK, Ireland) Hotel accommodation provided as part of the price of a package holiday, with the passenger not being advised of the hotel's name or location until arrival at the resort.


'ullo

At that moment Freddie Jones rolled up with two overloaded plates of Pavlova. ‘’ullo my darlings; brought you some sweet.’

1988, Jilly Cooper, chapter 11, in Rivals, London: Bantam Press, →ISBN, page 106:

Pronunciation spelling
pronunciation spelling


top-hole

en-adj

top-hole (comparative more top-hole, superlative most top-hole)

more top-hole (comparative)
most top-hole (superlative)

"I say, this is a top-hole omelette," said Ronnie.

1914, H. H. Munro, chapter 5, in When William Came:

"But Carol's different—she's square, she is; she's just top-hole—if you know what I mean—she's the finest ever," finished Miss Sartoris.

1916, Kathleen Norris, chapter 1, in The Heart of Rachael:

"My word, old chap, that is top-hole tennis," said the Englishman, warmly congratulating him.

1921, Ralph Connor, chapter 1, in To Him That Hath:

He was top-hole in his line, he would soon put it right.

1927, chapter 6, in Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, transl., The Magic Mountain, translation of Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann, page 528:

‘Out at Randolph Park, near the outstanding El Con Marriott,’ C.T. inserts, ‘a venue the whole contingent’s been vocal about finding absolutely top-hole thus far, which —’

1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 4:

(chiefly UK, informal) Of very high quality, tip-top.


groop

From Middle English grope, grupe, groupe, from Old English grōp (“ditch”), from Proto-Germanic *grōpō (“furrow, ditch, trench”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreb-, *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, furrow, scratch”). Cognate with Scots gruip (“gutter, drain, ditch, trench”), North Frisian groop (“pit”), Dutch groep (“a trench, moat”), Swedish grop (“a pit, ditch, hole, hollow”), Old English grēp, grēpe (“land-drain, ditch; furrow; burrow; privy”). More at grip, groove.

cog

(obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A trench or small ditch.

The groop is one foot six inches wide, six and one-half inches deep at one end … to carry off the urine into a reservoir under the Cowhouse, …

1816, James Cleland, Annals of Glasgow, Digitized edition, published 2007, page 373:

Cleaning the byre involved barrowing out the contents of the groop, sluicing it down and rebedding it with clean straw.

2008, Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney, Stepping stones:

(obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A trench or drain; particularly, a trench or hollow behind the stalls of cows or horses for receiving their dung and urine.

(obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A pen for cattle; a byre.


seat only

(travel, UK, Ireland, dated) A package holiday rate without confirmed accommodation reservations, or using a dummy reservation, enabling the tour operator to sell charter airline seats in competition with the airlines.


back to back ticket

en-noun

back to back ticket (plural back to back tickets)

(travel, UK, Ireland) Any of a series of airline tickets, issued with overlapping travel dates, used to circumvent airfare minimum stay requirements.


summary offence

summary offence (plural summary offences)

(law, British, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong) A crime in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment, as required for an indictable offence.

簡易罪 /简易罪

crime that can be proceeded against summarily


jettage

(UK, nautical) Certain charges levied upon incoming vessels at a port.


absolute state

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-absolute state.wav

The absolute state of the West

The absolute state of you, Downey, you utter twonk. Like you have anything to do with the outcome of the bloody match! You need to confine this superstition malarkey to a flaming skip.

2015 February 11, Trev Downey, “Reasons to Believe”, in The Liverpool Offside:

Just like mum used to make – without the lecture at the absolute state of you!

2016 December 30, Meher Mirza, “The Essential Guide To Combating A Hangover In Mumbai”, in The City Story, archived from the original on 2017-06-24:

The absolute state of you! How did you get that dirty that quickly?

2017 August 3, Oliver Astley, “The beautiful baby snow leopards which are now at Twycross Zoo”, in DerbyshireLive, the online edition of the Derby Telegraph:

(Internet slang, originally UK, Ireland) A particularly dishevelled, sorry or contemptible condition.


roolie

en-adj

roolie (comparative roolier or more roolie, superlative rooliest or most roolie)

roolier (comparative)
more roolie (comparative)
rooliest (superlative)
most roolie (superlative)

From Middle English rouly, roly, equivalent to roo + -ly. Cognate with Danish rolig (“calm”), Icelandic róleg (“calm”).

(UK dialectal, Scotland) Peaceful; still.


gobsmack

en-verb

gobsmack (third-person singular simple present gobsmacks, present participle gobsmacking, simple past and past participle gobsmacked)

gobsmacks (present singular third-person)
gobsmacking (participle present)
gobsmacked (participle past)
gobsmacked (past)

Back-formation from gobsmacked and gobsmacking.

(transitive, slang, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) To astonish, to render temporarily stuck for words.


seave

From Old Norse sef, whence also Danish siv, Icelandic sef and Swedish säv (“club-rush”).

(Can we date this quote?), (Please provide the book title or journal name):

(UK, dialect) A wick made from this plant.


earl marshal

en-noun

earl marshal (plural earl marshals or earls marshal)

earl marshals (plural)
earls marshal (plural)

(UK) A hereditary royal officeholder and chivalric title under the sovereign of the United Kingdom, responsible for state funerals and coronations.


scraffle

en-verb

scraffle (third-person singular simple present scraffles, present participle scraffling, simple past and past participle scraffled)

scraffles (present singular third-person)
scraffling (participle present)
scraffled (participle past)
scraffled (past)

See scramble. Compare Middle Dutch schraeffelen (“to scrape; sweep; put together”).

cog

he told how he had visited their cousin Margaret in Yorkshire , who was sadly off, scraffling on with a drunken husband and large family

1812, Author of the two brothers, Scotch Lawsuits:

(UK, dialect) To scramble or struggle; to wrangle.


nail varnish

en-noun

nail varnish (countable and uncountable, plural nail varnishes)

(UK, Ireland) A cosmetic lacquer applied to the fingernails or toenails.


quadpot

(UK) A bet in which the bettor must correctly pick a placed horse from the third, fourth, fifth and sixth race from any British race meeting.


placepot

(UK) A bet in which the bettor must correctly pick a placed horse from each of the first six races from any British race meeting.


arseholed

en-adj

arseholed (comparative more arseholed, superlative most arseholed)

more arseholed (comparative)
most arseholed (superlative)

By the time the doors opened he was arseholed on rum and got progressively more arseholed until he could take no more and fell over at about twelve o'clock.

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, rare, vulgar, slang) drunk


Johnny onions

(UK, historical) A Breton agricultural labourer who travelled through English cities selling onions from a bicycle.


Canfield

Named after US gambler Richard Albert Canfield (1855-1914).

I went over by the card table and looked down at the game. It was Canfield.

1943, Raymond Chandler, The High Window, Penguin, published 2005, page 238:

(UK) A type of solitaire card game; in the UK typically referring to Klondike, and in the US to Demon.


cakes and ale

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cakes and ale.wav

From William Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night (written c. 1601–1602), Act II, scene iii: see the quotation.

Doſt thou thinke becauſe thou art vertuous, there ſhall be no more Cakes and Ale?

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], page 261, column 2:


mini-roundabout

Williton has a mini-roundabout for a town centre. At this mini-roundabout the traffic coming from Taunton turns left and heads straight out of town towards Minehead, passing between displays of agricultural machinery on a bank up on the left and a red stone police station recessed on the right.

2002, Sam Smith, Porlock Counterpoint, page 108:

2008, Driving Standards Agency (Great Britain), The Official DSA Guide to Driving Buses and Coaches, page 296,
Although traffic is advised not to carry out U-turn manoeuvres at a mini-roundabout, be alert for any oncoming traffic doing so.

At double mini-roundabouts and multiple roundabouts, follow the normal rules of priority and treat each roundabout separately.

2008, John Wells, Margaret Stacey, Learn to Drive: In 10 Easy Stages, page 131:

(UK) A small roundabout that is either flush to the road surface (painted on) or slightly raised.


peasweep

(UK, dialect, archaic) The peewit, or lapwing.


bonkable

bonkable (comparative more bonkable, superlative most bonkable)

more bonkable (comparative)
most bonkable (superlative)

(British, slang) Worthy of bonking, or having sex with; fuckable.


birler

(UK, obsolete) The master of the revels at a Cumberland feast, whose duty it is to see that the guests have plenty to drink.


just the ticket

Mark Corrigan: Yeah, so my new idea is urine. Loads and loads of urine. Flooding your drawers. What do you think about that? Don't you think that would be just the ticket?

2003, “Dream Job”, episode 5 of series 1 of Peep Show

(UK) A most appropriate or suitable action or object in a given situation.


teetan

(UK, dialect) A pipit (Anthus spp. etc.).


shore lark

(UK) A horned lark (Eremophila alpestris).


feelth

(UK dialectal, Northern England) Feeling; sensation.


windlestraw

en-noun

windlestraw (countable and uncountable, plural windlestraws)

Grey rocks did peep from the square moss, and stemmed / The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae / Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, / And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines, / Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots / The unwilling soil.

(UK, Scotland, dialect) A grass used for making ropes or for plaiting, especially Apera spica-venti.


no-mark

My favourite bit – bar the attempt to enforce a ruthless caste system in the no-mark community – is the prissy way Danny asterisks the word fuck …

Danny Dyer v Dane Bowers: two no-marks at war, Marina Hyde, The Guardian, 5 February 2010

If you had a daughter, and I want you to think about this seriously, would you honestly want her wasting herself on a no mark like that?

She's said to be 'in pieces' after reading nasty comments calling her a 'no mark Brit' on American websites just as she's mentally girding her loins for her big move to Los Angeles.

Google boo-boo: Cheryl Cole 'upset' after seeing slurs about herself on internet ahead of her X Factor USA appointment, Daily Mail, 30 April 2011

(British, slang) An insignificant person; one who fails to make a mark.


LPT

LPT (countable and uncountable, plural LPTs)


stick plaster

[…], blood vessel bandages, plaster bandages, sanitary pads and bandages, washable gauze bandages, silk stick plasters, bandage papers, etc.

1929, The Melliand, volume 1, number 6, page 897:

Attach catheter onto two circular double stick plasters, one at the site of catheter entry to the skin and the other 5 cm away.

2001, Graham Arthurs, Anaesthesia: A Concise Handbook, page 93:

For the past four years, government and regulators have been trying to treat the wounds exposed by the financial crisis with stick plasters.

2012, Ben Wilson, quoted in "Banking IT cowboys 'need whipping into shape by watchdog'", The Register

sticking plaster
sticking plaster#English

(UK) Alternative form of sticking plaster


sacralisation

sacralisation (countable and uncountable, plural sacralisations)

British standard spelling of sacralization.


CPN

community psychiatric nurse
community psychiatric nurse#English

(UK) Initialism of community psychiatric nurse.


tommy

tommy (countable and uncountable, plural tommies)

(UK, slang, obsolete) Bread, generally a penny roll.

(UK, slang, obsolete) The supply of food carried by workmen as their daily allowance.

(UK, slang, obsolete) A truck, or barter; the exchange of labour for goods instead of money.


tommy

en-verb

tommy (third-person singular simple present tommies, present participle tommying, simple past and past participle tommied)

tommies (present singular third-person)
tommying (participle present)
tommied (participle past)
tommied (past)

(UK, slang, obsolete, transitive) To pay (employees) according to the truck system, with goods instead of money.


friborg

From Old English friborh, from fri (“peace”) + borh, borg (“pledge”), akin to English borrow. The first part of the word was confused with free and the last part with borough.

(historical, law, UK) The pledge and tithing, afterwards called by the Normans frankpledge


ewery

(historical, UK) An office or place of household service where the ewers and table linen were kept.


castle-guard

(UK, law, obsolete) A tax or imposition on a dwelling within a certain distance of a castle, for the purpose of maintaining watch and ward in it; castleward.


thwite

thwite (third-person singular simple present thwites, present participle thwiting, simple past and past participle thwited)

thwites (present singular third-person)
thwiting (participle present)
thwited (participle past)
thwited (past)

From Middle English thwiten, from Old English þwītan (“to cut, cut off”), from Proto-Germanic *þwītaną (“to split”). See whittle, and compare thwaite (“a piece of land”), doit (“small coin, small amount, bit”).

(obsolete, UK, dialect) To cut or clip with a knife; to whittle.


gainage

From Old French gaignage (“pasturage, crop”), French gaignage (“pasturage”). See gain (verb).

(UK, law, obsolete) The horses, oxen, ploughs, wains or wagons and implements for carrying on tillage.


cagmag

en-noun

cagmag (countable and uncountable, plural cagmags)

when a man pays for the price of a good wholesome dinner, and finds that all the dishes are filled with cagmag, it is no particular satisfaction to him to know that he is not forced to touch a second morsel

1837, William Rae Wilson, Notes Abroad and Rhapsodies at Home:

(UK, dialect, by extension, uncountable) Coarse, bad food of any kind.


shram

en-verb

shram (third-person singular simple present shrams, present participle shramming, simple past and past participle shrammed)

shrams (present singular third-person)
shramming (participle present)
shrammed (participle past)
shrammed (past)

the shramming cold

(UK, dialect, dated) To cause to shrink or shrivel with cold; to numb.


shrood

shrood (third-person singular simple present shroods, present participle shrooding, simple past and past participle shrooded)

shroods (present singular third-person)
shrooding (participle present)
shrooded (participle past)
shrooded (past)


rossel

After lining the parietes , or walls of the belly , it is reflected from them , giving covering to the different viscera , and their rossels.

1842, William MORTIMER, A Manual of Anatomy, with the elements of Physiology and Pathology, etc. Second edition, page 175:

(obsolete, UK, dialect) Light land; rosland.


foggage

en-noun

foggage (countable and uncountable, plural foggages)

(UK, dialect) Dead or decaying grass remaining on land through the winter.


smartle

en-verb

smartle (third-person singular simple present smartles, present participle smartling, simple past and past participle smartled)

smartles (present singular third-person)
smartling (participle present)
smartled (participle past)
smartled (past)


eyre

From Middle English eire, from Old French erre (“journey, march, way”), from Latin iter, itineris (“a going, way”), from the root of ire (“to go”). Compare errant, itinerant, issue.

The fact that the Surrey veredicta are uncancelled, and indeed their very survival, can doubtless be explained by the suspension of the eyre in June 1294, when consideration of the crown pleas had barely begun;

1982, Public Record Office Handbooks, page 35:

None of the original veredicta survive for this eyre, but one of the best surviving examples, and the only one so far to be printed, comes from the Wiltshire eyre which began in the southern eyre circuit at Wilton on the same day as the 1281 Derbyshire eyre began at Derb, and which provides a valuable insight into the nature and contents of the lost Derbyshire veredicta.

2000, Aileen Hopkinson, editor, The Rolls of the 1281 Derbyshire Eyre, Derbyshire Record Society, →ISBN, page xvi:

(UK, law, historical) A journey taken by certain Medieval English itinerant judges (justices in eyre)


Jersey cream

(UK) A type of biscuit with two slices of shortbread joined with vanilla frosting.


titularise

titularise (third-person singular simple present titularises, present participle titularising, simple past and past participle titularised)

titularises (present singular third-person)
titularising (participle present)
titularised (participle past)
titularised (past)

(British) Alternative spelling of titularize


fairy lights

en-noun

fairy lights pl (normally plural, singular fairy light)

Through the trees ahead came odd strains from the dance band in the Casino, and now I could see many twinkling fairy lights and detect moving figures.

1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page i. 13:

I managed to put quite a lot of small baubles on the top of the tree that way and helped drape the long string of fairy lights around it, […]

2010, Trisha Ashley, Twelve Days of Christmas, HarperCollins, →ISBN:

A constant, slightly defocused, dinner party with relaxed glamorous friends, carrying on just outside the kitchen door, under the fairy lights.

2023 September 23, Tim Hayward, “Not so easy does it”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 19:

(UK, Ireland) Small electric lights on a strand which are used decoratively, especially on Christmas trees.


Ally Pally

(UK, informal) Alexandra Palace, located in Muswell Hill, Greater London.


raftering

raftering (countable and uncountable, plural rafterings)

It is nearly the same thing on stubble land as raftering is on grass land.

1849, John Marius Wilson, The Rural Cyclopedia:

It is open to doubt whether there is any great advantage, but as it is customary in the districts where raftering is practised to use a primitive scuffler called a Brewer's drag, which is made without any means of adjusting the separate tines, ...

1891, Walter James Malden, Tillage, page 47:

Raftering is another excellent process.

1908, Charles Edward Green, D. Young, Encyclopædia of Agriculture:

(UK) The practice by which land is raftered (turning the grass side of each furrow upon an unploughed ridge).


down-share

(UK) A breastplough used in paring off turf on downs.


elt

en-verb

elt (third-person singular simple present elts, present participle elting, simple past and past participle elted)

elts (present singular third-person)
elting (participle present)
elted (participle past)
elted (past)

From Middle English elten (“to mold, knead, work”), from Old Norse elta (“to chase, hunt, knead”), from Proto-Germanic *alatjaną (“to drive, force, move”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁elh₂- (“to drive, move, go”). Cognate with Danish ælte (“to knead”), Swedish älta (“to dwell upon, brood, stir, knead”), Norwegian elte (“to knead”), Norwegian elta (“to pursue, plod”), Icelandic elta (“to chase”).

cog

Du's eltin dat creature to death, boy!?
Sh. 1908 Jak. (1928), Dictionary of the Scot Language

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To injure (anything) by rough handling; handle roughly.

Whin shü cam oot an fann me dere Wi peenie fairlins eltit.
Sh. 1891 J. Burgess Rasmie's Büddie 22, Dictionary of the Scot Language

Mi böts ir a' eltit wi' glaar.
Sh.11 1950, Dictionary of the Scot Language

He was elt(er)ed wi' gutters fae head to foot.
Cai.3 1950, Dictionary of the Scot Language

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To begrime; soil with mud; daub; smear.

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To work persistently or laboriously; be occupied in working (e.g. in the earth, rake among dirt, etc.).

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To meddle; interfere.

(transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To knead dough; stir dough previously kneaded to a proper consistency before baking.

(intransitive, UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To become soft; become moist, as damp earth.


stith

en-adj

stith (comparative more stith, superlative most stith)

more stith (comparative)
most stith (superlative)

From Middle English stith (“steady, strong, cruel”), from Old English stīþ (“hard, cruel”), from Proto-West Germanic *stinþ, from Proto-Germanic *stinþaz. Compare also Old Frisian stīth, Middle Low German stīde, Middle Dutch stīde, Old Norse stinnr, Danish stind, Swedish stinn.

inh

(UK, dialect, obsolete) strong; stiff; rigid


holk

From Middle English holk, from Old English holc, holoc (“hole, cavity”), from Proto-West Germanic *holuk, from Proto-Germanic *hulukaz (“a hollow”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover, hide”). Equivalent to hole + -ock (diminutive ending).
Cognate with Low German holke, hölke (“small hole”), German Holk (“a type of flat-bottomed barge”), Swedish holk (“nest, birdhouse”), dialectal Norwegian holk, hylke (“wooden barrel, cask”), Icelandic hólkur (“hollow cylinder or tube”). Related to hulk.


holk

en-verb

holk (third-person singular simple present holks, present participle holking, simple past and past participle holked)

holks (present singular third-person)
holking (participle present)
holked (participle past)
holked (past)

From Middle English holken, from Old English *holcian (attested in āholcian, āhlocian (“to dig out”), from Proto-West Germanic *holukōn, derived from the noun above. Cognate with Middle Low German holken, hȫlken (“to hollow out”), German Low German uthöhlken (“to hollow out”).

cog

(transitive, UK dialectal) To dig out; make hollow; hollow out.

(transitive, UK dialectal) To dig; dig into; pierce; penetrate; investigate; poke.

The Sessioune perceiving gryt perell through the burieing of people in the kirkyaird of thair perroche kirk and within the kirk itself by raising of grene graivis and holking under the kirk vall undermynding of the samyne ordanis fra this furth that na persone presume to mak graivis within the precinct thairof or yit to burie any persone within the boundis of the samine.

1908, Aberdeen University Studies, volume 35, University of Aberdeen, page 96:

(transitive, UK dialectal) To dig up; excavate.


optimisable

(British) Alternative spelling of optimizable


witwall

Akin to German Wittewal, Wiedewall. Compare wittol.

great spotted woodpecker
great spotted woodpecker

(UK, dialect) The great spotted woodpecker.


Marysole

(UK, archaic) A large British fluke, or flounder (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis)


SOCO

scenes of crime officer
w:Scenes of Crime officer

(UK, law enforcement) Acronym of scenes of crime officer.


wardcorn

And that the aforesaid Abbess and convent and their successors, and all tenants, residents, and non-residents, and other residents aforesaid, […] be quit through our entire realm of England of all pannage, lestage, […] and of treasure to be drawn away, and of wardpeny, wardcorne, averpeny, hundredpeny, […] and of all such custom

1842, George Oliver, Ecclesiastical Antiquities in Devon, page 100:

and from a rent called wardcorn one quarter, three bushels of barley worth fifteen shillings per year, at the value of five pence the bushel.

1989, George Feairheller Deiser, Year Books of Richard II - Volume 12, page 68:

The additional payment of grain as ‘wardcorn’ is a local peculiarity, and refers to some ancient military responsibilty^([sic]) upon the vill[agers].

2002, Mark Bailey, The English manor, c.1200-c.1500, page 226:

(UK, law, obsolete) A payment of corn to be offered in commutation of military service.


rily

en-adj

rily (comparative more rily, superlative most rily)

more rily (comparative)
most rily (superlative)

(dated, UK, dialect or US, colloquial) roily; turbulent


doucker

(UK, dialect) Any of a number of swimming birds that dive underwater:


mathmo

This year's Honesty Prize goes to the natural sciences supervisor, who replied to a question with, "Don't ask me, I'm not a mathmo."

1986, University of Cambridge. Archimedeans, Eureka: Issues 46-50:

I'm currently a third year mathmo at Cambridge […]

2003, Sally Clough, “Teacher Training - opinions please”, in alt.uk.a-levels (Usenet):

Historians mingled with mathmos, medics with geographers. It was beautiful.

2007, C. N. Barton, The Cambridge Diaries: A Tale of Friendship, Love And Economics, page 134:

(UK, slang, chiefly Cambridge University) A mathematician.


puffin crossing

en-noun

puffin crossing (plural puffin crossings)

Short for pedestrian user-friendly intelligent crossing.

(UK) A kind of pedestrian crossing with the lights controlling the pedestrians on the near side of the road, rather than on the opposite side, and with sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians.


nutty slack

Mr. Nabarro asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the calorific value of nutty slack currently being marketed to domestic consumers, ration-free, by the National Coal Board, compared with normal house coals; what quantity of nutty slack is to be available, in total, during the present coal-winter; the market response to date; how much nutty slack it is estimated will be sold this winter; and whether nutty slack is to be a permanent, ration-free feature of our domestic fuel economy.

1953 February 2, Gerald Nabarro, Member of Parliament for Kidderminster, “Nutty Slack”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Commons Official Report (House of Commons of the United Kingdom), volume 510, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, columns 1460–1461:

(British, historical) A cheap fuel consisting of slack (“coal dust”) and nuts (“small lumps of coal”); unlike other solid fuels it was not rationed during the period after World War II.


disgavel

en-verb

disgavel (third-person singular simple present disgavels, present participle disgavelling, simple past and past participle disgavelled)

disgavels (present singular third-person)
disgavelling (participle present)
disgavelled (participle past)
disgavelled (past)

(UK, law, transitive) To deprive of that principal quality of gavelkind tenure by which lands descend equally among all the sons of the tenant


thrave

thrave (third-person singular simple present thraves, present participle thraving, simple past and past participle thraved)

thraves (present singular third-person)
thraving (participle present)
thraved (participle past)
thraved (past)

From Middle English thraven, from Old English þrafian (“to press; urge; compel; rebuke; argue; contend”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrabōn, from Proto-Germanic *þrabōną (“to press; drive”), from Proto-Indo-European *trep- (“to scamper; trample; quake; tread”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian troawje, droawje (“to trot”), West Frisian drave (“to trot”), Dutch draven (“to lope; trot”), German traben (“to trot”), Swedish trava (“to trot”), Icelandic þrefa (“to wrangle; dispute”).

der

(transitive, UK, dialectal) To urge; compel; importune.


thrave

From Middle English thrave, threve, thrafe, from Old Norse þrefi (“a bunch or handful of sheaves”), related to Old Norse þrifa (“to grasp”). Cognate with Swedish trave, Danish trave.

A daimen icker in a thrave / 'S a sma' request;

(UK, dialect, obsolete) Twenty-four (or in some places, twelve) sheaves of wheat; a shock, or stook.

c. 16th century, Lansdowne MS
The worst of a thrave.

He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale.

(UK, dialect, obsolete) Two dozen, or similar indefinite number; a bunch; a throng.


hog's pudding

en-noun

hog's pudding (countable and uncountable, plural hogs' puddings)

(UK, Cornwall, Devon) A kind of spicy sausage containing suet, bread, oatmeal, or barley.


hantle

Of obscure origin. Perhaps from Middle English *antel, *antæl, from Old English *antæl, *andtæl, equivalent to and- + tale (“number”); or more likely of North Germanic origin, related to Swedish antal, Danish antal (“a number, multitude”), Dutch aantal (“a number, a great many”), and German Anzahl (“a number, quantity, multitude”). The addition of initial h is believed to be due to influence from Middle English handfull (“handful”).

cog

An Irish creature, Erbert Ellison was the name, ran the place for the trustees, he said, but if you might believe all the stories you heard he ran a hantle more silver into his own pouch than he ran into theirs.

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 15:

(Scotland, northern UK) A considerable number or quantity; a great many; a great deal.


dog

en-verb

dog (third-person singular simple present dogs, present participle dogging, simple past and past participle dogged)

dogs (present singular third-person)
dogging (participle present)
dogged (participle past)
dogged (past)

Inherited from Middle English dogge (akin to Scots dug), from Old English dogga, docga, of uncertain origin.
The original meaning seems to have been a common dog, as opposed to a well-bred one, or something like 'cur', and perhaps later came to be used for stocky dogs. Possibly a pet-form diminutive with suffix -ga (compare frocga (“frog”), *picga (“pig”)), appended to a base *dog-, *doc- of unclear origin and meaning. One possibility is Old English dox (“dark, swarthy”) (compare frocga from frox). Another proposal is that it derives from Proto-West Germanic *dugan (“to be suitable”), the origin of Old English dugan (“to be good, worthy, useful”), English dow, Dutch deugen, German taugen. The theory goes that it could have been an epithet for dogs, commonly used by children, meaning "good/useful animal". Another is that it is related to *docce (“stock, muscle”), from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā (“round mass, ball, muscle, doll”), whence English dock (“stumpy tail”).
In 14th-century England, hound (from Old English hund) was the general word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog. By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to breeds used for hunting. In the 16th century, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.
Despite similarities in forms and meaning, not related to Mbabaram dog.

m+

I admit that I like to dog at my local country park.

Lightning [is a] burst of charged particles that lights up the sky and allows onlookers to see who's dogging in the bushes without using a flashlight.

2012, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, page 118:

(intransitive, emerging usage in British) To watch, or participate, in sexual activity in a public place.


whiting-mop

...his silence must be, that though he beare and understand himselfe wronged, yet he must be as dumbe as a Gudgeon or a Whiting mop: and though his mouth be shut...

1869 [1620], John Taylor, Works of John Taylor the Water-Poet, The Spenser Society, "Taylors Travels to Prague in Bohemia", page 99:

Chartley. Fear not, girl. Though I revel abroad o' days, I'll be with thee to bring o' nights, my little whiting mop.

1996 [1638], Thomas Heywood, edited by Paul Merchant, Three Marriage Plays, Manchester University Press, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, act I, scene II, page 48:

Bustopha. [Reading.] The thund'ring seas whose wat'ry fire
Washes the whiting-mops,
The gentle whale, whose feet so fell
Flies o'er the mountains' tops—

1813 [1647], John Fletcher, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, volume Thirteen, Edinburgh: John Ballantyne and Co., Doig and Stirling, w:The Maid in the Mill, act II, scene I, page 199:

Mistress Birdlime. I see bashful lovers, and young bullocks, are knocked down at a blow. Come, come, drink this draught of cinnamon-water, and pluck up your spirits; up with 'em, up with 'em. Do you hear? the whiting mop has nibbled.

1830 [1604], Thomas Dekker, John Webster, The Works of John Webster, volume III, London: William Pickering, Westward Ho, act II, scene II, page 37:

Camillo. If 'twere a fish-day, though you like it not, I could say I have a stomach, and would content myself With this pretty whiting-mop.

1813 [1633], Philip Massinger, edited by W. Gifford, The Plays, 2nd edition, volume IV, London: G. & W. Nicol et al., The Guardian, act IV, scene II, page 207:

The mightiest Whales are but his Play-fellows: Sharks are bis best Familiars, but (the more His grief) his pretty Whiting Mop's on shore...

1641, Thomas Jordan, Pictures of Passions, Fancies, & Affectations, Poetically Deciphered in variety of Characters., London: Robert Wood, A Sea-man.:

(UK, obsolete) A pretty girl; a young or innocent woman.


Liverpool kiss

en-noun

Liverpool kiss (plural Liverpool kisses)

From Liverpool (“city in England”) + kiss.

1957, Gerald Kersh, Fowler′s End, 2006, The Olympia Press, page 42,
“This Irisher give ′im a Liverpool Kiss. You know what it is, a Liverpool Kiss? Make a quick grab for the lapels o′ the coat, an′ pull somebody forward. At the same time bunt ′im in the face miv the top o′ your ′ead an′ kick ′im in the balls miv your knee. Naturally ′e falls forward. While ′e′s falling, punch ′im in the jaw miv all your might so he gradually falls dahn senseless. Then, at your leisure, kick ′im in the ′ead. Naturally I don′t want you should do such things.... […] ″

1992, Bryce Courtenay, Tandia, Volume 1, 2010, ReadHowYouWant, page 157,
There wasn′t room to throw a punch so, grabbing the man by the lapels of his coat, he gave him a Liverpool kiss, his forehead smashing into his assailant′s face connecting with the edge of his brow and the base of his nose.

Hamblyn flew into a rage and butted Alec in the face. The old Liverpool kiss!

1998, Jock Barnes, Never a White Flag: The Memoirs of Jock Barnes, page 146:

He often told people about the woman who had given him a Liverpool kiss.
‘What′s a Liverpool kiss?’ asked one unsuspecting drinking companion.
‘This,’ said Beer, butting him.

2001, Vaughan Tucker, Grubby the Eighth Dwarf, page 24:

Who would have thought you′d be reading about the classic Liverpool kiss in a game of squash. Poor old Anthony Hill never expected to read about it let alone be the victim of one.
Pakistani squash player Mir Zaman Gul knocked Hill unconscious with his cowardly headbutt in a squash tournament.

2006, Stephen Hagan, Australia′s Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100, page 354:

(UK, Australia, New Zealand, slang) A headbutt.


at a loose end

Once the schools break up for the holidays, children across the country are at a loose end and instances of kids doing stupid things on the railway become far too common.

2021 August 25, Stefanie Foster, “Comment: A dumb way to die”, in RAIL, number 938, page 3:


off-the-peg

Modern mothers seem not to have time to make dollies' wardrobes from scraps of this and that. As most of their own clothes are bought off the peg, not many scraps are available, and indeed many of them cannot sew.

1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 211:

(of clothing, UK, Ireland) ready-made in a range of standard sizes (not tailor-made)


gliddery

en-adj

gliddery (comparative more gliddery, superlative most gliddery)

more gliddery (comparative)
most gliddery (superlative)

Shingle, slates, and gliddery stones.

1864, Richard Doddridge Blackmore, Clara Vaughan:

[…]at last we bump alongside the little quay, and climb out on the wet, gliddery stones.

1908, Henry van Dyke Jr., Out-of-Doors in The Holy Land:


croggy

"I could give you a croggy on me bike, Tam. I know a real quick route between Goldwell and Whitehorse."

2004, Helen Cross, My Summer of Love, page 142:

I was always with me dad. He'd give us a croggy down there.

2005, Richard Bean, Harvest, Royal Court Theatre, page 126:

And we went to a school where some girls would shag you for a bag of chips and a croggy home.

(UK, chiefly Northumbria, East Midlands) A ride on the handlebars or crossbar of a bicycle.


peart

peart (comparative pearter, superlative peartest)

pearter (comparative)
peartest (superlative)

1586, William Warner, Albion's England, Booke VI, Chapter XXXI, 1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume IV, page 579,
There was a tricksie girle, I wot, // Albeit clad in gray, / As peart as bird, as straite as boult, // As fresh as flower in May.

I smiled; and she went on to say I looked a little more peart; maybe I would not be such a slow coach after all.

1856, Alice Carey, Married, not Mated; Or, How they lived at Woodside and Throckmorton Hall, page 109:

"[…]No young man could 'a' ben more peart and alive than that, Dotty."

1893, Lynde Palmer, A Question of Honour, page 88:

"Yore pa don't hold to card playin' but you needs to have quiet and rest. I'm pleased to see Annie's up to playin'. Baby looks a little more peart this mornin' too."

1979, Marguerite Noble, Filaree: A Novel of an American Life, published 1985, page 109:


Dixonian

From Dixon + -ian. From the BBC drama series Dixon of Dock Green.

This was as true in 1974 when Regan first appeared as it is to police dramas in the twenty-first century. Notwithstanding his abrasive, recusant stance, Regan still stood for many of the core Dixonian values championed twenty years earlier.

2003, Frank Leishman, Paul Mason, Policing and the Media: Facts, Fictions and Factions, page 75:

However, 'nuisance or anti-social behaviour' is a source of grave unhappiness to millions. It is also the very thing that the old Dixonian police force was very good at controlling, discouraging and preventing.

2003, Peter Hitchens, A Brief History of Crime, page 99:

We have presented a model of policing to the public, a Dixonian model, which is oversimplified. It is about bobbies on the beat and their front police station counter.

2008 November 17, Ken Jones, Evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee, page 61:

(UK) Pertaining to a traditional form of local policing, focused on officers walking the beat.


(UK, Ireland, taxation) The end-of-year tax certificate given to each employee by their employer.


Robertsman

From Robert + -s- + -man, perhaps from Robin Hood.

(UK, obsolete) A bold robber, or night thief.


squab chick

(UK, dialect) A young chicken before it is fully fledged.


Shagaluf

Blend of shag + Magaluf. So called because it is a popular holiday destination for British tourists looking for casual sex.

"When you go into Shagaluf on Wednesday," explain the jolly 18-30 reps, "you'll see a big red erection. No, it's not Steve with his trousers down. It's BCM's."

1995 August 20, Anna Blundy, “Lust and vomit”, in Scotland on Sunday, page 16:

Perhaps Sky will bring slappers Sarah and Louise back for a Spanish tour series, called Are You Being Serviced? They could be man-on in Mahon, shameless in Shagaluf – sorry Magaluf.

1997 August 27, Garry Bushell, “Bushell on the Box: Why does big big talent get very little chance?”, in The Sun, page 11:

(UK, vulgar slang) The Majorcan resort town of Magaluf.


shab

en-noun

shab (countable and uncountable, plural shabs)

From Middle English shabbe, schabbe, from Old English sċeabb, from Proto-West Germanic *skabb, from Proto-Germanic *skabbaz. Doublet of scab.


shab

en-verb

shab (third-person singular simple present shabs, present participle shabbing, simple past and past participle shabbed)

shabs (present singular third-person)
shabbing (participle present)
shabbed (participle past)
shabbed (past)

(obsolete, UK, dialect) To play mean tricks; to act shabbily.


penk

Now for the Minnow, or Penk: he is not easily found and caught till March, or in April, for then he appears first in the river,[…].

1676, Izaak Walton, Charles Cotton, “The Compleat Angler”, in James Rennie, editor, The Complete Angler; Or, Contemplative Man's Recreation, published 1833, page 98:


staith

From Old Norse stǫð, from Proto-Germanic *staþwō.

The high banks of the rivers of North East England have led to the shipment of coal from staiths by the simple process of shooting it down gravity spouts from bottom-door wagons.

1945 January and February, T. F. Cameron, “Dock Working”, in Railway Magazine, page 10:

The coal staiths of the North-East coast—for example at Blyth (Northumberland) and at Dunston-on-Tyne—are impressive installations. The staiths are in fact jetties or piers built up to a high level above the rivers. Loaded wagons are propelled on to them and the contents are then quickly discharged through chutes down to the waiting colliers below.

1959 May, R. A. Savill, “The coal traffic of the North Eastern Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 273:

[…] gravity had earlier been harnessed to provide part of the pull for trains of coal wagons heading for staiths for loading on schooners […]

1995, James E. Vance, The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography, Johns Hopkins University Press:

(UK, dialect) A landing place; an elevated staging upon a wharf for discharging coal, etc., as from railway cars into vessels.


seedcod

From seed + cod. See cod (“bag, pouch”).

(UK, obsolete) a basket or bag for carrying seeds.


post-captain

From both the action of taking or making post (“occupying an established military position”) and the practice of posting (“publicly announcing”) the names of such officers in the London Gazette.

The general principle which governs the navies of the old world is... when the Post is attained, then promotion is by inheritance... If a Post Captain in the English navy lives long enough, he is certain of being an Admiral, though not before he is sixty years of age... Hence it is manifest that the public interest no more requires the new grade of Admiral to be added to the navy, than it does the bestowing of orders of nobility on all the diplomatic agents, who represent the United States at the different courts of Europe.

1836 March 17, 'Candor', "The Navy", Army and Navy Chronicle, Vol. II, No. 11, p. 173

(UK military, informal, obsolete) A captain of the 18th or 19th-century Royal Navy in command of a vessel, with his subsequent promotions almost always determined by seniority rather than merit or ability.


mithridatise

mithridatise (third-person singular simple present mithridatises, present participle mithridatising, simple past and past participle mithridatised)

mithridatises (present singular third-person)
mithridatising (participle present)
mithridatised (participle past)
mithridatised (past)

From Mithridates + -ise, in reference to Mithridates VI of Pontus.

(UK) Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of mithridatize.


ploughbote

(UK, law, historical) Wood or timber allowed to a tenant for the repair of instruments of husbandry.


member's bill

private member's bill
private member's bill


private member's bill

en-noun

private member's bill (plural private member's bills)

(law, British, Canada, Australia) A proposed law introduced by a member of a legislature who is not acting on behalf of the executive government.

私人條例草案 /私人条例草案

proposed law introduced by a member who is not acting on behalf of the executive


gamgee

From Gamgee Tissue, a surgical dressing containing cotton wool, invented by Dr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee in Birmingham, England, in 1880.


slam-door

At the time of the termination of the franchise, CSE was also part-way through a programme of introducing new trains to replace 622 of its oldest trains including its 558 slam-door vehicles.

2005, Great Britain, The South Eastern Passenger Rail Franchise, National Audit Office:

And as for slam-door trains, you can bet there will be some teenagers growing up soon who just stand there with the door closed and have no idea why the train has moved off without letting them out...

2009, Benedict le Vay, Britain from the Rails: A Window Gazer's Guide, page 258:

First Great Western trains are often characterized by this curious air of panic. It's a combination of the company's attempts to repair its dreadful reputation for punctuality, and the 1970s slam-door carriages.

2010, Matthew Engel, Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain:

For long-suffering suburban passengers, 1970 represented a milestone as the beginning of the demise of the slam-door multiple unit.

2020 April 8, Howard Johnston, “East-ended? When the ECML was at risk”, in Rail, page 68:

(UK, rail transport) Applied to an older kind of passenger train with heavy doors, opened from the inside by reaching out of the window to the handle on the outside.


scringe

Any teenager who, like myself, has ever got the gooseflesh at the flush and scringe of Hopkins's assonances and alliterations proves this upon his or her pulses .

[…] to the scringe of bedsprings as the old landlady shook herself awake and reached for her false teeth,

1994, Briege Duffaud, Nothing Like Beirut, page 41:

But Bill would have none of this: it grated upon his sensibility, like the scringe of chalk upon a slate in the schoolroom, or like our collie dog at home in Garvaghey, who, when Aunt Freda played the piano, would raise his noble nose and howl derisively.

2014, John Montague, The Pear is Ripe: A Memoir:

(dialect, UK and US) The act or sound of scratching or scraping.

Well, on that June day I embraced her with a slight scringe, and, seating her in my armchair, threw myself down upon the floor, out of reach of her arms, with my hands clasped around my knees.

1859 March, “My "Intimate Enemy"”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume 18, number 106, page 511:

Take courage, brother: you are making better progress than we are, for I cannot even get a scringe.

1882, Richard Brodhead Westbrook, The Bible, Whence and what?, page 228:

A scringe of pain brought the German back to the present .


scringe

en-verb

scringe (third-person singular simple present scringes, present participle scringing, simple past and past participle scringed)

scringes (present singular third-person)
scringing (participle present)
scringed (participle past)
scringed (past)

It made me scringe to hear her, Sir, " said she, adding, with a change of tone, " but I must scringe for myself yet; for , oh dear! how can I talk about other people's sins, and I such a sinner!

1854 December, “Real Scenes of Gipsy Life”, in The Two-penny post:

Yes, if you put your hand on him he might scringe around a little .

1907, Supreme Court Appellate Division, page 94:

It allus made him scringe to have me speak of the Banty woman in the tone I used when I wanted to make him scringe, and I had a notion that flauntin ' his full name wouldn't soothe him much;

1914, Robert Alexander Wason, Happy Hawkins in the Panhandle, page 369:

But scringe from him, an' as Shakespeare says, clad in a little brief authority, that houn' dawg'll bite you when you ain't a-watchin' out.

1926, Rose Wilder Lane, Hill-Billy, page 15:

(dialect, UK and US, intransitive) To cringe or shrink.

When a boy sharpens his slate-pencil with a knife, he says it makes his teeth 'scringe'.

1893, English Dialect Society, Publications - Volume 36, page 40:

Knee joints were beginning to scringe.

2010, Bernard MacLaverty, Matters of Life & Death, page 56:

All her life Gert Kavanaugh had had to scringe and scrape to make ends meet while Marta May — a spoiled brat if Gert had ever seen one — had been the darling of the countryside.

(dialect, UK and US, intransitive) To scrape.


pikelin

(UK, dialect) A light, thin cake or muffin; a pikelet.


indictable offence

en-noun

indictable offence (plural indictable offences)

(law, British, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong) An offence which can only be tried on an indictment after a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is a prima facie case to answer or by a grand jury, in contrast to a summary offence.


if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys

/ɪf ˌjuː peɪ ˈpiːnʌts ˌjuː ɡɛt ˈmʌŋkiːz/

En-us-if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.oga

A reference to peanuts (“especially of a salary: a very small or insufficient amount”) (originally US slang dating to the mid 20th century) and monkey (“a person of minimal intelligence, idiot”), with a humorous allusion to the fact that monkeys are fond of nuts.

good work ain't cheap, cheap work ain't good

(British, informal) Offering a low payment or salary will not attract skilled workers or employees.

offering a low payment or salary will not attract skilled workers or employees

viiden markan suutari tekee kuuden markan vahingon

αν βάζεις τον κώλο σου να σου κάνει δουλειά, σκατά δουλειά θα κάνει (an vázeis ton kólo sou na sou kánei douleiá, skatá douleiá tha kánei, literally “if you put your ass to work for you, it will do shitty work”)

ton kólo vázeis mágeira, skatá tha mageirépsei

τον κώλο βάζεις μάγειρα, σκατά θα μαγειρέψει


Camberwell carrot

Camberwell carrot (plural Camberwell carrots)

Coined in the film Withnail and I (1987), in reference to the shape of a carrot and the district of Camberwell in south London, England.

He then patted the Steinway piano as he passed it and then put her Ladyship to bed. He then rolled himself a one-foot long Camberwell carrot, grabbed a bottle of Krug, and spent the evening at leisure[…]

2005, Neil Gentleman-Hobbs, Lord Golden-Showers "Entrepreneur?", page 182:

“I could go for a Camberwell carrot right now,” Andy slurred from his armchair.

2010, Darren Smith, Burning Indigo, page 264:


a fuck sight

Withnail: I tell you I've a fuck sight more talent than half the rubbish that gets on television.

(UK, Ireland, colloquial, vulgar, uncountable) A large amount; a lot.


a fuck sight

(UK, Ireland, colloquial, vulgar) A lot; a great deal.


YP

YP (countable and uncountable, plural YPs)

First it was an adult mixed prison, then a female borstal. Now it's a long-term secure jail for YPs, mostly lifers.

2011, Charles Bronson, Loonyology: The Autobiography of Britain's Most Notorious Prisoner:

First, you're classed as a YP (young prisoner) if you're under 21. If it's your first time in prison, they class you as a star prisoner and that separates you from the ones who have been inside before.


pram face

From pram + face, coined by the gossip website Popbitch.

The average pram face dreams of selling their sordid story to the tabloids. From the early age of 5 when most little children dream of being a princess or an astronaut - your geordie chav Michelle is already daydreaming of getting her tits out in the news of the world for more money thatn she could earn in 20 lifetimes with her meagre talent alone.

2004 July 31, steeler, “Re: BB5 - Michelle interview”, in uk.media.tv.misc (Usenet):

Simian hoodies and their pram face bints, they seem to be everywhere now.

2006 October 18, Evil Noodle, “Re:Is there a psychic way to kill a person that lives beyond visual range? :)”, in uk.rec.psychic (Usenet):

What we've seen in the past 10 years, with the chavs and the pram faces and the Popbitch sneering (Oh hilarious! Poor person matches bag with baby!) and Little Britain and Catherine Tate and their sidesplitting yeah-but-no-but poor people, is a complete reversal of this convention, in favour of the frankly less sophisticated: "See that person who's already down? Let's go and kick him."

2007 August 1, Zoe Williams, “Welcome back, Sloane Rangers. We need you”, in The Guardian:

As I fuss with pouring myself tea, I surreptitiously watch Meredith, safely ensconced on my sofa, her long, white locks severely pinned back into a pram-face bun, her brown eyes soft and unchallenging, her mouth a thin, pink line that parts frequently to receive tea and pieces of biscuit.

2008, Dorothy Koomson, Goodnight, Beautiful:

(UK, slang, offensive) A poor teenage mother, or someone perceived as looking like one.


shit all

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, vulgar) nothing at all or very little.


frighten the piss out of

en-verb

frighten the piss out of (third-person singular simple present frightens the piss out of, present participle frightening the piss out of, simple past and past participle frightened the piss out of)

frightens the piss out of (present singular third-person)
frightening the piss out of (participle present)
frightened the piss out of (participle past)
frightened the piss out of (past)

(UK, slang, vulgar) To frighten thoroughly; to terrify.


get to fuck

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar, slang) Go away!; Fuck off!

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, vulgar, slang) Expression of disagreement and/or disbelief.


give someone a bell

give someone a bell (third-person singular simple present gives someone a bell, present participle giving someone a bell, simple past gave someone a bell, past participle given someone a bell)

gives someone a bell (present singular third-person)
giving someone a bell (participle present)
gave someone a bell (past)
given someone a bell (participle past)

From the use of a bell in older phones to produce a ringing sound. Compare Dutch bellen (“to telephone”).


socome

the Tenants by their Cuſtome, muſt grinde their Corne at no mill , but at the Lords Mill, belonging to the Mannor, and this is commonly called Socome

1588, Valentine Leigh, The moste profitable and commendable science of surveying:

(UK, law, obsolete) A custom of tenants to grind corn at the lord's mill.


get one's arse in gear

get one's arse in gear (third-person singular simple present gets one's arse in gear, present participle getting one's arse in gear, simple past and past participle got one's arse in gear)

gets one's arse in gear (present singular third-person)
getting one's arse in gear (participle present)
got one's arse in gear (participle past)
got one's arse in gear (past)

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang) To start performing a task effectively or start behaving better in general; to shape up.


plate-glass university

en-noun

plate-glass university (plural plate-glass universities)

Modelled on red brick university, from the use of plate glass in modern architecture. Coined by British barrister Michael Beloff in 1970.

coin

The new “red-bricks” of Hull, Exeter and Leicester were followed in the 60s by mass expansion as the “plate-glass universities”, such as Warwick, York and Sussex, came into being.

2014 October 12, Julian Coman, “Have England's universities been privatised by stealth?”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

Keele is historically important as the first ‘Plate Glass University’, but also for the vague carelessness of its planning and architecture, which made it a cautionary example, leading to the much more coherent masterplanning and landscaping at the Universities of Sussex (p. 238), Essex (p. 190), York (p. 394), East Anglia (p. 198) and Stirling (p. 508).

2022, Owen Hatherley, Modern Buildings in Britain: A Gazetteer, Penguin UK, →ISBN:

(UK) Any of several universities founded in the United Kingdom in the 1960s in the era of the Robbins Report on higher education.


likam

From Middle English likam, licam, licame, lichame, from Old English līchama (“body”), from Proto-West Germanic *līkahamō, from Proto-Germanic *līkahamô, equivalent to like (“body”) + hame (“covering, case”).
In Old English, līchama was the general term for "body," while līċ had come to mean a dead body specifically. Cognate with Scots lekame (“body”), West Frisian lichem (“body”), Dutch lichaam (“body”), German Leichnam (“body, corpse”), Danish legeme (“body”), Swedish lekamen (“body”), Icelandic líkami (“body”).

(obsolete or UK dialectal) The human body.


sart

From Middle English sart, from Old French sart, from Medieval Latin sarrītum (“to hoe”).

And the syte of an olde mylne with a littel sart that lyes betwixt the mylne and the Ellers with other land in Arthington and all the water within his fee for helping and sustayneing of the said nownree

1859, John Jones, quoting Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 1, c. 1450, The History and Antiquities of Harewood, in the County of York, page 223:

(UK, obsolete) An assart, or clearing; land cleared for agriculture.


sponge bag

(UK, Australia) A bag for carrying toiletries, as when travelling.

In every hotel in Ireland sits a military man with […] a loud commanding voice, & spongebag coat & red slippers.

Below her a small boat puttered quietly at the landing stage, and the chef appeared, in his sponge bag trousers and his white jacket, to tale the day's delivery of fresh perch.

1984, Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, Penguin, published 2016, page 36:

(chiefly UK) Designating clothing (especially trousers) with a fine, faint black-and-white check pattern.


skellum

From Danish skælm, from Middle Low German; cognate to German Schelm.

Dr. Creeton, [Robert Creighton] the Scotchman, […] ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable skellum), his preaching and stirring up the maids of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles.

O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober.

1791, Robert Burns, Tam O' Shanter, lines 17–22:


stee

From Middle English stee, ste, sty, stie, sti, stegh, stiȝe (“ladder”), from Old Norse stegi, stigi (“ladder, step, steep ascent”), from Proto-Germanic *stigiz (“an ascent, climb”). Cognate with Old English stiġe (“ascent or descent”), German Stiege (“staircase”). See stair, sty, stile.


tweague

This puts the young Gentlewoman into ſuch a Tweague, that ſhe can do nothing all Day, nor ſleep at Night, for dreaming of the conjuring Man: And in the Morning, leaves for Devotion, to conſult Taurus and Gemini: and finds her Sweet-heart ſo accurately deſcribed, as if he had conſulted with the Devil, or her Maid, inſtead of the Twins.

1710, Ned Ward, The Whole Pleasures of Matrimony, London: Tho. Norris, page 18:

I fancy this put the Old Fellow in a rare Tweag.

1712, John Arbuthnot, John Bull Still in His Senses, London: John Morphew, page 25:

You're in a devilish Tweague, for fear of losing your Gallant, are ye?

1715, Charles Molloy, The Perplex'd Couple: Or, Mistake Upon Mistake., London: W. Meares; J. Brown, page 61:

I wish, sir, you had now and then something to do with my under-strappers, to see what a tweague and a taking you would be in, when you wanted to come at a fact, at the roundabout way the b——'s will take to give it to you,—just as I am doing now, you will say.

1844, John Heneage Jesse, George Selwyn and His Contemporaries, volume 4, London: Richard Bentley, page 12:

(obsolete, UK dialectal) Doubt, perplexity; a troubled or distressed condition.


EIS

Enterprise Investment Scheme
w:Enterprise Investment Scheme

(finance, UK) Initialism of Enterprise Investment Scheme.


old banger

Mark: What? This old banger?
Sophie: Right, yeah. But it's not an old banger, is it Mark? It's a brand new Beamer.


beleap

en-verb

beleap (third-person singular simple present beleaps, present participle beleaping, simple past and past participle beleapt or beleaped)

beleaps (present singular third-person)
beleaping (participle present)
beleapt (participle past)
beleapt (past)
beleaped (participle past)
beleaped (past)

(transitive, intransitive, UK dialectal) To leap upon; cover.


high cross

(Ireland, UK) a large free-standing Celtic cross made of stone and often richly decorated.


natural wastage

Of the total labour force now threatened with redundancy, of course, a proportion will be covered by natural wastage, so that the number eventually thrown out of railway work will be well below 19,000.

1962 October, “Talking of Trains: B.R. works staff cut by a third”, in Modern Railways, page 221:

From just over 476,500 employees in 1962, by 1973 the total was just over 250,000. Much of this was achieved via 'natural wastage' - controlling recruitment closely and not replacing staff as they retired.

2023 March 22, Mike Esbester, “Staff, the public and industry will suffer”, in RAIL, number 979, page 39:

(British, business) Decrease of workforce caused by non-replacement of retiring or voluntarily resigning employees and not by deliberate layoffs.


red sauce

en-noun

red sauce (countable and uncountable, plural red sauces)

(Ireland, British dialectal) Tomato ketchup.


chuck a sickie

en-verb

chuck a sickie (third-person singular simple present chucks a sickie, present participle chucking a sickie, simple past and past participle chucked a sickie)

chucks a sickie (present singular third-person)
chucking a sickie (participle present)
chucked a sickie (participle past)
chucked a sickie (past)

A more slangy variant of throw a sickie.

2010, Veechi Curtis, Lynley Averis, Bookkeeping For Dummies, Australian & New Zealand Edition, page 180,
For example, if an employee chucks a sickie, you need to check that they have enough sick leave available.

2010, Eve Brenac-Mooney, Kaleidoscope, Ebrem, Australia, 2012 EPUB edition, unnumbered page,
I wished I could chuck a sickie, but it was only my second day at Forest Glen, so that was out of the question.

“Fuck it,” I say flippantly. “I′ll chuck a sickie.”
A mischievous grin works its way into her features. “Sounds brilliant,” she muses. “I′ve been trying to convince you to use up some of your sick leave for ages now. What an odd change of heart. Are you sure you are feeling normal?”

(slang, UK, Australia, New Zealand) To take a day off from work feigning ill health.

whakangehengehe

to feign illness so to take time off work


measter

(obsolete, UK) Pronunciation spelling of master.


foind

foind (third-person singular simple present foinds, present participle foinding, simple past and past participle found)

foinds (present singular third-person)
foinding (participle present)
found (participle past)
found (past)

(obsolete, UK) Pronunciation spelling of find.


rolly

From roll + -y. Compare older roly-poly.

His rolly had gone out and he stuck his head down to light the doff off the gas and burnt his left eyebrow as the cooker had one of those rare spats,

2005, Daithidh MacEochaidh, Travels with Chinaski, page 13:

He came and sat down and took a rolly from Julian.[…] ‘That way madness lies,’ said my father, flicking the end of the rolly into an empty mug.

2014, Abbie Ross, Hippie Dinners, page 232:

(slang, chiefly UK) Alternative form of rollie (“cigarette rolled by hand”).


theave

Inherited from Middle English theve (“young ewe”), from Old English *þeofu, from Proto-West Germanic *þebu.

inh+

The ewes by them-selfe, the share-hogges and theyues by them selfe

1523, Anthony Fitzherbert, Boke of Husbandry:

Comprising eleven calved and in-calf cows and heifers, three barren cows, […] fifteen in-lamb ewes and theaves, […] yearling draught colt and filly, pony, yearling fummel, mare ass in-foal to a pony, two waggons, […]

1843 March 3, “To Be Sold by Auction, By B. Cheatle & Son”, in Leicester Journal, and Midland Counties General Advertiser, volume 92, number 4895, Leicester: James Jackson, page 2:

A dorring drush in the caddled yew. / A seance o' theaves beneath the woak.

2022, PJ Harvey, Orlam, Picador, page 265:

(UK, dialect) A ewe lamb of a specific age; in some areas, applied to lambs in their the first or second year (before they have had lambs themselves), in others to lambs in their third year, before their second shearing.


goods wagon

(UK) A railway wagon for carrying freight.


box social

(UK, historical) A Victorian social event for young people.


overdoss

en-verb

overdoss (third-person singular simple present overdosses, present participle overdossing, simple past and past participle overdossed)

overdosses (present singular third-person)
overdossing (participle present)
overdossed (participle past)
overdossed (past)

[…] my next memory is of awakening to look out of the window, seeing the puke stained glass and realizing to my horror that it was light outside. We were experiencing what is commonly known in the bashing world as 'overdossing'.

1996, he...@uk.pipeline.com, “Overnight to the West Country.”, in uk.railway (Usenet):

ISTR There was a story in Rail Enthusiast back in about 1982 concerning a bloke who overdossed on some unit heading into Shrewsbury, and woke up in a shed surrounded by old kettles.

1999, -=SteveH=-, “Strategic Reserve.”, in uk.railway (Usenet):

And if I had a fiver everytime^([sic]) I 'overdossed' as a result of rover brain on the early 80's East coast overnights, I could afford to buy the bloody railway.

2010, darkprince66, “Have You Ever Caught The Wrong Train or Missed Your Stop”, in uk.railway (Usenet):

(intransitive, UK, slang, trainspotting) To oversleep, thus missing the intended railway stop.


misteous

en-adj

misteous (comparative more misteous, superlative most misteous)

more misteous (comparative)
most misteous (superlative)

Availing themselves of the propensity of the populace to credit mystery, the avidity with which prophetical rumours are circulated, and the exaggerations of ignorance and terror, certain "misteous propheseis of Merlyne," […]

1801, John Leyden, The complaynt of Scotland:

(UK dialectal, Scotland) Misty; obscure; vague.


GDS

Government Digital Service
w:Government Digital Service

(UK) Initialism of Government Digital Service.


snathe

en-verb

snathe (third-person singular simple present snathes, present participle snathing, simple past and past participle snathed)

snathes (present singular third-person)
snathing (participle present)
snathed (participle past)
snathed (past)

From Old English snǣdan (“to slice”), from Proto-Germanic *snaidijaną.


smitt

Compare German Schmitz (“a stain”), schmitzen (“to besmear”). See smite (transitive verb).

This is the finest of the Clayey-Ore : and, thus made up into Balls, they use this also for marking of Sheep, and call it Smitt.

1729, John Woodward, An Attempt Towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England:

(UK) Fine clay or ochre made up into balls, used for marking sheep.


stonegall

(UK, archaic, dialect) Alternative form of staniel


sonsy

en-adj

sonsy (comparative more sonsy, superlative most sonsy)

more sonsy (comparative)
most sonsy (superlative)

From Scots, from Scottish Gaelic sonasach.

[…]as black a Jacobite as the auld leaven can make him; but a sonsy, merry companion, that none of us think it worth while to break wi' for all his brags and his clavers.

1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 10, in Redgauntlet:

The housemaid at the boarding-house where we have stayed since we left Heathstock is a fat, sonsy, good-natured girl, perfectly ignorant and stupid, but she has not been long in the colony, and seems willing to learn.

1866 January 14, Mary Anne Barker, “Letter VI”, in Station Life in New Zealand, London: Macmillan & co, published 1870, page 44:

(UK, Scotland, dialect) lucky; fortunate; thriving; plump


chud

(UK, New Zealand, youth slang) chewing gum


inborrow

en-verb

inborrow (third-person singular simple present inborrows, present participle inborrowing, simple past and past participle inborrowed)

inborrows (present singular third-person)
inborrowing (participle present)
inborrowed (participle past)
inborrowed (past)

From Middle English inborȝ (“bail”), from Old English inborh (“bail, security in cases of theft, a security required in cases where property had been stolen”), from in- + borh, borg (“a security, pledge, loan, bail; payment”), equivalent to in- + borrow. Related to Old English borgian (“to borrow; lend; be surety for”). More at borrow.

cog

(transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland, obsolete) To redeem or buy back from pawn; resume a pledge by restoring the money that has been lent on it.


deaf aid

Gene Hunt: Oi, he said stop right there, deaf aid!

2006, Life on Mars, Series 1, Episode 2:

(UK, offensive) A person wearing a hearing aid.


sham Abraham

en-verb

sham Abraham (third-person singular simple present shams Abraham, present participle shamming Abraham, simple past and past participle shammed Abraham)

shams Abraham (present singular third-person)
shamming Abraham (participle present)
shammed Abraham (participle past)
shammed Abraham (past)

/ʃæm ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm/

First attested in the late 18ᵗʰ century. From sham + Abraham man (“a beggar who pretends to be ill”)

The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I shammed Abraham merely to be idle.

1759, Oliver Goldsmith, The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, volume 3, published 1835, The Citizen of the World, Letter CXIX, page 331:

Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the heart: he had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible.

1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], Shirley. A Tale. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:

(idiomatic, obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To pretend sickness or insanity.


selly

en-adj

selly (comparative sellier or more selly, superlative selliest or most selly)

sellier (comparative)
more selly (comparative)
selliest (superlative)
most selly (superlative)

From Middle English selly, selly, sellich, from Old English sellīċ, seldlīċ (“rare, strange, wondrous, extraordinary, wonderful; having unusually good qualities, excellent, admirable; select, better, superior, choice”), from Proto-Germanic *seldalīkaz, equivalent to seld + -ly. Cognate with Scots selly, silly (“approved, good, worthy”), Old Saxon seldlīk (“rare, wonderful”), Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌳𐌰𐌻𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃 (sildaleiks, “wonderful”).

cog

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Rare; wonderful; admirable


selly

His brother was […] selly sick and sore unsound.

1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC:

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Wonderfully, wondrously.


selly

The line is a masterstroke of noncommitment, for the event is a "selly" in the sight of some unidentified readers.

1995, Robert J. Blanch, Julian N. Wasserman, From Pearl to Gawain:

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A marvel; wonder; something wonderful or rare


canonicalise

en-verb

canonicalise (third-person singular simple present canonicalises, present participle canonicalising, simple past and past participle canonicalised)

canonicalises (present singular third-person)
canonicalising (participle present)
canonicalised (participle past)
canonicalised (past)

(transitive, computing, UK) Alternative form of canonicalize


GCR

Great Central Railway
w:Great Central Railway

(UK, rail transport) Initialism of Great Central Railway.

(education, UK, rare) Initialism of Graduate Common Room (in certain British universities.)


NRM

en-noun

NRM (countable and uncountable, plural NRMs)

National Railway Museum
w:National Railway Museum

(UK, rail transport) Initialism of National Railway Museum.


scotale

The bailiff or sub-bailiff that had or held the 'scotale' often began by stealing or extorting sheaves of corn from the men of the neighbourhood. From these he brews his beer, and expects them from whose corn it has been brewed to come and drink it, and to pay for the drinking of it.

1910, Year Books of Edward II, volume 5:

The almost enforced feasting reminds one of the analogous custom of the scotale.

1910, Paul Vinogradoff ·, Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History - Volume 2, page 32:

The king's council in 1220 ordered all sheriffs to prevent the observance of scotale and to make proclamation that henceforth no one make either greater or lesser scotale.

1968, William Alfred Morris, The Medieval English Sheriff to 1300, page 277:

(UK, historical) An enforced bout of drinking, in which a lord, forester, sheriff, or beadle required all men, on pain of punishment, to purchase or contribute to a gathering for drinking.


swarve

en-verb

swarve (third-person singular simple present swarves, present participle swarving, simple past and past participle swarved)

swarves (present singular third-person)
swarving (participle present)
swarved (participle past)
swarved (past)

I holde it meet that there were onelye sewerties taken of them , and one bounde for another , wherbye , if anye shall swarve , his sewerties shall for safegarde of ther bandes bringe hyme in , or seeke to serve upon him

1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

(UK, Scotland, dialect, obsolete) To swerve.

Feede your eyes (quod you) the reason from my wisdom swarveth, / I stared on you both, and yet my belly starveth.


dog bone spanner

en-noun

dog bone spanner (plural dog bone spanners)

(UK) A traditional double-ended bicycle spanner with a selection of usually 10 sizes—five on each end—arranged in a ball form.


anenst

He lives anenst the church.

He shall have a bel, that's Abel; / And by it standing one whose name is Dee, / In a rug gown, there's D, and Rug, that's drug: / And right anenst him a dog snarling er, / There's Drugger, Abel Drugger. That's his sign. / And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic!

c. 1610, Ben Jonson, “The Alchemist”, in William Gifford, editor, The Works of Ben Jonson, volume 4, published 1816, page 88:

He said nothing anenst this particular.

(UK, Scotland, obsolete) About; concerning; anent.


call time

en-verb

call time (third-person singular simple present calls time, present participle calling time, simple past and past participle called time)

calls time (present singular third-person)
calling time (participle present)
called time (participle past)
called time (past)

Let's have another pint quickly, before the landlord calls time.

(UK) To announce the closing of a pub for the day.

The boxer is ready to call time on his long career.

"I'll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call time on him sharp?"
"I should say not!" said the other. "I'll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he'll be here by that time. So long, officer."

As Frank had said to me two years earlier, when he was forced at last to reach for the Blu Tack and a felt-tip pen and call time on his own little shop: “It hurts. Aye.”

2020 September 1, Tom Lamont, “The butcher's shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)”, in The Guardian:


salt horse

en-noun

salt horse (countable and uncountable, plural salt horses)

From the fact that horse meat was considered especially unappetizing and rarely eaten, but that the meat had been so heavily salted and dried that it could just be horse meat passed off as beef.

(countable, UK, naval) A naval officer or rating whose training and experience have qualified him as a seaman rather than in any specialised trade.


main road

Living near the main road means you hear a lot of traffic noise.

The highway to the East Coast which ran through the borough of Ebbfield had always been a main road and even now, despite the vast garages, the pylons and the gaily painted factory glasshouses which had sprung up beside it, there still remained an occasional trace of past cultures.

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

(Northeastern US, UK) A major urban road, off which lead many smaller streets, many of them cul-de-sacs.


measling

measling (countable and uncountable, plural measlings)

Unknown, but probably via Scandinavian forms such as Swedish mässlingen (“pustules, measles”), Danish mæslinger (“measles”), Icelandic mislingar (“measles”), etc. combining the Germanic roots related to blood blisters with the suffix -ing. In reference to delamination, possibly a separate derivation from measle + -ing under influence from the dialectical name for the disease.

cog

(UK dialect) Synonym of measle: the disease caused by M. morbillivirus, a red spot caused by the disease.


slammerkin

As for her other lover, Mr Ricketts, he very shortly after her premature death sought comfort for himself in the arms of a vulgar, huge, coarse Irish slammerkin, Miss Prendergast.

1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 400

(colloquial, now rare, UK, dialect) A slut; an untidy or slatternly woman.


bed blocker

A 72-year-old "bed blocker" was yesterday ordered to vacate the hospital bed he has refused to leave for three years, despite being in good health.

2006 March 7, Jacqueline Maley, “Court evicts NHS 'bed blocker'”, in The Guardian, UK, retrieved 2012-12-02:

There will also be a fee charged to a "bed blocker"—someone fit for discharge from an acute hospital but reluctant to go until a nursing home place is provided.

2008 October 10, Eilish O'Regan, “Plan aims to ease cost of nursing home care”, in Irish Independent, retrieved 2012-12-02:

Dimitra was slapped with a hospital bill worth $18,238, for taking up an acute car bed for too long. . . . "Maria's mother was desperately ill and needed hospital care and she was treated like a bed blocker."

2012 February 21, “Ontario woman on crusade to demand hospital accountability”, in Global News Toronto, Canada, retrieved 2012-12-02:

(chiefly UK, idiomatic, derogatory, medicine, public policy) An elderly hospitalized person who is too infirm to return home but not sufficiently ill to necessitate continued hospitalization, creating a situation in which his or her hospital stay is prolonged while authorities or relatives search for a suitable placement amid the scarce resources of nursing homes or other long-term care facilities.


fratchy

en-adj

fratchy (comparative fratchier, superlative fratchiest)

fratchier (comparative)
fratchiest (superlative)

The Laird heels Danny when he heeds not you. He'll be just biddable when Danny's there, while he's fratchy as a lugged bear when left to you.

(UK, informal) Irritable or argumentative.


smeeth

en-verb

smeeth (third-person singular simple present smeeths, present participle smeething, simple past and past participle smeethed)

smeeths (present singular third-person)
smeething (participle present)
smeethed (participle past)
smeethed (past)

A polishing, Smeething or hiking

1586, Ambrogio Calepino, Dictionarium Latinum:


Castle

en-proper noun

Castle (countable and uncountable, plural Castles)

en:Castle (disambiguation)
en:Castle (surname)

(UK, rail transport) Castle class, a class of steam locomotives used on the GWR

(UK, Durham University slang) University College, Durham, a constituent college located in Durham Castle


London particular

en-noun

London particular (countable and uncountable, plural London particulars)

Applied to the soup in a reversal of the idiom pea-soup fog.

(UK, dated) A spell of smog over the city of London, England.


kitchen sink

The noun is derived from kitchen + sink. Sense 2.1 (“miscellaneous item or miscellany”) is probably from everything but the kitchen sink.
The adjective is derived from the noun. Sense 1 (“of or pertaining to a realist style of painting characterized by scenes of dull or untidy domestic interiors of urban working-class people”) was coined by the British art critic David Sylvester (1924–2001) in a December 1954 article entitled “The Kitchen Sink”: see the quotation.
The verb is a back-formation from kitchen-sinking (noun), which is derived from the noun.

back-formation

It is evident that neither objectivity nor abstraction is the aim of the young painters of the kitchen-sink school.

1954 December, David Sylvester, “The Kitchen Sink”, in Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, editors, Encounter, London: Encounter Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 62, column 2:

[T]here are a number of instances of [John] Berger promoting the four artists known as the Beaux Arts Quartet, or the Kitchen Sink painters—John Bratby, Jack Smith, Edward Middleditch and Derrick Greaves.

2004 autumn, Adrian Clark, “Two British Art Patrons of the 1940s and 1950s: Sir Colin Anderson and Peter Watson”, in The British Art Journal, volume V, number 2, London: Art Journals, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 74, column 1:

The home and domesticity were the main subjects of "kitchen sink" painting, a short-lived style of realism active in London between 1952 and 1957. The four artists typically associated with this genre are Jack Smith, Edward Middleditch, Derrick Greaves, and John Bratby. […] In the histories of post-war British art, it remains widely unchallenged that these four men are the only "kitchen sink" artists. Their works from the 1950s are considered as central in discourses of post-war representations of the home and labour, with critics and historians often locating "kitchen sink" painting's legacy as a precursor to British pop art's focus on everyday domestic objects.

2019 May 31, Abi Shapiro, “The Kitchen Sink Too”, in British Art Studies, number 12, London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art; New Haven, Conn.: Yale Center for British Art, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-01-29:

(painting) Of or pertaining to a mid-20th-century realist style of painting in Britain characterized by scenes of dull or untidy domestic interiors such as kitchens in the homes of urban working-class people; also, of or pertaining to an artist or group of artists painting in this style.

Kitchen Sink -tyylinen

of or pertaining to a realist style of painting characterized by scenes of dull or untidy domestic interiors of urban working-class people; of or pertaining to an artist or group of artists painting in this style

(by extension, drama, fiction, film, television, originally derogatory) Of or pertaining to a mid-20th-century (especially 1950s–1960s) genre of drama, fiction, etc., in Britain depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; also, of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre.

työväestön arkielämää käsittelevä

of or pertaining to a genre of drama, fiction, etc., depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre


PTI

(military, training, UK) Initialism of Physical Training Instructor.


chaffwax

(UK, law, historical) A chancery officer who fitted wax for sealing writs and other documents.


smudger

Smudger An old term for a photographer, one that alludes to dodgy developing.

2004, Ray Puxley, Britslang: An Uncensored A-Z of the People's Language, Including Rhyming Slang, Robson, published 2004, page 456:


pip-pip

Imitative of a short, high sound made by a bicycle or car horn.

"In that case," said Archie, relieved, "cheerio, good luck, pip-pip, toodle-oo, and good-bye-ee! I'll be shifting!"

1921, P. G. Wodehouse, Indiscretions of Archie, ch. XIII:


ack emma

(British, military) a.m.; in the morning


moralisation

en-noun

moralisation (countable and uncountable, plural moralisations)

British standard spelling of moralization.


flag gun

Major Lawrence returned answer, 'that the English colours were carried on the flag gun of their artillery, which if Mons. D'Aotenil would look out for, he might thence discover where the English were posted ; and that, although he was as unwilling as himself to spill European blood, yet if any shots came that way he should certainly return them.'

1814, Edward Wedlake Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales: or Original Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County, volume 10, London, page 717:

Centuries ago the largest gun in an artillery train carried the equivalent of today's Queen's Colour and it was known as the “Colour” or “Flag Gun”.

2009 August 1, Christopher Jobson, Looking Forward, Looking Back: Customs and Traditions of the Australian Army, Big Sky Publishing, →ISBN, →OL, page 55:

(UK) A gun in an artillery train bearing a flag.


come it

en-verb

come it (third-person singular simple present comes it, present participle coming it, simple past came it, past participle come it)

comes it (present singular third-person)
coming it (participle present)
came it (past)
come it (participle past)

Don't come it with me!


neist

From Middle English nest, neste, from Old English nēst, nēist, variants of Old English nīehst (“nearest, next”). More at next.


neist

The bonniest lass that ye meet neist,
 Gie her a kiss an' a' that


wido

"Oh, nonsense! You don't suppose we're house-breakers, do you?" said Jack, impatiently.
"No, not I," said the man; "I'm wido."

(UK, slang, obsolete) Aware of what is going on; fly, alert.


neshen

neshen (third-person singular simple present neshens, present participle neshening, simple past and past participle neshened)

neshens (present singular third-person)
neshening (participle present)
neshened (participle past)
neshened (past)

(transitive, UK dialectal) To make tender or soft; mollify.


strong flour

en-noun

strong flour (countable and uncountable, plural strong flours)

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A wheat flour with a high gluten content, which produces bread with high rising, and long lasting properties.


freight operating company

freight operating company (plural freight operating companies)

(UK, rail transport) A company that runs freight trains on the national railway network in Great Britain under license from the government.


train operating company

train operating company (plural train operating companies)

The DfT has remained committed to Driver Controlled Operation with the elimination of guards, and expects train operating companies to work in this mode when new vehicles are introduced.

2019 November 6, “Industry Insider: Blame the policymakers”, in Rail, page 76:

(UK, rail transport) A company that operates passenger trains on the mainline railway network in Great Britain under franchise or license from the Government.


bester

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bester.wav

[…] "bouncers and besters," who cheat by laying wagers […]

1853, The Scripture Readers' Journal, page 15:

(UK, slang, archaic) A fraudulent bookmaker.


Chats

I think it is a libel, for I have yet to learn that West Country sailor-men are fonder of their victuals than those from 'Pompey' (Portsmouth), or 'Chats' (Chatham), or than Scotsmen, Irishmen, or Welshmen.

1918, Chambers's Journal, volume 95, page 393:

He leaned half his body out of the carriage window as we slowly pulled over the timber baulks of the rebuilt bridges, and shouted 'Up the workers!' until a Petty Officer in the next compartment also leaned out and told him, 'Shit in it, you bloody Bolshie, or I'll have your cap as soon as we get to Chats.'
[…] Once inside the prison-like walls of Chatham barracks we were all marched into the drafting office […]

1997, Tristan Jones, Heart of Oak, page 132:


Bradbury

So named as banknotes had the signature of Sir John Bradbury, secretary to the Treasury c.1914.

"And the contents of my cigarette-case are half a dozen gaspers, and a ten-bob Bradbury patched together with stamp paper!"

"Well, the price of a drink will do as well. If you've got a Bradbury about you I could do with it, for there's nothing coming my way." Tom Linden took a pound note from his desk.

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(UK, slang) A British banknote issued during WW I in denominations of £1 or 10 shillings.


absolute unit

Compounded of British colloquial senses of absolute (“utter, complete”) + unit (“physically large person”). Attested from the 2010s.

compound

Liverpool BMX president Neil Cameron said, despite the name, [Kama Kazi] is a "lovely bloke", "great with the kids" and also an "absolute unit".

2006 February 15, “Sticky Beak”, in Liverpool Leader, Factiva:LIVLEA0020060215e22f00005:

(slang, UK, Australia, chiefly Internet, humorous) An exceptionally large or stout person.


skintness

(colloquial, UK) The quality of being skint (i.e., without money, penniless, poor, impecunious, broke).


whitret

We maun off like whittrets before the whole clanjamfray be doun upon us.

1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:

But even so he was gey slow to get on with the courting and just hung around Kirsty like a futret round a trap with a bit of meat in it, not sure if the meat was worth the risk […].

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 21:

(Scotland, UK dialect) A weasel or stoat.