Exmoor Words
Get out of that muxy goyle before dimmit
Like many rural places, Exmoor has its own words that have long been used to describe the landscape, animals, plants and objects that have been here for centuries.
Here are just a few of our favorite words - many thanks to Meriel Harrison for her time in researching these.
| words | meaning |
|---|---|
| A | |
| aggy | caterpillar |
| apple-drane | A wasp. Common, but not so much used as wapsy |
| B | |
| belve | the lowing noise made by cows or stags |
| blooth | blossom |
| C | |
| clam, clammer | a footbridge or a stone or tree placed across a stream to form a footbridge |
| D | |
| dashells | Thistles |
| dimity | twilight |
| dimmet | Dusk; evening twilight; when the light has become dim |
| dumbledore, dumbledrone | bumblebee |
| E | |
| emmet | The ant. |
| emmet batch | ant hill |
| emmet-heap | Ant-hill. The large pile of wood and dust, so often collected in woods by the large wood ants |
| evet | lizard |
| F | |
| furze, fuzz | gorse |
| G | |
| goyals | valleys "clothed by whortleberry bushes and lichens and ferns and mossed trees in the goyals" |
| goyle | A ravine; a deep, sunken, water-worn gully, usually with a running stream down it. |
| H | |
| hobe! | The usual call for a cow, repeated deliberately and with much emphasis. The words used for calling or driving animals are as distinct and invariable in their use, as the corresponding sounds are when applied to human beings. See jup, haw, jee, wug, chook |
| horse stinger | dragonfly |
| I | |
| in-ground | Enclosed land, as opposed to hill-ground, which is unenclosed common. Some of the in-ground'pon Exmoor is so good as any man need put a zull into, but a lot of the hill-ground id'n no gurt shakes |
| J | |
| jack-in-the-box | Same as parson in the pulpit. Wild arum -Arum maculatum |
| juggymire | marshy ground "snipes, who had chosen for their nesting place a rush-clump in the marsh... flew down to find worms by pushing their long bills into the juggymire" p140 |
| K | |
| kitty-keys | The red bunches of fruit of the quickbeam Pyrus aucuparia. I never heard it applied to the seeds of the common ash,Fraxinus excelsior, but it is quite possible that its bunches of seeds may be so called |
| knap | Rising ground; the brow of a hill; highest part of the hill; a knoll |
| knappy | Hilly; steep. A steep field is always either a nappy field or a cleevy field. |
| L | |
| limpern-skrimps | A weed that has flowers in a cluster on the top & hollow stems often used as pea-shooters by children (Hogweed) |
| linhay, linney | A shed, or open building. |
| M | |
| mackerel-sky | Sky mottled with light striped, cirrus clouds |
| mux | muck or dirt |
| muxy | Muddy; covered with mud; dirty (very common) |
| muxy-rout | A deep muddy wheel-rut |
| N | |
| night-crow | The night-jar or goat-sucker. (Usual name.) Caprimulgus europaeus |
| night-hawk | Same as night-crow |
| nitch | a large bundle of straw or reed used in thatching |
| O | |
| oak-fern | The large common bracken (Pteris aquilina.) The reason of the name is that if the stalk is cut across near the root there are dark markings on the section which strongly resemble a very symmetrical oak tree |
| oak-web | Cockchafer. |
| oddmedod | Snail |
| ox-eye | Only name for both the chiff-chaff and the willow warbler. |
| P | |
| parish-lantern | The moon |
| pink-twink | The chaffinch, doubtless from its peculiar double note. Fringilla coelebs |
| popple | pebble |
| popple-stone-pitching | A pavement made of pebbles (very common) |
| Q | |
| quag | quagmire |
| queechy | Applied to land - wet; sodden; swampy |
| quick beam | Mountain ash |
| R | |
| rex-bush | A clump of rushes (always). A very old saying is: "The Barle and the Exe do both urn out o' the same rex-bush." The meaning is that the two rivers with such different courses rise very close together |
| rexen | rushes |
| ruddock | robin |
| S | |
| shord | Broken crockery; a notch in a knife or any cutting instrument; a gap in a hedge. A large gap made for a cart to pass is called a gate-shord |
| skat | A light shower. Also means to throw away an object (skat it away. No good) |
| snarley horns | snails |
| stog | To stick fast in the mud |
| stog | To get in a bog |
| stogged | bogged. Land which is wet and in need of draining is said to be "stoggy". A person or vehicle sunk into the mud and unable to move is "stogged" |
| T | |
| tallet | (i.e. Top-loft) a hay loft |
| tallet | The hayloft over a stable - called sometimes the stable tallet(regular name). Also in any building the space immediately under the roof; but not applied to a ceiled room of any kind, whether attic or not. Welsh,Taflod |
| thick wet | A dense mist - very common in the west |
| trace | 2. To track in the snow - usually applied to hares. The foot-print of a hare is a "prick," but in snow a "trace" |
| tutties | flowers |
| V | |
| vuz-cropper | A name given very commonly to the Porlock Hill horn-sheep. Also to the rough ponies which run wild on the moors |
| vuz-kite | A kestrel |
| vuz-napper | The whinchat Saxicola rubetra. |
| vuz-peg | hedgehog |
| vuzzen | furze or gorse |
| vuzzy | Gorse |
| W | |
| whorting | searching for and gathering whortle-berries |
| worts, wortleberries | bilberries |
| X | |
| Y | |
| yanning-time | lambing time |
| yark | wild, stormy weather |
| yeff | heath or ling |
| Z | |
| zog | A bog or morass |
| zoggy | Boggy |
| zogs | Boggy land (soggy) |
| zugs | bogs, soft wet ground. Little islands, about the size of a bucket, of grass and rushes |
| zweal | scorch or burn (heather and bracken) |
Contact details
Exmoor National Park Authority,
Exmoor House,
Dulverton,
Somerset, TA22 9HL
Tel: 01398 323665
Email: info@exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk
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