Glossary of Dorset dialect words
These are some words which are unique to the Dorset dialect, spoken in Dorset in the West Country of England.
Word |
Meaning |
|---|---|
A |
|
A-cothed |
Disease |
A-drawen |
Drawing, for example "He be a-drawen a picture." |
A-feard |
Afraid (Dorset motto, "Who's a-feard?") |
Agean |
Against, for example "'e be runnin' agean thac strong wind." |
Aggy |
The act of collecting eggs |
Aïght |
Eight |
Ailen |
illness, ailing (verb or noun) |
Air vlees |
Flies that seldom land for hovering in the air |
Aish or Aishy |
Ash tree |
Aish-a-twiddick |
Ash twig |
A-lassen |
Lest |
Alik' |
Like |
All's |
All this |
Amper |
Pustules "I be all out in an amper!" |
Aller |
The alder tree |
Allum |
All of them |
Anby |
At a near time, by and by |
Annan? |
An interjectional exclamation. "What did you say?" |
Anewst, or Aniste |
At nearest |
Anigh |
Near, close by |
Ankly |
The ankle |
Any-when |
At any time |
Archet |
Orchard |
Arn |
A contraction of "e'er a one" |
Ash candles |
The seed vessels of the ash tree |
Asker |
Water newt |
A-strout |
Stretched out |
A-stooded |
Stood (as a waggon) immovably in the ground |
A-stoggd |
Having your feet stuck in either clay or dirt |
At |
To play at, to have at |
Athirt |
Across |
Auverlook |
Overlook, bewitch, look on with the evil eye |
Avore |
Before |
A-vroze |
Frozen |
Awaked |
Awake |
Ax |
To ask |
Axen |
Ashes |
Ayer |
Air |
A-zet |
Set or planted |
A-zew |
1) To be dry of milk; no longer giving suck "The cow's a-zew" 2) To sew a pond, to drain or draw it dry. |
B |
|
Backhouse |
Outhouse |
Backside |
backyard or rear of property |
Bad |
Synonym for ill |
B'aint |
be not |
Ballyrag |
To scold |
Bandon |
Abandonment |
Bandy |
A stick used for beating dung out of the way, usually long and sturdy with a bent end |
Bandylags |
Crooked/bowed legs |
Bankrout |
Bankrupt |
Bantling |
Child |
Barken |
Barley |
Barry |
Borrow |
Batch |
Hillock |
Battenbuoard |
A tool for tamping thatch on a roof |
Baven |
A [...] of untrimmed branches |
Beas' |
Beast, usually refers to cattle |
Beatplough |
A tool used for cutting turf |
Becall |
To deride |
Bedraggled angels |
Wet sheep |
Beens |
Because, possible contraction of 'being as' |
Bee-pot |
Beehive |
Beknown |
Known about |
Bennits |
The bent tips of grasses and similar |
Ben't |
Wasn't |
Bibber |
Shiver with cold |
Bide |
Dwell |
Biddle |
Beetle |
Bird-kippy |
To keep birds from the corn |
Bissen |
Bist not, Art not |
Bit-an'-drap |
A bite to eat and a drink |
Bit-an'-crimp |
Every last scrap of something |
Biver |
To shake or quiver with cold or fear |
Black Bards |
Rooks (or 'storytellers') |
Black-bob |
Cockroach |
Blatch |
Black or sooty |
Blather |
An uproar |
Bleare |
To cry outload and fretful like a child |
Blether |
To bleat or blare much; to talk noisily |
Blood beads |
Berries |
Bloody Warriors |
Wallflowers |
Blooth |
Blossom |
Bottom |
Steadfast |
Braims |
Membranes |
Brake |
A thicket |
Brembles |
Brambles |
Brinton or Braton |
Bold, audacious |
Brockle |
Broken |
Bruckly or Brickley |
Brittle |
Brushen |
Huge/giant |
Budget |
A leather pouch for a whetstone |
Bull-head |
Tadpole |
Bumbye |
By-and-by |
Bundle |
To bound quickly |
Bunker |
Rabbit |
Button-crawler |
Woodlouse |
Bwoneyard |
Graveyard/churchyard |
C |
|
Caddie |
An uproar or carry-on |
Caddle |
Muddle |
Cag |
Cloy/clog |
Cag-mag |
Rotten meat |
Cammish |
Awkward |
Car |
Carry or move: to car hay is to stack hay |
Carner |
Corner |
Cas'n |
Can'st not |
Cast |
Prematurely born |
Cazelty weather |
Extremely bad weather (casualty weather) |
Chalky |
Ghostly |
Chammer |
Chamber, bedroom, room |
Charken, charked |
Burn (to charcoal), burned |
Chattermag |
Magpie |
Chawly-whist |
Ashamed |
Chaw |
Chew |
Cheese-late |
A floor for drying cheese |
Chetlens |
The entrails of any edible animal |
Chilver or Chilver hog |
A yearling ewe lamb |
Chimley |
Chimney |
Chop |
Sell, barter or exchange |
Chump |
A log of wood |
Clavy |
Mantelpiece |
Clinker |
Icicle |
Clitty |
Stringy and sticky, tangled in clods or lumps |
Clodgy |
Dumplike, close |
Clot |
Lump, clod |
Clutchéd |
Clutched |
Cockle |
Tangle |
Codgloves |
Hedger's gloves, with a bad for all the fingers together |
Comely or Come |
To be ripe. Inviting |
Conk-load |
Nose-full |
Conzum-ed |
Consumed |
Cowheart |
Coward |
Cowlease |
An uncut field, meadow |
Cradlehood |
Early stages of childhood, infancy, still in the cradle |
Crate |
Womb |
Creezey |
Silky |
Crewel |
Cowslip |
Cricket |
A low stool or chair for a child |
Crims |
Cold-shivers, creeping of flesh |
Croodle |
To rock, to coo. To make little crowings |
Croopy |
To sink one's body, bending down the thighs behind the legs |
Crousty |
Grumpy, in a bad mood |
Culver |
Wood pigeon |
Curdles |
Hair curls |
Cuty |
Wren |
D |
|
Dabster |
Someone who is skilled in something, an expert |
Dadder |
To confuse or bewilder |
Dander |
Vex, anger |
Darkling bird |
Blackbird |
Daw |
Jackdaw |
Death-biddle |
Deathwatch beetle |
De-da |
Simple, foolish, slow-witted |
Devil's bird |
Magpie |
Dewbit |
A bite to eat taken first thing in the morning before breakfast |
Didden |
Did not |
Dorring |
Mocking |
Doughbiaked |
Feeble-minded |
Dout |
Put out a flame or fire, "Dout the candle" for example |
Downdashious |
Audacious |
Drashel |
The strip of wood or concrete at the bottom of a doorway, the threshold |
Draty |
Draught, draughty, full of draughts of air |
Drawlatcheten |
Idle, lazy |
Drinky |
Having consumed too much alcohol, inebriated |
Dread-fulled |
Full of dread |
Dread gates |
School gates |
Drean |
To drawl in speaking |
Dree |
Three |
Drisk |
A fine, wind-driven mist |
Drownsy |
Drowned |
Drush |
Thrush |
Duckish |
Dark, gloomy |
Drong |
Squeeze or compress |
Drongway |
A narrow passage or alley; Most commonly a narrow footpath between two fenced fields |
Dumbledore |
Bumblebee |
Dummet |
Dusk |
Dungy |
Downcast, dull |
Dunnick |
Sparrow |
E |
|
'e |
He |
Eacor |
Acorn |
Eet |
Yet |
Effets |
Newts |
Egg-tree |
Ovary |
Elebm |
Eleven |
Em |
Them |
Emmets |
Ants |
En |
Him |
Engripement |
Grievance |
'enself |
Himself |
'es |
His |
'e's |
He is |
Eth, ethly |
Earth, earthly |
Ethed |
Buried |
Ether-hunger |
The hunger for earth, sometimes felt by persons approaching death |
Evemen |
Evening |
F |
|
Faddle |
To pack or bundle together |
Fantod |
Fuss |
Farterous |
Father-like |
Feasen |
Faces |
Fess |
Pleased with, proud |
Fevrell |
February |
Fleeceful |
As much as fills a fleece |
Fleecy |
Fleece; drunk, drunken |
Flummocks |
To scare or frighten |
Footling |
Something worthless, beneath contempt |
Footy |
Insignificant, small, trivial |
Fowel |
The placenta of a cow |
Freen |
Free from |
Frith |
Thin twigs that have broken off from trees and bushes, historically used to make brushes; brushwood |
Frog-hopper |
Grasshopper |
Furby |
Foul or sticky matter, as that on a tongue in sickness |
G |
|
Gake |
To stare open-mouthed, gawk, gape |
Gallycrow |
Scarecrow |
Gannywedge |
A wide yawn or to spread apart |
Gap |
Mouth |
Gapmouth |
Nightjar |
Gawl, Gawly |
An opening, an empty place, a bare patch; empty hollow |
Gi'e |
To give, to yield |
Gilcup or Giltcup |
A small, yellow flower of the family Ranunculaceae, common in meadows and pasture; buttercup |
Girding |
Taunting |
Girt |
Large, great |
Glene |
To joke with |
Glory hole |
[...] |
Glow |
Stare or watch with fixed, open eyes |
Glutch |
To swallow |
Gnang |
To mock by half-clear sounds, wagging the jaw with a grin |
God's stinking tree |
Elder |
Goocoo |
Cuckoo |
Goocoo pint |
Wild arum, snakeshead, Arum maculatum |
Goocoo's bread |
Wood sorrel |
Goocoo spettle or Spume |
Cuckoo spit, a white froth secreted by insects |
Grab |
Crab apple tree |
Gramf'er |
Grandfather |
Gramm'er |
Grandmother |
Grave |
To bury |
Greygole |
A small, blue woodland flower of the hyacinth family; Bluebell |
Gribble |
A young crab tree or blackthorm |
Grotten |
A sleep-slade, a run or pasture for sheep |
Growed |
Grew |
Gurrel |
Girl |
Gwain |
Going |
Gwains-on |
Rowdy behaviour (goings-on) |
H |
|
Hag-ridden |
A nightmare attributed to a supernatural presence of a witch or hag, by whom one is ridden to sleep |
Halterpath |
A path for a horse and rider; Bridleway |
Handy |
Thereabouts, an approximation, "Ees 6' or somewhere 'andy" for example |
Hangen house |
A shed under the continuation of the roof of the house |
Han'pat |
Nearby, close at hand |
Harled |
Tangled |
Hassen |
Hast not |
Hatch |
A small gate |
Heabm |
Heaven |
Heal or Healéd |
To cover over |
Hedlen |
Headlong |
Heissen |
A prediction of evil |
Hetful |
Hot |
Heth |
Hearth |
Hethcropper |
A horse or pony bred on a heath |
Hidy-buck |
Children's game, hide-n-seek |
Ho |
To be anxious or to show caution |
Hoar-stone |
Standing stone or ancient boundary stone |
Hobble |
A field-shed for cattle |
Hobby Horse |
Woodlouse |
Hogget |
A yearling sheep of either [...], the meat of a hogget |
Hogget shears |
Sheep shears |
Hold wi' |
Side with |
Holm |
Holly |
Holrod |
Cowslip |
Holway |
Hollow lane |
Homhle |
A duck |
Honey-zuck |
A climbing plant of the family Caprifoliaceae; honeysuckle |
Honking |
Inhale deeply |
Hook |
To gore with the horns |
Hoss-stinger or Ho's adder |
Dragonfly |
Hummock |
Cow |
Hustle |
To moan, spoken of the wind |
Hwome |
Home |
I |
|
Ice-candles |
Icicles |
Inneath |
Behind, inside |
Inon |
Onion |
Inwards |
Innards |
J |
|
Joppety-joppety |
Anxious, nervous trepidation |
K |
|
Keech |
To clear a riverbank of weeds |
Kit |
Friend or family, kin |
Knog |
Knob |
L |
|
Lag |
Leg |
Lagwood |
The larger cut-off branches and twigs of a tree |
Laminger |
One who has become lame |
Lamploo |
A game of tag in which those caught join hands with the pursuer/s to form a chain |
Lear |
An ailing in sheep |
Leaze |
Field |
Leery |
Hungry |
Lerret |
A traditional, double-ended boat with a flat bottom and high sternposts, which can be launched from a steep bank or beach |
Let |
A stopping or interruption |
Limber |
Skinny, slim, slender |
Limner |
Painter and decorator |
Lip |
Basket |
Lippen |
Wet weather, rainy, sometimes also referred to as lippy |
Lisome |
Cheery, happy |
Litter |
Confusion |
Litty |
Of light and easy bodily motion |
Loneleft |
Left alone |
Long tail |
Pheasant |
Lovesome |
Lovely, loving |
Lowsen |
To listen |
Lure |
A disease of sheep; an ulcer in the cleft of the foot |
Lwonesomness |
Lonesomeness |
M |
|
Magot |
An impulse or whim |
Maggoty |
Very drunk |
Main |
Strength, power |
Mampus |
A crowd |
Mandy |
Saucy |
Mare's tail |
Equisetum arvense (horsetail) |
Mazzerdy |
Knotty |
Meeces |
Mice |
Mesh |
Moss |
Midin' |
Might not, may not |
Milchi |
Milk, milky pale |
Milk flower |
Snowdrop |
Mingdom |
A stinking, dirty or unpleasant kingdom |
Mommet |
A guy, an effigy |
Moud or Moule |
Field mouse |
Mus'n |
Must not |
Mwope |
Bullfinch |
N |
|
Nammet |
A light lunch of meat |
Near |
Parsimonious, miserly |
Nearen |
Nearby |
Nesh, Neshen |
Tender |
Nesseltripe |
The weakest or last born |
Nether-ethed |
Buried |
Netherwise |
Viewed from below |
Nicky |
Kindling |
Nippy |
Peckish |
Nirrup |
Donkey |
No-but |
Nothing but |
Noowhen |
At no time |
Not |
Flowerbed |
Nuncheon |
A noon-time meal, luncheon |
Nuts |
Joy; testicles |
O |
|
Oone |
One |
Orf |
A viral form of pustular dermatitis found in sheep, and communicable to humans |
Out ov ban |
Instantly, at once |
Over-right |
Opposite |
Over-watch |
Baby-sit |
Owl, owling |
To owl about, to ramble by night |
P |
|
Pank |
To pant |
Parlour-sky |
Attic, loft |
Parrick |
A piece of fenced off land, a paddock |
Peart |
Healthy, vibrant, full of life |
Pecker |
Green woodpecker |
Peck upon |
Dominate |
Pelt |
A rage, to feel angry |
Peze, peaze |
To ooze out |
Piaviours |
Flagstones |
Piggyback, a pig a back, a pack a back |
To carry a child on one's back with their arms around your neck and their legs around your waist. |
[...]-a-bed |
Dandelion |
Pisty poll |
To carry a child on one's shoulders with their legs around your neck and their arms around your forehead. |
Pleck |
A small enclosure |
'plexion |
Complexion |
Pock-fretten |
Pock-marked from acne |
Poll |
Head |
Popples |
Pebbles |
Prog |
Food |
Purl |
Curl, swirl, frill; or an abbreviation of pur lamb |
Pur lamb |
A castrated ram lamb |
Puxy |
A miry or boggy place |
Pwope |
A bunchy thing, an effigy, a doll, a puppet |
Q |
|
Quartere'il, Quaterevil |
A disease of sheep, a corruption of the blood |
Quine |
The corner of a wall |
Quob |
Quiver, shake |
R |
|
Rafty |
Rancid |
Rake |
To reek |
Rale |
Walk |
Rammish |
Strong smelling, rank |
Ramshacklum |
Useless |
Rangle |
To reach about like a trailing or climbing plant |
Rap |
Swap, barter or exchange |
Rathe |
Early |
Reames |
The frame or ligaments of a thing, skeleton |
Rean |
Consume food quickly and greedily |
Reaphook |
A curved blade for cutting grasses; Sickle |
Reapy |
Reap |
Red-bread |
[...] |
Reddick |
Small garden bird with a red breast, commonly known as a robin (Erithacus rubecula) |
Red rag |
Tongue |
Reeve |
Unravel |
Riblets |
Little ribs |
Roasting tomb |
Stove |
Rod |
[...] |
Rottletrap |
Rickety |
Ruddle |
A red earth by which they mark they mark sheep |
Rudger or Rig |
An uncastrated horse |
Rum |
Queer |
Rumstick |
Queer, a queer man |
S |
|
Sar |
To serve or feed animals |
Sarch |
To search |
Satepoll |
A foolish or silly person |
Scaly |
Mean, stingy |
Sclerevil |
Hardened and evil |
Scote |
To shoot along very fast |
Scram |
Screwy-grown |
Scratch, scratching |
To write, writing; to carve |
Screak, screaking |
To creak loudly |
Scriddick, scrid |
A small scrap or shred |
Scrip |
Shepherd's coat |
Scroff |
Small bits of dead wood |
Scroop, scrooping |
The low sound of one hard body scraping against another |
Scrounch, Scrunch |
To crunch strongly |
Seem an I |
Seems to me |
Shabby mothers |
Ewes |
Shade |
Spirit, ghost |
Shatten |
Shall not |
Sheep nuts |
Coarse mix pellets, sheep food |
Shim |
a she/him |
Shockle |
To shake about lightly |
Shoo |
A cry to fray away owls |
Shram |
A screwing up or out of the body and limbs from keen cold |
Sify |
To catch the breath in sighing; to sob |
Sives |
Chives or garlic |
Skeat, skeating |
A looseness of the bowels |
Sloey spears |
The sharp spines on the branches of the sloe or blackthorn |
Slommock(en) |
A slatternly, thick-set, stocky, short, dirty woman |
Smame |
To smear |
Smeech |
A cloud of dust |
Smirchéd |
Tarnished |
Smoor |
To smear |
Snabble |
To snap up quickly; To eat quickly or greedily |
Snake's-head |
Arum maculatum |
So't |
Soft |
Soldier's tears |
Mullein, a tall, stiff flowered, woolly plant |
Somen |
Someone |
Somewhen |
At some time |
Soonere |
Ghost |
Span-new |
Clean and shiny, like new |
Spawl, spawly |
A splinter flown off, as from wood or stone; splintered |
Sprak |
Spry, lively |
Speare |
Thin, lanky |
Spet |
To spit |
Spiles |
The beard of barley |
Spotter |
(Great or lesser) Spotted Woodpecker |
Spume |
Come, semen |
Squitters |
Diarrhoea in cattle |
Stare |
Starling |
Stiver |
To stiffen up much as an angry dogs hairs |
Stumpy |
To walk with short stamoing steps |
Sweethearts |
Goose grass |
Sweven |
A dream |
T |
|
Taffle |
To tangle, as grass or corn beaten down by weather |
Tarble |
Tolerable |
Tardle |
To tangle |
Teake to |
To reach forth to a man or thing with a ready good will |
Teare |
Eager and bold as flies on food |
Tet |
Teat |
Tewly |
Small and weakly |
Theave |
A three-year-old sheep |
Theosom |
These |
Thick as inkle weavers |
Close in friendship, from inkle, a kind of tape for a very narrow loom at which the weavers sat close side by side |
Thieves |
Fairies |
Thik |
That |
Thirtover |
Perverse |
Thumbles |
Thumbs |
Tidd'n |
'tis not |
Tilty |
Grumpy, irritable, ill-tempered |
Tinklebobs |
Icicles |
Torrididdle |
A state of bewilderment or confusion |
Toyear |
This year; as in today, tomorrow etc. |
Trapes, Trapesèn |
A woman who tramps about bodly |
Tree-tears |
Leaves |
Tuen |
Tune |
Tup |
A ram; (of a ram) to copulate with a ewe |
Twanketen |
Sad, melancholic |
T'wards |
Towards |
'twere |
It were |
Twiddick |
A small twig |
Twink |
Chaffinch |
Twoad |
Toad |
Twoad's meat |
Toadstools |
U |
|
Undercreepen |
Devious, sly, underhand |
Unheal |
To uncover |
Unray |
To undress |
Upsmitten |
Dust or liquid sprayed or blown upwards |
Upsydown |
Upside down, overturned |
V |
|
Vall |
To fall |
Vang |
To earn |
Veag |
Wrath, a high heat of anger (Anglo-Saxon faegth) |
Veäre |
Weasel |
Veäry |
Fairy |
Veäry ring |
Fairy ring, a ring of fungi |
Veäry tale |
Fairy tale |
Vess'y |
To versey, to read verses by turns |
Vilthy |
Filthy |
Vinny |
Veiny or mouldy, like the Dorset cheese, Blue-vinny |
Vitty |
Neat and proper |
Vive |
Five |
Vlee |
Fly |
Vlesh vlee |
A blowfly, a flesh fly |
Vlit |
Flit |
Vlittermouse |
Bat |
Vloat |
Float |
Vlutterbie |
Butterfly |
Vog |
Fog |
Vokket |
To go about here and there |
Voley |
Vole |
Vom |
Vomit |
Vorehearing |
Premonition, forewarning |
Vore-right |
Going forward without regard to consequences or seemliness |
Voretold |
Foretold |
Vorewarn |
Forewarned |
Voul |
Foul |
Vower, vowr, vow'r |
Four |
Vuzzen |
Fir trees |
W |
|
Wagwanton |
Quaking grass |
Want |
Mole |
Want-heave |
Mole hill |
Want-heave slave |
A mole |
Ware |
Pond |
Waxen crundels |
Swollen tonsils |
Weave |
To rock backwards and forwards in pain |
Welshnut |
Walnut |
Werret |
To concern or worry |
Wether |
A castrated male lamb |
Wevvet |
Cobweb |
Wevvet queens |
Spiders |
Wheel-bird |
Nightjar |
Whinnick |
To whine softly or slightly |
Whiver |
To hover, to quiver |
Winker |
Eyeball |
Woak |
Oak |
Woodculver |
Wood pigeon or ringdove |
Woone |
One |
Wont |
Mole, small burrowing mammal of the family Talpidae |
Woppen |
Big, heavy |
Wopsy or Wops |
Wasp |
Wordle |
World |
Wurse |
Devil, arch-fiend |
Y |
|
Yakker |
Acorn |
Yer |
Your |
Yer tiz |
Here it is, yes it is |
Yis |
Earthworm |
Yoller |
Yellow |
Yollerheads |
Daffodils |
Yoller roses |
Primroses |
Yop |
Speak rapidly, jabber |
Z |
|
Zeale or Zack |
Sack |
Zebm |
Seven |
Zedgemocks |
Tufts of sedge grass |
Zet up |
To anger, infuriate |
Zing |
Sing |
Zive |
Scythe |
Zix |
Six |
Zounds |
Sounds |
Zummat |
Something |
Zwail |
Swagger |
Zweal |
To scorch |
Zweat |
Sweat |
Zween, zweemy |
A feeling of swinging around in the head |
See also
- Dorset dialect