Letter G - Glossary of words in ‘The Northern Cottage and other poems’ by George Dugall
Author: George Dugall
Date: 1824
Source: ‘Glossary’ — an appendix with notes to The Northern Cottage and other poems; written partly in the Dialect of the North of Ireland by George Dugall (Londonderry: William McCorkell, 1824)
Comments: George Dugall (c.1790-1855) lived most of his life at Portlough near Newtowncunningham in Donegal. His book of poems The Northern Cottage and other poems; written partly in the Dialect of the North of Ireland (sixteen of which were written in what he describes sometimes as ‘braid Scotch’ and sometimes as the ‘dialect of the North of Ireland’), also contains an extensive and separately compiled ‘Glossary’ of Ulster-Scots words. George Dugall describes this Glossary as “a tolerably correct analogical specimen of the language … worthy of the unprejudiced and philanthropic eye of research, [hoping that] the acute and erudite philologer will not despise the simple data”. Indeed Dugall’s poems (see Ulster-Scots Poetry 1800-1899) were “cast”, he says, in the scene of “that part of the North of Ireland” where the dialect “bears a strong affinity to that of Scotland”. His poems are even richer in Ulster-Scots vocabulary than the Glossary indicates, and so citations from his poetry have also been excerpted for the Academy’s Historical Dictionary (see Dictionary).
Doc. ref. no.: USLS/TB/Hist/1800-1899/009-g
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Gab, the mouth; to talk idly
Gae, to go
Gaed, went
Gane, gone
Gang, to go
Gar, to make; to force
Gart, forced
Gate, manner; way
Gaucy, large; fat
Gaudsman, the plough-driver
Gaunt, to yawn
Gear, riches; habiliments
Geck, scorn
Gie, to give
Gied, gave
Gien, given
Girn, grin; to distort the features
Girnin, grinning; distortion
Glaikit, giddy; foolish
Glaizie, glassy; smooth
Glaum, to snatch; to haul
Gleg, sharp; keen
Glibe, a glebe
Gloamin, twilight
Glowr, to stare
Glunch, a frown; to frown
Gowf, to strike with a soft substance
Gowk, a cuckoo; a fool
Gowk’s-storm, an annual storm at the coming of the cuckoo
Gowl, to howl; a tremendous vociferation
Grane, groan
Grannie, grandmother
Grape, to grope; an implement having three prongs
Gree, to agree
Greet, to weep
Griesheugh, a fire of hot embers
Grousome, grim; forbidding
Grun’, ground
Grunstane, a grindstone
Grup, to lay hold of
Gude, God; good
Guid, good
Guide’en, good evening
Guidman, master of a house
Guidewife, mistress
Gullie, an old knife
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