TO WILT. To droop; to wither, as plants or flowers cut or plucked off.-Holloway. A word common in the United States, and provincial in England, where welk and welt are used in the same sense.-Worcester.

Miss Amy pinned a flower to her breast; and when she died, she held the wilted fragments close in her hand.-Margaret, p. 213.

Some cotton fellar here bid sixty dollars [for the slave], and she wilted right down.-Robb, Squatter Life.

TO WIND UP. To close up; to give the quietus to an antagonist in a debate; to effectually demolish.

John Bell, of Tennessee, that unmistakable Whig, has rung out a clear and far-sounding note of alarm concerning this Mexican war. He is as serious as a preacher, and as downright as a sailor in the delivery of his sentiments. A lively dialogue, constituting a kind of interlude to his speech, sprang up between him and Mr. Cass, in which he pretty effectually wound up' the Senator from Michigan.-N. Y. Com. Adv. WINKLE-HAWK. (Dutch winkel-haak.) A rent in the shape of the letter L, frequently made in cle. It is also called a winkel-hole. A New York term.

WINSOME. (Ang. Sax. winsum.)

Lively; cheerful; gay.

Provincial in the North of England.-Brockett.

The curls that overhang her face

In clusters rich and winsome grace.—American Anthology.

WIRE-PULLERS. A term denoting those who, by their secret plots and intrigues, control the movements of the puppets on the political stage.

Baltimore is now the great Babel of Loco-Focoism. All the officeholders, office-seekers, hangers-on, and wire-pullers of that craft are here. What a happy country this would be if Baltimore should sink, or swim off somewhere! I have no doubt that some righteous would perish, but there would be so much demagogueism swamped with them, that the political atmosphere would be renovated for half a century!-N. Y. Tribune.

The coming contest is to decide whether the people have the privilege of electing a chief magistrate of their own selection, or only the privilege of electing one of two candidates whom self-elected cliques of nominators choose to designate. The Philadelphia Convention will assemble on Wednesday; already that city is filled with wire-pullers, public opinion manufacturers, embryo cabinet officers, future ambassadors, and the whole brood of political make-shifts, who contrive to live out of the public purse, by abusing public credulity.-N. Y. Mirror, June 5, 1848.

WITCH-HAZEL. The popular name of the Hamamelis, so called from its reputed power of bending towards water, when a forked branch is held in the hands.

WITNESS-TREES. In newly settled countries at the West, every mile square is marked by "blazed" trees, and the corners especially distinguished by stakes whose place is pointed out by trees called witness-trees.-Mrs. Clavers's Western Clearings, p. 3.

WOLFISH. Savage; savagely hungry. A Western word.

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 Southwest, p. 121.

WONDERMENT. Astonishment; amazement. Wonderful appearance. Not in use except in low or sarcastic language. -Johnson. Examples of the use of this word may be found in many of the old authors.

When my pen would write her titles true,

It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment.-Spenser.

Those things which I here set down, do naturally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments.-Bacon.

The neighbors made a wonderment of it, and asked him what he meant-L'Estrange.

All was wonderment and curiosity, and Jim for once experienced the inadequacy of the human capacity for such extraordinary occasions.-Chronicles of Pinevelle, p. 12.

WONT. A common contraction for will not. In New England, generally pronounced wunt.

TO WOOD. To supply or get supplies of wood.-Webster. The boats on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, in their long voyages, are obliged to make frequent stops for supplies of wood. The common phrase is to wood up.

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 $2 to $3, for which the woodman pockets his money and seems a happy man, although cut off from the world.-N. Y. Tribune, 1848.

WOODING-PLACE. A station on the banks of a river where the steamboats stop to take in supplies of wood.

WOODCHUCK. In New England, the popular name of a rodent mammal, a species of the marmot tribe of animals, the Arctomys monax. The ground hog. It burrows and is dormant in winter.-Webster.

Yea, verily, this is like a woodchuck in clover.-Margaret, p. 48. WORM-FENCE. A rail fence laid up in a zig-zag manner.

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. WORRY. Perplexity; trouble. In familiar language, this word is often used with us; and, although it does not appear in any of the English glossaries, it is also employed colloquially in England. We say, 'the worry of business ;' 'the worry of politics,' &c.

I am in the midst of the bustle attending the opening of the session [of Parliament]. . . . . But the excitement and worry are more than I can stand in the present state of my health.-Lord Sydenham, Memoirs. WORSER, instead of worse, is often heard among the vulgar. It is common in the dialect of London, and like other words enlarged from the comparative degree, is supported by eminent writers.-Pegge, Anecdotes of the English Lang.

Let the worser spirit tempt me again.--Shakspeare, King Lear. Changed to a worser shape thou canst not be.-Ibid. King Henry VI. WRATH. Like all wrath, i. e. violently; vehemently; angrily. A Southern simile.

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.

WRINKLE. An idea; notion; fancy. Colloquial in England and America.

Such was, after a little experience, the wrinkle adopted by Mr. Lear. -Quarterly Rev., Vol. LXXXI. p. 462.

WRAPPER. A loose dress or gown.

Her dress was a blue-striped linen short-gown, wrapper, or long-short, a coarse petticoat, checked apron, &c.—Margaret, p. 14.

Y.

TO YANK. To twitch or jerk powerfully; a term used in New England.

YARN. A story. A word chiefly used by seamen. long yarn, is to tell a long or tedious story.

To spin a

YEATH, for earth. A vulgar pronunciation among the illiterate at the South.

66

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 couldn't knock it down.--Maj. Jones's Sketches.

YELLOW-HAMMER. (Picus auratus. Wilson, Ornith.) 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, &c.

YELLOWS, often pronounced yallers. A disease of horses and cattle, which is indicated by a yellow appearance of the eyes, inside of the lips, &c.-Farrier's Dict. This word is old and is used by Shakspeare:

His horse sped with spavins and raied with the yellows.--Taming of the Shrew.

390

DICTIONARY OF AMERICANISMS.

Ask the widder if she can cure the yallers in Bright [the ox].-Margaret, p. 17.

YOU DON'T! for you don't say so; really! indeed! as, 'Mr. A threw a back somerset out of a three-story window. Ans. Now, you don't!'

YOUNG DEMOCRACY. See Barnburners.

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 compress them into the words ourn and yourn, for common daily use."-Anecdotes of the English Lang., p. 193.

He might have added hisn, as in the famous distich:
Him as prigs vot isn't hisn,

Ven he's cotch'd 'll go to pris'n.