I now give a list, a mere selection, of some of the more remarkable words of Scandinavian origin that are known to our dialects. For their various uses and localities, see the English Dialect Dictionary; and for their etymologies, see my Index to Cleasby and Vigfusson. Many of these words are well approved and forcible, and may perhaps be employed hereafter to reinforce our literary language.
Addle, to earn; and (in Barbour, aynd) sb., breath; arder, a ploughing; arr, a scar; arval, a funeral repast; aund, fated, destined; bain, ready, convenient; bairns’ lakings, children’s playthings; beck, a stream; big, to build; bigg, barley; bing, a heap; birr, impetus; blaeberry, a bilberry; blather, blether, empty noisy talk; bouk, the trunk of the body; boun, ready; braid, to resemble, to take after; brandreth, an iron framework over a fire; brant, steep; bro, a foot-bridge with a single rail; bule, bool, the curved handle of a bucket; busk, to prepare oneself, dress; caller, fresh, said of fish, etc.; carle, a rustic, peasant; carr, moist ground; cleck, to hatch (as chickens); cleg, a horse-fly; coup, to exchange, to barter; dag, dew; daggle, to trail in the wet; dowf, dull, heavy, stupid; dump, a deep pool.
Elding, eliding, fuel; ettle, to intend, aim at; feal, to hide; fell, a hill; fey, doomed, fated to die; flake, a hurdle; force, a water-fall; gab, idle talk; gain, adj., convenient, suitable; gait, a hog; gar, to cause, to make; garn, yarn; garth, a field, a yard; gate, a way, street; ged, a pike; gilder, a snare, a fishing-line; gilt, a young sow; gimmer, a young ewe; gloppen, to scare, terrify; glare, to stare, to glow; goam, gaum, to stare idly, to gape, whence gomeril, a blockhead; gowk, a cuckoo, a clown; gowlan, gollan, a marigold; gowpen, a double handful; gradely, respectable; graithe, to prepare; grice, a young pig; haaf, the open sea; haver, oats; how, a hillock, mound; immer-goose, ember-goose, the great Northern diver; ing, a lowlying meadow; intake, a newly enclosed or reclaimed portion of land; keld, a spring of water; kenning, knowledge, experience; kilp, kelp, the iron hook in a chimney on which pots are hung; kip, to catch fish in a particular way; kittle, to tickle; lain, lane, to conceal; lair, a muddy place, a quick-sand; lait, to seek; lake, to play; lathe, a barn; lax, a salmon; lea, a scythe; leister, a fish-spear with prongs and barbs; lift, the air, sky; lig, to lie down; lispund, a variable weight; lit, to dye; loon, the Northern diver; lowe, a flame, a blaze.
Mense, respect, reverence, decency, sense; mickle, great; mirk, dark; morkin, a dead sheep; muck, dirt; mug, fog, mist, whence muggy, misty, close, dull; neif, neive, the fist; ouse, ouze, to empty out liquid, to bale out a boat; paddock, a frog, a toad; quey, a young heifer; rae, a sailyard; rag, hoarfrost, rime; raise, a cairn, a tumulus; ram, rammish, rank, rancid; rip, a basket; risp, to scratch; rit, to scratch slightly, to score; rawk, roke, a mist; roo, to pluck off the wool of sheep instead of shearing them; roose, to praise; roost, roust, a strong sea-current, a race.
Sark, a shirt; scarf, a cormorant; scopperil, a teetotum; score, a gangway down to the sea-shore; screes, rough stones on a steep mountain-side, really for screethes (the th being omitted as in clothes), from Old Norse skriða, a land-slip on a hill-side; scut, a rabbit’s tail; seave, a rush; sike, a small rill, gutter; sile, a young herring; skeel, a wooden pail; skep, a basket, a measure; skift, to shift, remove, flit; skrike, to shriek; slocken, to slake, quench; slop, a loose outer garment; snag, a projecting end, a stump of a tree; soa, a large round tub; spae, to foretell, to prophesy; spean, a teat, (as a verb) to wean; spelk, a splinter, thin piece of wood; steg, a gander; storken, to congeal; swale, a shady place; tang, the prong of a fork, a tongue of land; tarn, a mountain pool; tath, manure, tathe, to manure; ted, to spread hay; theak, to thatch; thoft, a cross-bench in a boat; thrave, twenty-four sheaves, or a certain measure of corn; tit, a wren; titling, a sparrow; toft, a homestead, an old enclosure, low hill; udal, a particular tenure of land; ug, to loathe; wadmel, a species of coarse cloth; wake, a portion of open water in a frozen lake or stream; wale, to choose; wase, a wisp or small bundle of hay or straw; whauve, to cover over, especially with a dish turned upside down; wick, a creek, bay; wick, a corner, angle.
Another source of foreign supply to the vocabulary of the dialects is French; a circumstance which seems hitherto to have been almost entirely ignored. The opinion has, I think, been expressed more than once, that dialects are almost, if not altogether, free from French influence. Some, however, have called attention, perhaps too much attention, to the French words found in Lowland Scotch; and it is common to adduce always the same set of examples, such as ashet, a dish (F. assiette, a trencher, plate: Cotgrave), gigot, a leg of mutton, and petticoat-tails, certain cakes baked with butter (ingeniously altered from petits gastels, old form of petits gâteaux), by way of illustration. Indeed, a whole book has been written on this subject; see A Critical Enquiry into the Scottish Language, by Francisque-Michel, 4to, Edinburgh, 1882. But the importance of the borrowings, chiefly in Scotland, from Parisian French, has been much exaggerated, as in the work just mentioned; and a far more important source has been ignored, viz. Anglo-French, which I here propose to consider.
By Anglo-French is meant the highly important form of French which is largely peculiar to England, and is of the highest value to the philologist. The earliest forms of it were Norman, but it was afterwards supplemented by words borrowed from other French dialects, such as those of Anjou and Poitou, as well as from the Central French of Paris. It was thus developed in a way of its own, and must always be considered, in preference to Old Continental French, when English etymologies are in question. It is true that it came to an end about 1400, when it ceased to be spoken; but at an earlier date it was alive and vigorous, and coined its own peculiar forms. A very simple example is our word duty, which certainly was not borrowed from the Old French devoir, but from the Anglo-French duetee, a word familiar in Old London, but absolutely unknown to every form of continental French.
The point which I have here to insist upon is that not only does our literary language abound with Anglo-French words, but that they are also common enough in our dialects; a point which, as far as I know, is almost invariably overlooked. Neither have our dialects escaped the influence of the Central French of Paris, and it would have been strange if they had; for the number of French words in English is really very large. It is not always possible to discriminate between the Old French of France and of England, and I shall here consider both sources together, though the Old Norman words can often be easily discerned by any one who is familiar with the Norman peculiarities. Of such peculiarities I will instance three, by way of example. Thus Anglo-French often employs ei or ey where Old French (i.e. of the continent) has oi or oy; and English has retained the old pronunciations of ch and j. Hence, whilst convoy is borrowed from French, convey is Anglo-French. Machine is French, because the ch is pronounced as sh; but chine, the backbone, is Anglo-French. Rouge is French, because of the peculiar pronunciation of the final ge; but rage is Anglo-French; and jaundice is Anglo-French, as it has the old j. See Chapters iii-vi of my Principles of English Etymology, Second Series.
A good example of a dialect word is gantry or gauntree, a wooden stand for barrels, known in varying forms in many dialects. It is rightly derived, in the E.D.D., from gantier, which must have been an A.F. (Anglo-French) form, though now only preserved in the Rouchi dialect, spoken on the borders of France and Belgium, and nearly allied to Norman; in fact, M. Hécart, the author of the Dictionnaire Rouchi-Français, says he had heard the word in Normandy, and he gives a quotation for it from Olivier Basselin, a poet who lived in Normandy at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Parisian form is chantier, which Cotgrave explains as “a Gauntrey... for hogs-heads to stand on.” Here is a clear example of a word which is of Norman, or A.F., origin; and there must be many more such of which the A.F. form is lost. There is no greater literary disgrace to England than the fact that there is no reasonable Dictionary in existence of Anglo-French, though it contains hundreds of highly important legal terms. It ought, in fact, to have been compiled before either the English Dialect Dictionary or the New English Dictionary, both of which have suffered from the lack of it.
It would indeed be tedious to enumerate the vast number of French words in our dialects. Many are literary words used in a peculiar sense, often in one that has otherwise been long obsolete; such as able, rich; access, an ague-fit; according, comparatively; to act, to show off, be ridiculous; afraid, conj., for fear that; agreeable, willing; aim, to intend; aisle, a central thoroughfare in a shop, etc.; alley, the aisle of a church; allow, to suppose; anatomy, a skeleton; ancient, an ensign, flag; anguish, inflammation; annoyance, damage; anointed, notoriously vicious; apron, the diaphragm of an animal; apt, sure; arbitrary, impatient of restraint; archangel, dead nettle; argue, to signify; arrant, downright; auction, an untidy place, a crowd; avise (for advise), to inform. It is needless to go through the rest of the alphabet.