PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. li 
the feast is only the present participle of vide, and means staying or 
waiting. 
Gulch. The dictionaries give this word as an obsolete word, which 
means to swallow ravenously, and Wright gives it as Westmoreland 
for to swallow. In this sense it is used at Spaniard’s Bay, and 
probably at other places on the coast of Newfoundland. As a noun it 
is used in other parts of America as denoting a ravine or small hollow. 
It is also apphed to those hollows made by vehicles in snow roads 
known in Canada as pitches. But as a verb, it has come on the 
Labrador coast, to have a meaning peculiar to that region and to those 
who frequent it. In summer men, women and children from New- 
foundland spend some weeks at the fishing there, living in a very 
promiscuous way. As there is no tree for shelter for hundreds of miles 
of islands and shores, parties resort to the hollows for secret indulgence. 
Hence gulching has, among them, become a synonym for living a 
wanton life. 
Gurry, the offal of codfish, now obsolete, but by a euphuism repre- 
sented in dictionaries as meaning ‘‘ an alvine evacuation.” 
Hackle is used in two senses, and for two English words. The one 
is to cut in small notches, as to “hackle” the edge of the door. This 
is the same as the word to hack, defined ‘to cut irregularly, to noteh 
with an imperfect instrument or in an unskilful manner.” The other 
denotes the separating the course part of the flax from the fine, by 
passing it through the teeth of an instrument called in Northumberland 
and Yorkshire, a hackle, in Scotch, a heckle. Hence the word came to 
mean to handle roughly or to worry, particularly by annoying questions. 
In Newfoundland hackle and cross-hackle are specially applied to the 
questioning of a witness by a lawyer, when carried to a worrying degree. 
Haps, to hasp or fasten a door. This was the original Anglo-Saxon 
form apse or haps. It is defined by Johnson as a noun, a clasp folded 
over a staple and fastened on with a padlock, and as a verb, to fasten in 
this manner. Wright gives it as Berkshire for to fasten, and Devonshire 
for the lower part of a half door. In Newfoundland it denotes to fasten 
in general. 
Hat, a quantity, a bunch ora heap. A hat of trees means a clump 
of trees. According to Jamieson, in some parts of Scotland the word 
means a small heap of any kind carelessly thrown together. 
