Here's some of them ... just ones I spotted as I flipped the pages ... I've found quite a few more since last time ....
Buffle-horncup, Browsick, Frozy, Alectryomansy, Fox-case, Hakot, Habnab, Lipwisdom, Mustrol, Uberocity, Tyromancy,Alexipharmic, Co-hobate, Wranglands,Bottomry, Bowge, Boutefeu, Cassweed,Abarticulation, Counterbound, Deflourer, Bubbing-school, Emeroids, Erotion,Absterge, Narrable, Knuff, Jobbernowl, Jack-a-lanthorn, Inthronization, Zythepsary, Yarringles, Burgeols, Accly, Feoffer, Fulciment, Lanugo, Agillochum, Bunium, Fencibles, Water-farcy, Yelk, Eared-land, Affy ................
Let's remember, these are all, apparently, English words that the compiler of this dictionary thought that the purchaser would be likely to need, and not only that, he/she might need to translate them into Welsh ! Blimey ! Briwsion ! Rarglwyd !!
Not one of those is in the Chambers English dictionary, nor are they in Y Geiriadur Mawr. So there !
So, I set about trying to find out what these ridiculous contraptions actually mean.... by seeing what the Welsh translation was and working out what it meant. Clever eh ?Let's take a look at the results shall we .......... well, some of them anyway ....
Uberocity = ffrwthiondeb, llewndid....... well ffrwthiondeb means fertility/ fruitfulness, and llewndid means abundance/ fullness. Great word ! Must use it sometime! I've got twins so maybe I suffer from uberocity myself.
Bottomry = llongwystyl ..... so llong is a ship of course, and gwystl turns out to mean a pledge or a hostage! So could be a ship-hostage .... whatever that is. Obviously a key word back in the day though! Notice how the second word that's stuck behind the first one gets soft-mutated, so you have to un-soft-mutate it .
Knuff = drel , delbren, delff ..... .... delbren is a great word, it means a cudgel,a log, a stupid fellow and remarkably, a stick tied to a dog's tail !!! Thank the Lord I didn't miss out on that one. I suppose there was very little to do in those days other that tie sticks to dog's tails. Drel is a churl or a knave, and delff, what a surprise, is an oaf, a churl or a clown. To be honest, all languages I've ever come across have thousands of words for churls, clowns, chumps and the like. So, a Knuff is probably some sort of idiot.
Frozy = mws, mwll, drewllyd..... that's an easy one, they respectively have the idea of stinking, warmth/sultriness and ,er, stinking again. Phew !
Fulciment = atteg ,cynalbost...... well, no atteg to be found, but ateg is a prop or post. Cynalbost also suffers from double-letter syndrome, it's presumably cynnal ( to hold or to support) and post means a post. So it's a long-winded and ridiculous way of saying " a post." Remember I told you that misspellings are rife ..... assume the worst !!!!!
Water-farcy = Y clefri dyfrllyd ..... I like the idea of water-farcy ! I imagine young knuffs from the village after a hard day's uberocity going to the village pond for a bit of water-farcy. .... which will do wonders for their general frozy-ness. However, that's not what it means at all! clefri = leprosy, and dyfrllyd means moist or watery. So it's actually a horrible affliction, the "watery leprosy." Very biblical .... and, by the way, there tend to be a lot of Biblical words in old Welsh bibles, and new ones too come to that.....
Wranglands = cranc-coed .... which translates simply as crab-wood .... could it be an apple wood or orchard ( crab-apples ?).
Tyromancy = caws-goel ...... caws is obviously cheese, and according the my similarly ancient Welsh-English dictionary which I've been mainly using for all this, coel=cofl= belief, trust,credit. Cheese-belief anybody ?
Cassweed = pwrs y bugail .... which even I know is Shepherd's Purse! On the other hand............
Erotion = ysiad, difâd ..... neither of which are in anything..... iad = pate or cranium, and iâd is the same by the way .... but that doesn't make much sense, and as for difâd , bad (m) = a boat, and bad (f) = plague , of which plague is the only likely candidate, but then (a) where's the hat gone off the a, and (b) the di- prefix would imply that the person hasn't got the plague which rather ruins the whole thing. Then there's the possibility of it being mad = benefit, good ... but again, where's the hat gone ? So erotion might be not-good, not-boat ...... basically I've no idea !
Narrable = traethadwy ...... well we all know that traeth is a strand or a beach , and lo and behold, adwy means a gap, breach or pass. So it looks as though a narrable is a gap or breach in a beach. There ought to be a seaside village somewhere in Wales which gets flooded a lot ans is called Narrable..... tybed ?
Well, I'm tired now, what with all this poring through ancient dictionaries in tiny tiny tiny print.
OK .. ... here's Pop Negatif Wastad with iawn .... this'll cheer me up .....