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"A prairie fire, I think," said the other.

"Probably it is; but what is this on the hill close by; this is fog, surely? It must be a norther coming. Yes, it is a norther; listen to that roar! We must get our clothing on, or we shall be chilled through."

First, a chilly whiff, then a puff, the grass bends flat; and, bang, it is upon us, - a blast that would have taken a top-gallant sail out of the bolt-ropes; and cold as if blowing across a sea of ice. We galloped to the nearest ravine, and hurried on all the clothing we could muster. Fortunately, though our baggage was left behind, we had taken a supply of blankets, etc.— p. 168.

NORTHERNER.
States.

A citizen of one of the Northern or non-slaveholding

NOTCH. An opening or narrow passage through a mountain or hill. Webster. The Notch in the White Mountains is well known.

This gap is not a notch or depression in the crest of a continuous ridge, but the extension of the plain narrowed down by bare, rugged peaks of almost solid rock, rising abruptly from the plain. - Rep. on Pacific Rail-Road, Vol. II.

Passing down the Chemung and Susquehanna in canoes, they landed, and struck through the wilderness to a gap or notch of the mountains, by which they entered the Valley of Wyoming. - Irving's Washington, Vol. III. p. 468.

NOTHING ELSE.

"It ain't nothing else," is a vulgar style of phraseology

equivalent to "It's that, and no mistake."

Mose. "Lize, ain't you a gallows gall?"

Lize. "I ain't nothing else, Mose." - New York in 1848.

NOTHING TO NOBODY. Nobody's business. This singular expression is common in the language of the illiterate in some parts of the South.

But surely no lady drank punch? Yes, three of them did, . . . . and the way these women love punch is nothing to nobody. — Georgia Scenes.

The way she would make Indian cakes, and the way I used to slick them over with molasses, was nothing to nobody.-N. Y. Spirit of the Times.

TO NOTIFY. 1. To make known; to declare; to publish. "The laws of God notify to man his will and our duty."

2. To give information of. "The allied sovereigns have notified the Spanish court of their purpose of maintaining legitimate government.” 3. To give notice to. "The constable has notified the citizens to meet at the City Hall." "The bell notifies us of the time of meeting." The first of these senses, as Dr. Witherspoon long ago observed (Druid, No. 5), is the only one in which this word is employed by English writers. They use it simply in the sense of the Latin notificare, i. e. " to make known," as in the following examples from Richardson:

His [Duke Robert's] worthie acts valientlie and fortunately atchieved against the infidels, are notified to the world by many and sundrie writers.— Holinshed.

Such protest must also be notified, within fourteen days after, to the drawer. Blackstone's Commentaries.

The two significations, Nos. 2 and 3, in which the direct object of the verb is the person, instead of the thing, is in accordance with the French use of the verb notifier. It is not improbable that they will yet be adopted in England; for the same transfer of the idea from the thing to the person took place in the Latin language itself, in which the word notus, known, was also used in the sense of informed of, knowing.

West.

NOTIONAL. Fanciful, whimsical. Applied to persons; as, "He's a very notional man." New England. NOTIONATE. Fanciful, whimsical. NOTIONS. Small wares or trifles. the ingenious New Englanders.

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Worcester. A word much used by

"Can I suit you to-day, ma'am?" said a peddler from New England, when offering his wares for sale in Michigan. "I've all sorts of notions. Here's fashionable calicoes; French work collars and capes; elegant milk-pans, and Harrison skimmers, and ne plus ultry dippers! patent pills, - cure any thing you like; ague bitters; Shaker yarbs; essences, wintergreen, lobely; tapes, pins, needles, hooks and eyes; broaches and bracelets; smelling-bottles; castor ile; corn-plaster; mustard; garding-seeds; silver spoons; pocket-combs; tea-pots; green tea; saleratus; tracts; song-books; thimbles; baby's whistles; slates; playin' cards; puddin' sticks; baskets; wooden bowls; powder and shot. I shan't offer you lucifers, for ladies with such eyes never buys matches, but you can't ask me for any thing I haven't got, I guess." Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life, Vol. II. p. 113.

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He has invented several other important wooden notions out of his own head; and Muffins says there is enough left to invent a good many more. — N. Y. Spirit of the Times.

NOWHERE. ignorant.

To be nowhere is to be at sea; to be utterly at a loss; to be

This gentleman has been for some years at the head of this institution, the special business of which is to educate teachers who shall be employed in the subordinate public schools; and it has just been ascertained that he is lamentably ignorant of the rudiments of an English education; in short, that in "first principles " he is nowhere.-Boston Bee.

NUB. 1. A Knob. New England.

2. The nub of a story is the point or gist of it.

NUBBINS. Imperfectly formed ears of Indian corn.

"Aunt Peggy brought in some of the early corn this morning, mother. Did you see it?"

"Yes, your father says it is a humbug. There are nothing but little nubbins, with not more than a dozen grains to the ear."

Precisely such badly filled nubbins your children's minds are fated to become, if you adopt the forcing, hot-bed system with them. The Hidden Path.

NULLIFICATION. Some years ago, when the system of high protective

duties on foreign imports was predominant in the national councils, the politicians of South Carolina - whose main article of export is cotton were strongly desirous of free trade with England and France, the principal consumers of that article believing that the consumption of it in those countries would be augmented by an augmentation of the import of their fabrics. Those politicians thought themselves aggrieved therefore by the protection given in the United States to the manufacture of fabrics coming into competition with those of England and France. But finding Congress resolute in adhering to the protective tariff, the South Carolina politicians became so exasperated that at last they proclaimed their intention to nullify the tariff,- that is, to admit British and French goods into their ports free of duty, and not to permit the exercise of custom-house functions in their State. In other words, nullification, in the case of South Carolina, was simply an act, or at least a threat, of open rebellion.

Somebody must go ahead, and look after these matters to keep down nullification, and take care of the Gineral [Jackson] when he gits into his tantrums, and keep the great democratic party from splitting in two. — Crockett, Tour, p. 218.

NULLIFIER. One who believes in or maintains the right of a State to refuse compliance with a law enacted by the legislature of the whole Union.

This term was also applied to a sort of shoe, made like a decapitated boot, brought into fashion in the "nullification" times.

NURLY. A corrupt pronunciation and orthography of gnarly, i. e. gnarled. Times are mopish and nurly. - Margaret, p. 314.

NUTMEG STATE. A nickname given to the State of Connecticut, in allusion to the story that wooden nutmegs are there manufactured for exportation.

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OAK BARRENS. Straggling forests of oak trees, where the soil is very poor, and the trees small, stunted, and gnarled. The oak barrens differ from the "oak openings," inasmuch as the latter are usually on good soil, and hence thrifty.

Our march to-day lay through straggling forests of the kind of low, scrubbed trees, called post-oaks and black-jacks. The soil of these oak barrens is loose and unsound; being little better than a mere quicksand; in which, in rainy weather, the horse's foot slips, and now and then sinks in a rotten, spongy turf, to the fetlock. Irving's Tour on the Prairies, p. 95.

OAK OPENINGS. A characteristic feature in all the North-western States are the oak openings. These are forests of short, thinly scattered oak trees. The trees are so diminutive that generally but one length for rails can be cut between the ground and the limbs. See Opening.

The grounds about the mounds are covered with scattered oak trees, commonly called oak openings, and thickly overgrown with small bushes. — Lapham's Antiqs. of Wisconsin, p. 31.

Having passed the skirt of the woodlands, we ascended the hills, taking a course through the oak openings, where the eye stretched over wide tracts of hill and dale, diversified by forests, groves, and clumps of trees. — Irving's Tour on the Prairies, p. 77.

OBLIGED TO BE. Must be; as, "This is obliged to be a fever and ague country." Comp. the analogous vulgarism, "bound to be."

OBLIGEMENT. This antiquated word is still used by old people in New England. - Pickering.

OBSCUTELY. Obliquely. A factitious word used in New England.

OBTUSITY. Obtuseness. New England.

To OCCASION, or 'CASION. To go about asking for work; i. e. to ask if employers have any occasion for one's services. Maryland.

OCCUPYING CLAIMANT. One who claims land by virtue of occupation of the same under the land systems of various States.

OCELOT. (Mexican, ocelotl.) A beautiful but savage animal, holding a middle rank between the leopard and the common cat, the Felis pardalus of Linnæus. The body is about three feet in length, and the tail about one; height, about eighteen inches. It is a native of various parts of South America, and is thought to extend as far north as Texas. Called also Tiger Cat.

ODD STICK. An eccentric person, an an odd stick."

"odd fish." "John Randolph was

OF. 1. An action of the organs of sense may be either involuntary or voluntary. Accordingly we say to see, to hear, to denote an involuntary act; and to look at, to hearken or listen to, to denote a voluntary one. With regard to the other senses, we are not so well provided with words; but some people, prompted apparently by a feeling of this deficiency, endeavor to supply it by construing the verbs to feel, to taste, to smell, with the preposition of, to signify a voluntary act. Hence to feel, taste, smell of a thing, is to do so intentionally. This corruption is rarely met with in writing.

In the course of the forenoon, a few women came around our tent, felt of it, and peeped through the cracks to see Mrs. Perkins. - Perkins's Residence in Persia, p. 103.

2. In the colloquial language of New England, this preposition, frequently corrupted into on, is used after a gerund or active participle; as, "Ebenezer is coming to stick our pig; but he'll want a quarter for doin' of it (or on it)."

Whereas, many negroes and other slaves absent themselves from their masters' service, and run out into the woods and there remain, killing and destroying of hogs and cattle belonging unto the people of this province, &c. Maryland Statutes. Act of 1751.

OFF THE HANDLE. To fly off the handle is to fly into a passion. To go off the handle is to give up the ghost, to die. The allusion is to the head of an axe.

A poor man in this city had a fortune left him by a distant and wealthy relative, who went off the handle in England, rather unexpectedly. — N. Y. Spirit of the Times. OFFAL. This word, among pork-butchers and curers in the West, implies the liver and lights, or more technically the head and pluck, liver, &c., of the animal; whereas, in correct English, it is limited to the refuse thrown to the dogs. An English reader would be much shocked at the mention of a dish of offal.

OFFICE-HOLDER. A government official. Used frequently as a term of reproach.

OFFICE-HOLDING. The holding of an office under government.

OFFICE-HUNTER. A seeker after public office.

OFFICE-HUNTING. A seeking after public office. That both the practice and the name for it are acquiring all the respectability that age can bestow, is evident from the date of the following extract:

Office-hunting. The decease of Col. Freeman, late Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, the salary of which is $3,000 a year, has caused a great stir at Washington. There are said to be about fifty applicants for the place, among whom are a dozen or two members of Congress.- Niles's Register, March 20, 1824.

OFFISH. Distant or unapproachable in manners.

OFFSET. In accounts, a sum, account, or value set off against another sum or account, as an equivalent. Webster.

This word is generally used in place of the English term set-off. Mr. Pickering says, "it is also very common in popular language, in the sense of an equivalent." None of the English dictionaries have the word in any sense except that of "shoot from a plant.”

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