] PROCEEDINGS. 
Flaw, a strong and sudden gust of wind, Norwegian flage or flaag. 
The word is used by Shakspeare and Milton : 
Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s faw.—Hamlet. 
And snow and hail and stormy gust and flaw.— Paradise Lost. 
And also by Tennyson : 
** Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn.” 
It is still in use among English seamen. 
Foreright, an old English word used both as an adjective or an 
adverb to denote right onward. 
‘* Their sails spread forth and with a foreright gale.” 
—Massinger, Renegade, V. 
** Though he foreright 
Both by their houses and their persons passed.” 
—Chapman, Homer’s Odyssey, VII. 
Hence it came to mean obstinate or headstrong. .In Newfoundland it 
means foolhardy. 
Frore, for froze or frozen. This is used by Milton : 
“The parching air 
Burns frore and cold perfornis the effect of fire.” 
Glutch, to swallow. ‘My throat is so sore that I cannot glutch 
any thing.” Wright and Halliwell give it as old English, in the same 
sense. 
Gossip, originally Godsib, from God and stb, meaning kin or rela- 
tionship by religious obligation, is still quite commonly used in 
Newfoundland to denote a god-parent. Sb, which in old English and 
Scotch denotes a relative by consanguinity, is used there exclusively to 
denote relationship formed by sponsorship. 
Groaning cake. When a birth is expected, a cake is prepared 
ealled the groaning cake. Very soon after it occurs, with little regard 
to the feelings or nerves of the mother, a feast is made, particularly for 
the elderly women, of whom all in the neighbourhood are present. 
This is called the ‘‘ bide-in feast,” and at it the ‘ groaning cake ” is dis- 
tributed,—bearing the same relation to the occasion that “ bride-cake ” 
does to a marriage feast. This is in accordance with the old English 
practice and language, in which, according to Halliwell, groaning 
denotes lying-in. Heuce we have in Scotch groaning malt—drink 
provided for the occasion, and in old English groaning cheese, groaning 
chair and groaning cake. Judge Bennett supposes that the name of 
