Letter U - Glossary of Words in the Counties of Antrim and Down
Author: William Hugh Patterson, MRIA
Date: 1880
Source: A Glossary of Words and Phrases used in Antrim and Down (London: Trübner & Co., for the English Dialect Society)
Comments: In the introduction to his Glossary of Words and Phrases used in Antrim and Down, William Hugh Patterson provided an historical account of the Scottish settlement of east Ulster from 1607. From these origins he observed that the words and phrases of the local population ‘will be found in the main to be of Scottish origin, and many of them have already found a place in Jamieson’s dictionary’. He acknowledged difficulty in spelling many words ‘because I only had them as sounded’. William Hugh Patterson (1835-1918) was the son of a famous naturalist, Robert Patterson, whose book on Birds frequenting Belfast Lough was also published in 1880. Many of the local names for birds in the glossary were sourced from his father. As he was also a collector of phrases and proverbs, Patterson’s glossary remains a unique record of Ulster-Scots in the 19th century.
Doc. ref. no.: USLS/TB/Hist/1800-1899/006-u
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Unaise, Unease, Unaisement, sb. an uneasy state. ‘They got into an unaise when they heard about it.’ ‘It caused a great unaisement in the village.’
Unco, adj. strange.
Underboard, adj. dead and coffined, but not yet buried.
Under foot salve, sb. filth applied as a poultice in the case of horses, &c.
Unfeelsome, adj. unpleasant; disagreeable.
Unfordersome, adj. unmanageable.
Unknownce, Unknownst, adv. unknown.
Unpossible, adv. impossible.
Unsignified, adj. insignificant.
Unsonsy, adj. unlucky.
Untimous, adj. at unseasonable times.
Upcast, sb. a reproach; something ‘cast up’ to one.
Upon, prep. with. ‘I take the medicine upon milk.’
Upsetting, adj. arrogant; assuming. ‘The’re the most upsettinest people in the country.’
Up the country people, sb. pl. persons from any part of Ireland, except the north-east of Ulster.
Us, pron. me.
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