PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. li 



the feast is only the present participle of lide, 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 applied 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 notch 

 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 hapse 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 or a 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. 



