pish - Hamely Tongue
Source: The Hamely Tongue: A Personal Record of Ulster-Scots in County Antrim
Author: James Fenton
Comments: ‘The Hamely Tongue’ has been widely acclaimed as the authoritative record of contemporary (surviving) Ulster-Scots in its heartland of County Antrim where James Fenton faithfully recorded his dictionary items among a network of other native speakers over a 30-year period. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from ‘Part One’ of the fourth edition of 2014 and includes over 3000 word entries. The book preliminaries, supplementary word lists and end matter have been excluded.
pish ~ urinate; rain heavily. pishin teeming down (The Ballymena girl who allegedly, for her suitor’s benefit, defined ‘passion’ as teemin kets an doags — and ‘sex’ as proota-begs — is probably mythical). pishin meer a high, thin waterfall (esp. that near Glenariff, the volume and indeed appearance of which depend on the urinary vagaries of our climate). pishmowl the common ant [f. the smell of the ants’ nest]. pish o a day a day of prolonged, heavy rain. pish-the-bed a person afflicted by bed-wetting; the dandelion (Br,E,K,L,T); the coltsfoot (G).
