To shammick means to “amble about slowly or lounge around.” Most often heard in Appalachia, this verb is also spelled shummick. Writer Horace Kephart defined it this way: “to shuffle about, idly nosing into things, as a bear does when there is...
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
A resident of Michigan’s scenic Beaver Island shares the term, boodling, which the locals use to denote the social activity of leisurely wandering the island, often with cold fermented beverages. There have been various proposed etymologies...
The word larruping and its many variant spellings is often used to describe delicious food. The verb larrup means to “beat” or “strike,” and larruping (often spelled with the G dropped: larrupin’) is used as an intensifier...
In parts of Appalachia, the southern United States, and a few other places, the expression I don’t care to is understood to mean “I wouldn’t mind to.” In other words, I don’t care to may mean exactly the opposite of...
If you’re mommicked, if you’re bothered, frustrated, or exhausted. Most often heard in coastal North Carolina, mommicked derives from an old word mammock, which as a noun, means “a fragment,” and as a verb, means “to...
