Tag Archives: Ha’way

Don’t get mardy from the dreich, have a meikle peeve

Brilliant thread on a forum I frequent, with people all over the country contributing words peculiar to their region. Doubtless all fast succumbing to a global tide of ‘Have a nice day’, so grab them while you can…

Nesh = feels the cold easily (quite widespread ‘oop North)
Mardy = miserable
Nottingham

Boking – a Stoke word for when something is irritatingly catching your attention out of the corner of your eye!

“Thrutch” to mean fidget or wrestle or raum (another one)
Salford

‘Offcumden’ is a great local word used to describe people like me who moved here from elsewhere.
Yorks

Tea cake = bap
Currant tea cake = bap with currants in.
Snicket = passageway
Flit = move house
Nesh = a bit soft
Bits = loose flakes of batter from the chippy
Leet geen = older man thinking he’s attractive to opposite sex.
Snap = packed lunch
Pillocking = joking
Widespread in the North

L’al = little
Bait = lunch (also Bait-box instead of lunch box)
Having a ratch = looking for something
marra = friend
Jam-eater = resident of Whitehaven (or sometimes Workington if the person using it is from Whitehaven) – derogatory
Cumbria

Backsifore = back to front
North Devon

Netty: toilet.
Dreek or dreich (also heard in Scotland) – wet weather.
Clart: mud.
Marrow or marrer : mate – originally used by coal miners to describe their nearest workmate.
Gan: go.
North East

Yitten=scared
Sheffield

Slummy; loose change
Bally Ann Day is the day before payday and you have no money so you search the back of the sofa and armchairs for slummy
Only heard it in Widnes a ‘cut loaf’; not as you would think, a sliced one but a loaf of bread that you cut yourself
‘Door step’, a thickly sliced butty, hence the St Helens expression ‘As thick as a Green Bank butty’ Green Bank is an area in St Helens
Lobbies; a meal in the Liverpool area; possibly a contraction of lobscouse; any meal and does not necessarily mean a pan of scouse
Liverpool and surrounds

Ha’way: Come on (my dogs respond far better to ha’way than anything else now)
A’m hacky from plodging in the clarts: I’m dirty from walking in the mud.
Haddaway and shite; Really? I think you must be mistaken my good man.
Newcastle

Keep yew a douin (hurry up)
On the huh. (something not quite straight)
Dodaman (snail)
Bishy-Barney-Bee (ladybird)
Heaterpeice (that funny grass triangle at rural T junctions)
Loke (alley or lane, what Northerners call a snicket)
Norfolk

Puggy = fruit machine
Hingmee = thingummy = anything you can’t remember the word for [took me weeks to work this out when I first moved here]
Shoogle = move/shake [e.g. we’ll all shoogle up one space/just give it a shoogle]
Outwith = outside of [e.g. he was the fastest rider outwith the paid professionals]
Stramash = disturbance, noisy racket
Scotland

Brivvet – someone who is poking their nose into things they shouldn’t be.
Shropshire
Nebby has the same meaning in Notts

You can always go to Norfolk for a good old ‘mardle’ (chat).
Be wary as folk don’t tend to stand for any old ‘squit’ (nonsense) though!

Round my neck of the woods tourists are called Grockles; down Cornwall way they’re Emmets. That time of the evening when the light is starting to fade into night time is said to be dimpsy. Apparently people who live on Portland call people who don’t live on Portland Kimberlins.

Stoater – a Scottish word for something of exceptional quality

If someone is getting mad as in angry then they are said to be going “leet”
So if you break your mothers favourite vase you say “dunt tell me mam ors she’ll g’ leet”, meaning don’t tell my mother or she’ll go mad.
Yorkshire

Radged: daft.
Gay: very (gay radged: very daft)
Gurn: complain in an ineffective method, “All you do is gurn at me about the bus always being late, why don’t you complain to Stagecoach?” (Different to the west Cumberland use for pulling faces)
Yam: where one lives.
Clemmy: small stone of a handy size for throwing.
Cumberland

Teuchter: country folk
Gie: very
Michty: very
Meikle (‘muckle’): large
Pap: breast
Cac: poo
Neeps: turnips
Ken: know
Fit?: what?
Fit like?: How are you?
Doos: pigeons
Foo’s yer doos?: How are you? (How are your pigeons?)
They’e aye peckin’: classic response to foo’s yer doos
Fa’: who
Park: field
Brae: small hill
Lea: another small hill
Sonsie: lovely
Aboon: among
Scotland

Air – The wife
Blartin – crying
Bag of suck – sweets
Yam Yam – Resident of Dudley
Yed – head
Birmingham

Yam – home
Shan or shant – for embarrassed
Peeve – drink (alcoholic)
Blin – drunk.
Cumbria