Essex Dialect in the 18th century In 1857 Thomas Wright compiled a dictionary of obsolete provincial words. The table below is based on words that Thomas Wright specifically identified with usage in Essex in addition to those gathered from other sources and personal memory. Other words have been added as a contribution from local people with memories of their parents and grandparents favourite expressions. The guide may help explain unknown words in old books on Essex people. Afeared Afraid Ails Ears of corn Artnoon Afternoon Bange Light rain Beaver Ploughman's lunch taken at about 11am Bigge Cows teat Billy Wicks Owl Boine Swelling Bonie Blow or wound Bonkka Very large Bonx Beat up mix for batter puddings Bullimong A mix of oats, vetch and peas Bumby Place where houshold rubbish is dumped Busk Lie in sun Cart rake Cart track Chice Small portion Chop Flog Clars Hands - Often clars and jaws = hands and face Crotch tail Kite Dag Dew Dare To Grieve Dean Din or noise Dew Bit Ploughman's early morning breakfast Dogs Dew Doke A small brook or a bruise Dooles Rough hay made from roadside verges or ditches Dolouring Mournful noise Dunnekin Outside Toilet Eel thing St Elmo's Fire Essex stile Ditch Fare To appear Favour Resemble Feff To overreach in buying or selling Fimble To touch lightly Finnicks Tawdry dressed woman Fleet Shallow Four Want Ways Crossroads with 4 roads meeting Fours Ploughman's dinner taken about 4pm Furnitade Furniture Furriners People from outside the village Ginnick Neat or Perfect Goff A mow of hay Goffer To eat fast Gole Prominent Harve A haw Hazardable Dangerous Hazely brick earth a loamy soil found in Essex Hazle Stiff as clay Hodmedod Snail Hoap Helped Ingons Onions Jice Small quantity Julk Hard blow Keeping Room Living room Largess Tip after harvest Latard late Levens The name for lunch in harvest time - taken more quickly than a ' Beaver' Martlemas beef Beef dried in the chimney like bacon Mauther Awkward girl Meece Mice Muckinger Handkerchief Muggy Half intoxicated Newing Yeast Nig Small piece Nippet Small quantity Not Well tiled Noteless Stupified Nuzzle Sound of bellows Oaken Oak Ollust Always Onbeknown Unknown Onsensed Stunned Owd Old - Used figuratively not literally Piggatory Great trouble Plum Pudding Red Campion Plant Polliwig Tadpole Sarce Vegetables Scat Scared Scatch pawed Left handed Shirt Buttons Stitchwort plant Teuk Redshank Thrap To Crowd Warsley Not much Waste To abate We's Our Whip Stalk Whip handle Winnick Suppressed cry Wusser Worse Wust Worst

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