110 On some un-noted Wiltshire Phrases. 



the East of England for " the flesh of an animal that dies hy chance ; 

 i.e., what is called in some other parts of the country, braxy. 



Comical, adj. =i\l. *) The effect is very much what an 



Comically, adv.=had\y. J educated Englishman would describe 

 by the former of these words to hear a man tell one with a face of 

 the deepest woe that " he've a bin at whoam from work for a wick, 

 and that he do veel main comical to-day." Perhaps, also, in the 

 course, of further conversation one might hear that his master had 

 taken advantage of his absence to put some one else in his place, 

 and that he considers that he (the master) has "behaved very 

 comically 33 to him in doing so. The underlying sense in each of 

 these cases is, I presume, that of something strange and unaccustomed. 

 But it is curious to see by what a zig-zag course the word has wan- 

 dered from its original root, inasmuch as comic is no doubt from 

 comedy, which itself comes from the odes sung at a comos, or banquet, 

 and the latter again from coiman, to recline, as banquetters did. 



Coward, adj.— ipure. Used of unskimmed milk. An Isle of 

 "Wight glossary gives this as " cowed milk, i.e., milk warm from 

 the cow." I can not, however, help thinking that the etymology 

 is more likely to be cowherd milk, i.e., such milk as a cowherd would 

 be sure to make use of himself, whatever he might pass on to his 

 master's customers ! In this it would be an analogous form with 

 u bee-bread/-' i.e., such bread as is eaten by bees. But any analogue 

 for "cowed/' in the sense of fresh from the cow, I can neither 

 remember nor find. 



Crab, v. #.=abuse, i.e., to speak crabbedly to; the character 

 assumed by the speaker giving form to the verb, even as in the 

 common phrase " to blackguard 33 the verb is formed from the 

 character attributed by the speaker. The word is used in the North 

 of England in the sense of to break or bruise, and I am not sure 

 whether the term in falconry to " crabe 33 may not possibly be cognate. 



Dicky, adj, (a shortened form of daddicky) = decayed, rotten. 

 Used of vegetable matter, and derived from " daddick," or " daddac/' 

 which Halliwell gives as a Western word for decayed wood. Used 

 also of persons, to signify weakly, broken, in bad health. I have 

 heard it used in both senses here, but an informant of mine in Kent 



