A Beginner's Guide to the Dorset Dialect

Perhaps fuelled by renewed interest in the work of the poet William Barnes, or maybe on account of the rising numbers of so-called ‘in-comers’ to the county, Dorset’s centuries old dialect is enjoying something of a revival.

Although few people can still speak and understand fluent dialect, it is well preserved in Barnes’ poetry and in the comic verse of the lesser-known late Victorian tailor turned writer Robert Young, from Sturminster Newton.

Several books have been published that shed light on some of the more colourful words and phrases, but we thought we’d provide this condensed guide should you encounter some strange language during your next stay in Dorset.

1. Annan? – Say that again. A handy word if you’re a bit dunch
2. Aggy – To gather eggs
3. Airmouse – A bat
4. A-stooded – Sunk into the ground
5. Bibber – Shiver with cold
6. Blooth – Blossom
7. Bruckly – Brittle
8. Cradlehood – Infancy
9. Chimp – To break the shoots off potatoes
10. Cwoffer – Coffer
11. Dead-alive – Apathetic
12. Dewbit – A bite to eat before breakfast
13. Drawlatchet – Someone who walks slowly and lazily
14. Drinky – Drunk
15. Dumbledore – A bee
16. Emmets – Ants
17. Empt – Empty
18. Flummocks (flummox) – To frighten
19. Footling – Beneath contempt
20. God Almighty’s Cow – A ladybird (Absolutely no idea why!)
21. Goo-coo – Cuckoo
22. Gwains-on – Riotous behaviour
23. Hag-rod – Bewitched
24. Homble – A duck
25. Hwome – Home
26. Joppety-joppety – Nervousness
27. Keep – Cattle feed
28. Leery – Hungry
29. Lippy – Rainy, stormy
30. Litty – Graceful bodily motion
31. Miff – A squabble between friends
32. Mistructful – Suspicious, mistrustfrul
33. Mixen – Dun heap
34. Nesh – Tender
35. Nuncheon – Food eaten in the fields between meals, from noon-meat
36. Overright – Opposite
37. Pelt – Angry fit
38. Quob – To quiver
39. Ramshacklum – Good for nothing
40. Randy – Making merry
41. Reddick – A robin
42. Slommock – An untidy woman
43. Span-new – Brand new
44. Stud – Mystified
45. Tinklebobs – Icicles
46. Torrididdle – Out of your mind
47. Turmit – Turnip
48. Undercreepen – Hypocritical or sly
49. Unray – To undress
50. Upsides wi’ – To be even with
51. Vitty – Proper
52. Volly – To follow
53. Wants – Moles
54. Wopsy – A wasp
55. Wrack – Consequences
56. Yop – To speak quickly
57. Yoller – Yellow
58. Zummat – Something
59. Zummerwold – Freckles