nock, (perhaps) a notch. The phr. much in my nock seems to mean ‘much in my line’, ‘very suitable for me’, Triumphs of Love and Fortune (last speech but one of Lentulo), in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, vi. 242. So also beyond the nock, above or beyond measure, ‘He commendeth hym by yonde the nocke, Il le prise oultre bort, or oultre mesure’, Palsgrave.
noddy, a simpleton. Two Gent. i. 1. In gen. prov. use (EDD.).
noddy, a card-game. Heywood, Woman killed with Kindness (Wendell); B. Jonson, Love Restored (Plutus); Westward Ho, iv. 1 (Birdlime); Northward Ho, ii. 1 (Liverpool). See Nares.
nog, a kind of strong beer, brewed in East Anglia, esp. in Norfolk; ‘Walpole laid a quart of nog on’t’, Swift, Upon the Horrid Plot, &c., 31; ‘Here’s a Norfolk nog’, Vanbrugh, A Journey to London, i. 1 (John Moody). See EDD. (s.v. Nog(g)).
noise, a company of musicians, a band. 2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 13; Beaumont and Fl., Wit at several Weapons, iii. 1. 4. Common. The phrase Sneak’s noise (2 Hen. IV, ii. 4. 13) is copied by Heywood, Iron Age (Thersites), vol. iii, p. 312.
nones: phr. for the nones = for then ones, for the once, for the occasion. Peele, Arr. of Paris, i. 1. 9; B. Jonson, Volpone, ii. i (Nano). See Dict. (s.v. Nonce).
nook-shotten, provided with capes and necks of land; ‘That nook-shotten isle of Albion’, Hen. V, iii. 5. 14. See the quotations in NED.
noonstead, the sun’s place at noon; the meridian. Spelt noonestede, Sackville, Induction, st. 7; ‘Now it nigh’d the noonstead of the day’, Drayton, Mooncalf (Nares). ‘Noonstead’ for the point of noon is known in north Yorks. (EDD).
nope, a bull-finch. Drayton, Pol. xiii. 74; ‘A Nope (bird), rubicilla’, Coles, 1679; ‘Chochepierre, a kind of nowpe or bullfinch that feeds on the kernels of cherri-stones’, Cotgrave. In prov. use. in various parts of England (EDD.). See [awbe].
noppe, nap of cloth. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 453. Du. noppe, nap (Hexham). See Dict. (s.v. Nap.2).