A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire

by Wadham Pigott Williams

Transcribed from the 1873 Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

a
GLOSSARY
of
PROVINCIAL WORDS & PHRASES
in use in
SOMERSETSHIRE.

by
WADHAM PIGOTT WILLIAMS, M.A.,
VICAR OF BISHOP’S HULL,

and the late
WILLIAM ARTHUR JONES, M.A., F.G.S.

with
AN INTRODUCTION
By R. C. A. PRIOR, M.D.

LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, & DYER.
TAUNTON: F. MAY, HIGH STREET.
1873.

PREFACE

It is now nearly six years ago that the Committee of the Somersetshire Archæological Society asked me to compile a Glossary of the Dialect or archaic language of the County, and put into my hands a valuable collection of words by the late Mr. Edward Norris, surgeon, of South Petherton. I have completed this task to the best of my ability, with the kind co-operation of our late excellent Secretary, Wm. Arthur Jones; and the result is before the public. We freely made use of Norris, Jennings, Halliwell, or any other collector of words that we could find, omitting mere peculiarities of pronunciation, and I venture to hope it will prove that we have not overlooked much that is left of that interesting old language, which those great innovators, the Printing Press, the Railroad, and the Schoolmaster, are fast driving out of the country.

WADHAM PIGOTT WILLIAMS.

Bishop’s Hull, Taunton,
7th September, 1873.

INTRODUCTION.

The following paper from the pen of Dr. Prior was read at a Conversazione of the Society at Taunton, in the winter of 1871, and as it treats the subject from a more general point of view than is usually taken of it, we print it with his permission as an introduction to our vocabulary:—