pismire - 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.
pismire, pishmire, pismither, piss meyer n A small black ant. [piss + mire ‘ant’ (of Scandinavian origin); oed pismire n ‘an ant’ c1386→, obsolete except dialect; snd piss-ant (at pish III(2)) ‘from the smell of the ant-heap’; dare pismire n 1 ‘an ant’ chiefly Northeast]
Ulst.:
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 78 pismire, pismither = an ant.
1919 MacGill Glenmornan 109 He was a thran man, busy as a pismire and hasty as a brier.
1997 Share Slanguage 216 pishmire = irritable individual.
1998 Dolan Dict Hiberno-English 199 Watch out for the pismires with that child.
U.S.:
1863 Anonymous Flatback’s Plantation 37 It is a fine thing … to sit under these noble trees … until a caravan of gigantic black or red pismires begin a pilgrimage up your backbone.
1930 Shoemaker 1300 Penn Words 47 piss meyer = a winged ant, commonly supposed to be the male of the species.
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)