slut - 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.
slut n A crude lamp or candle, consisting of a string or rag dipped in resin, oil, or fat. [origin obscure; oed slut n 4a ‘a piece of rag dipped in lard or fat and used as a light’ 1609→]
Ulst.:
1891 Simmons Armagh Words and Phrases 16 = a candle made of resin.
1923 Lutton Montiaghisms 38 = a poor substitute for a candle, made by dipping and rolling a tow-string or strip of cloth in melted black resin.
1945 Murphy Gullion’s Foot 38 The resin was melted in the water, and then the water poured off to cleanse. The ‘sluts’ were slips of calico or cotton about half an inch wide, and these were drawn through the boiling resin a few times from end to end of the cahm.
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 266 = a home-made candle formed of tow dipped in oil or tallow.
U.S.:
1953 Randolph and Wilson Down in Holler 285 = a primitive lamp, made by attaching a rag wick to a pebble and setting it in a vessel of grease.
1966 Frome Strangers 76 She made her own soap from a boiled mixture of the lye of hickory ashes and grease, and her own candles or else used a ‘slut’, a saucer filled with fat around a string of cotton cloth that served as a wick.
