You must fight or play; so take your choice, for I feel most wolfish and savagerous. Sam Slick, 3d ser. p. 117. They'd been fightin' the barrel of whiskey mightily comin' up, and were perfectly wolfish arter some har of the dog. - Porter's Tales of the South-west, p. 121. WOLVERINES. The people of the State of Michigan; who are said to be so called from the large number of the mischievous prairie wolves found there. WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION. An assemblage of persons who endeavor by public discussions to improve the social and political condition. of women. Thousands of parrots passed over, with their peculiar short and querulous note. In the morning and towards night they kept up the most vehement chattering, all talking and none listening, after the manner of a Woman's Rights Convention.— Bard's Waikna, p. 89. WONDERS. In Nantucket, a kind of cake. To WOOD up. 1. To lay in a supply of wood, as a steamboat at a landing-place. The boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, in their long voyages, are obliged to make frequent stops for this purpose. The process of wooding-up is one of the first the passenger is made acquainted with. The steamer approaches a dreary shore, without any thing to indicate that civilized man has ever set his foot upon it for many miles above or below, save the wood-pile and a small cabin of the rudest description. The terms are usually agreed upon before the boat touches the bank; and when it does, fifteen or twenty hands throw on board from twenty to fifty cords, at a price varying from two to three dollars, for which the woodman pockets his money and seems a happy man, although cut off from the world.-N. Y. Tribune, 1848. 2. To take a dram. Western. WOODBINE. See Virginia Creeper. WOODING-PLACE. A station on the banks of a river where the steamboats stop to take in supplies of wood. WOODCHUCK. (Arctomys monax.) The ground hog, a rodent mammal of the marmot tribe. It burrows, and is dormant in winter. Yea, verily, this is like a woodchuck in clover.- Margaret, p. 48. My dear hearers, I've been trying to beat [certain truths] into you with a sermonizing sledge-hammer; and you appear to be as stupid as woodchucks in winter. Dow's Sermons, Vol. III. p. 155. WOOD MEETING. The name given by the Mormons to a Camp-meeting. WOOL OVER THE EYES. To draw the wool over one's eyes, is to impose upon one, take one in. Elder Sniffles ain't so big a fool as to have the wool drawd over his eyes by such trash as Sall Hugle. Widow Bedott Papers. WOOLLY-HEADS. A term applied in the first place to negroes, and then to anti-slavery politicians. The law, it seems, it did n't work exactly as it ought, Though Greeley kept a sayin' so, and so his readers thought. They're mighty bright, them woolly-heads; they think they find a prize, Rider. See Stake and Mr. Haskell, one of the delegates from Tennessee, told a story about a man in his "diggins," who was once struck by "Joe Larkins," by which he was knocked at least forty rods. He fell against a worm fence, and carried away about forty panels, rail-riders and all.-N. Y. Mirror. We drove master Jack about the common, until we had hemmed him in an angle of a worm fence.-W. Irving, Wolfert's Roost, p. 251. WORRYMENT. Trouble, anxiety. The worriment we have lately had about money has set you a dreaming. - Sam Slick, Human Nature. WORST KIND. Used in such phrases as, "I gave him the worst kind of a licking." Also adverbially; as, "I licked him the worst kind,” i. e. in the worst manner possible, most severely. WRAPPER. A loose dress or gown. Her dress was a blue-striped linen short-gown, wrapper, or long-short, a coarse petticoat, checked apron, etc. Margaret, p. 14. WRAPPERS. See Leggings. WRATH. Like all wrath, is a Southern phrase, meaning, violently; vehemently; angrily. There ain't much to interest the traveller on the railroad from Hamburg to Charleston. Most of the passengers in the car were preachers what had been up to Augusta to attend the convention. They was the dryest set of old codgers I ever met with, till the jolting of the cars shook up their ideas a little, and then they fell to disputin' like all wrath. - Maj. Jones's Travels. WRATHY. Very angry. A colloquial word. -Webster. Oh! you're wrathy, ain't ye? Why, I didn't mean nothin' but what was civil! -Mrs. Clavers's Forest Life, Vol. I. p. 103. The general was as wrathy as thunder; and when he gets his dander up, it's no joke. Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 34. WRECKERS. A gang of Baltimore rowdies. 44 Y. YALLER. A vulgar pronunciation of yellow. YAM. (Genus Dioscorea.) A large esculent tuber or root of various climbing plants growing in tropical America, which forms a wholesome and palatable food. YANK. A jerk. New England. In some verses prefixed to the New-Year's Address of the carrier of "The Age," a weekly journal published in Maine, the Carrier Boy asks the spirit of Edgar A. Poe to write him a few lines. The poet looks wild at the blue-eyed child, Then clutches him by the hair, And makes him abide by the chimney-side, As he sinks back in his chair Pulls up the machine, and with dreadful mien He oils each rusty wheel, Then seizes the crank, and with many a yank Brings out a poetic squeal. TO YANK. To twitch or jerk powerfully. New England. YANKEE. 1. The popular name for the citizens of New England, but applied by foreigners to all the inhabitants of the United States. The name [Yengees or Yenkees] was originally given by the Massachusetts Indians to the English colonists, being the nearest sound they could give for English." It was afterwards adopted by the Dutch on the Hudson, who applied the term in contempt to all the people of New England. During the American Revolution, it was eagerly caught at by the British soldiers. Note to the Poetical Works of J. Trumbull. Mr. Heckewelder, a high authority on Indian subjects, has no doubt that the word was the first effort of the Indians "to imitate the sound of the national name of the English, which they pronounced Yengees." Furthermore he says, the Indians "say they know the Yengees [i. e. the New Englanders], and can distinguish them by their dress and personal appearance, and that they were considered as less cruel than the Virginians, or Long Knives. The English proper they call Saggenash.” Hist. Acc. of the Indian Nations, p. 132. Judge Durfee, in his poem called "Whatcheer: or, Roger Williams in Banishment," thus mentions the English under this name: "Ha! Yengee," said the Sachem, "wouldst thou go To soothe the hungry panther scenting blood?" Canto III. 32. Base Wampanoag! we 'll devour that clan, And drive the Yengees back o'er ocean blue. An interesting article on this word in "Notes and Queries" (1852, p. 57), by Mr. T. Westcott of Philadelphia, contains a letter from the Rev. Mr. Gordon, giving an account of the skirmishes at Concord and Lexington, in which he says: They [the British troops] were roughly handled by the Yankees, a term of reproach for the New Englanders, when applied by the regulars. 2. In New England, a glass of whiskey sweetened with molasses; a common beverage in the country. YANKEEFIED. You fine Miss Boston lady gay, For this your speech I thank ye, Call on me when you come this way, Fessenden. Yankee Doodle Song. After the Yankee fashion; like a Yankee. The Colonel whittled away at a bit of stick in the most Yankeefied way possible. - A Stray Yankee in Texas, p. 113. YANKEELAND. 1. New England. 2. The United States. YANKEE DOODLE. There has been much discussion as to the origin of the term Yankee Doodle, and of the well-known tune which bears this name, without coming as yet to any very satisfactory conclusion. In England the air has been traced back to the time of Charles I.; and it appears that the doggerel verses that are sung to it can claim nearly as respectable an antiquity. This, however, is not all. The song is said to be identical with one sung by the agricultural laborers in the Netherlands. Kossuth and his fellow Hungarians, when in this country, are said to have recognised it as one of the old national airs of their native land. And recently Mr. Buckingham Smith, our then Secretary of Legation at Madrid, has asserted that it is the ancient Sword Dance of the Biscayans. YEATH, for earth. A vulgar pronunciation among the illiterate at the South. Why, you don't look like the same man. I never should have know'd you. What upon yeath has brung you out so?"- Maj. Jones's Sketches. YEATHQUAKE, for earthquake. A Southern vulgarism, like the previous word. The Girard College is all solid brick and marble. Fire can't get hold of wood enough to raise a blaze, and the walls are so thick and strong that nothin' short of Florida lightnin' or a South American yeathquake could n't knock it down. — Maj. Jones's Sketches. YELLOW. A term applied to colored boys and girls whose complexion tends towards white; those of a darker hue are called "brown." Law sakes, Miss Phillis, does you tink I have no sense; I hate a yaller gal as I do poison. Sam Slick, Human Nature. YELLOW COVER (pron. yaller kiver). A notice of dismissal from government employment. So called from its being usually enclosed in a yellow envelope. YELLOW HAMMER. (Picus auratus.) The popular name of the Golden-winged Woodpecker, the most beautiful of the genus. It is known by other names in different parts of the country, as High-hole, Yacker, Clape, etc. YELLOW JACKET. A small wasp, well known for its terrible sting. YELLOW ROOT. (Zanthorhiza apiifolia.) A plant whose roots are used as a dye by the Indians. It is also medicinal. YELLOW THROAT. A small singing bird of the warbler species. YERE. A Southern pronunciation for here. "Why is it, my son, that when you drop your bread and butter, it is always butter side down?" "I don't know. It had n't oughter, had it. The strongest side ought to be uppermost, had n't it, ma? And this yere is the strongest butter I ever seed."- Cairo (Illinois) Times, Feb. 28, 1855. YOPON. (Ilex vomitoria.) North Carolina tea. A plant indigenous to North Carolina; and when the leaves are dried by slow heat, and infused in water, it is used as a beverage. It is slightly intoxicating. It belongs to the same genus of plants as the celebrated Mate (Ilex paraguayensis) of South America. 66 YOU DON'T! for you don't say so! i. e. really! indeed! "Mr. Grimaldi threw a back somerset out of a three-story window." Now, you don't!" YOURN. This is a contraction of your own, or a change in the termination of the pronoun yours, in conformity with mine, and which is much used by the illiterate and vulgar. It is also used in London and in the West of England. "The cockney," says Mr. Pegge, "considers such words as our own and your own as pronouns possessive, a little too much expanded; and, therefore, thinks it proper to curtail them, and to com |