A NOTE-BOOK AND
WORD-LIST
INCLUDING
Contemporary References, Notes, &c.,
together with a Glossary of Words
and Phrases now Archaic or
Obsolete; the whole arranged
in One Alphabet in
Dictionary
Form.
A FORE-WORD TO NOTE-BOOK
AND WORD-LIST
Reference from text to Note-Book is copious, and as complete as may be. The following pages may, with almost absolute certainty, be consulted on any point that may occur in the course of reading.
NOTE-BOOK AND WORD-LIST
TO
GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE
- 'A, the infinitive have.
- A-fine, now, at the moment: i.e. at the finish.
- Alewives, women keeping ale-houses.
- All-hallows, the old name for All Saints' Day (1st Nov.): formerly ushered in by the ceremonies and merrymakings of All-Hallowe'en.
- Alms, Alms-deed, charity, godsend.
- A-meved, moved, disturbed.
- And, if.
- Apern, apron: the usual early form of the word.
- Arrayed, (a) disconcerted, afflicted, put out. (b) bespattered.
- Aventure, venture, risk, wager.
- A-wreak, avenge.
- Back side, at the back of the house, backyard.
- Bald, short for bald-head, bald-pate: a generic term of abuse.
- Balks, beams, rafters, an overhead rack used for storing bacon.
- Bedlam, a crazy beggar, real or assumed: properly a convalescent from Bethlehem Hospital, an asylum for lunatics since 1547. Many of these unfortunates, being either unable or unwilling to work, adopted vagrancy as a profession, the Simon Pures being avouched by an official arm-badge. These were considerably augmented by the often deserving (but more frequently spurious) poor who had, until the dissolution of the monasteries, been the special care of the religious.
- Bet, the old past tense of beat: still dialectical.
- Blest, bliss.
- Body-louse, proud, conceited, fine. Later we get "brisk as a body-louse" (Ray).
- Bonable, abominable.
- Boots, avails, profits, is of advantage, matters.
- Borrow, pledge, security.
- Boulogne, Our dear Lady of Boulogne, the image of the Virgin Mary at Boulogne, formerly in so much reverence that pilgrimages were made to it.
- Brawl, brat, offspring.
- Bread and salt, a common sixteenth-century oath, probably as symbolising the necessaries of life.
- Bursting, breaking.
- By and by, immediately.