glede - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
glede, gleed n A red-hot coal used to start a new fire. [< Old English glæd, gled; oed gleed n ‘a live coal, an ember’ c950→, now only archaic and dialect; dost glede n ‘a live coal, an ember’ late 14th century→]
Ulst.:
1811 Boyle Poems Let every matron wish guid speed, / That boils a pot, or harns her bread, / Or hings a kettle ower a gleed, / At close o’ day.
1829 McSparran Irish Legend 84 Arrah, good marrow marnen to yes, says she, and the luck and the blessing be in your store, will ye help the poor woman? and dwowl a gleed was on the hearth more than on my nose.
1900 Given Poems 170 There watchin’ she sat till her gleed o’ a fire, / Past faces familiar its embers did take.
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 121 gleed = a spark, a red-hot coal, a flame.
1980/81 McClean Ulster Words IV 5 glede = a red ember.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 100 gleed = a glowing ember: ‘sittin stairvin withoot a gleed o fire’.
U.S.:
1930 Shoemaker 1300 Penn Words 27 glede = a red hot coal carried on a small tongs from one pioneer cabin to another to start fires.
Purchase From Ulster to America
The second, revised edition of Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America is now available here:
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (Europe)
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (North America)