#oedantedatings
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paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

3-year antedating of gallow(s)-tree (sense 2) ‘iron support for a pot over a fire’ (in #OED from 1590)

Item one gallowtrye one pare of howkes & one landyron – 20d. (1587)

Old Place, New Perspectives: a History of the Manor House of Old Sleaford, Lincolnshire (2020), p. 102

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Photo of a large old red-brick fireplace containing a gallows-like framework from which to hang a cooking pot. Nothing's cooking at the moment.
July 18, 2025 at 8:29 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

32-year antedating of burling-iron 'pincers for extracting knots from wool' (in #OED from 1530)

all the stuffe that longyth to my shope as wele the Walkers erthe as handylls and burlyngs yrnes (1498)

Will of William Halowton, fuller, in Early #Northampton Wills, 214
July 1, 2025 at 7:20 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

63-year antedating of ewe-lease 'pasture for ewes' (in #OED from 1874)

Wolverton Ewe-lees (1811) [in Charminster]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 342
Photo of about twenty ewes grazing in a large lush green field, with rolling wooded countryside in the distance. There is, of course, one black sheep among the otherwise white flock.
June 24, 2025 at 7:50 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

42-year antedating of post-house (sense 1) 'inn or other building where horses are kept for the use of travellers' (in #OED from 1611)

le posthowsse ten’ voc’ clavelles (1569) [in Piddlehinton]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 314
June 20, 2025 at 9:02 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

129-year antedating of tucking-mill ‘fulling-mill’ (in #OED from 1467–8)

la Toukyngmulle (1338) [in Horningsham]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Wiltshire, p. 442

curs’ aque apud la Toukyng Mull (1428) [in Turners Puddle]

Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 297

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June 12, 2025 at 12:21 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

76-year antedating of culver-house ‘dove-cote’ (in #OED from 1340)

le Culverhouse (1264)
Colverhouscroft (1270)

#EPNS Place-Names of #Wiltshire, pp. 428, 437
Photograph of an intact medieval dovecote sitting amongst the fields and hedges of Sibthorpe in Nottinghamshire. It is a stone-built circular tower, tapering as it rises in two stages, with a conical tiled roof. A doorway is visible at ground level.
June 10, 2025 at 12:54 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

145-year antedating of chalk-land (in #OED from 1941)

Sainfoin. This is the most valuable of all the grasses cultivated in this county: and is much grown on the chalk-land of the eastern part (1796)

John Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of the County of #Kent, p. 96
Black and white photo of the prominent chalk cross which was cut into a hillside at Lenham in 1922 as a war memorial. A tractor is at work in a field in the foreground, and neat rows of haycocks are visible.
June 7, 2025 at 9:40 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

36-year antedating of broadcast (adv. sense a.) 'scattered widely over a suface' (in #OED from 1832)

The constant practice of making summer-fallows in many counties for wheat, and sowing beans broad-cast after it, and then recurring to a fallow again ...

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In a cheery watercolour illustration, a gaily dressed farmer with curly white locks scatters seeds by hand over a field. His waist-high seedlip is hung around his neck. A plough-team of two horses is at work in another part of the field. We are drawn to the farmer's bright blue cravat, a distraction from the dead rabbit which droops from his jacket pocket.
June 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

143-year antedating of cheese-chamber 'room in which cheese is dried or stored' (in #OED from c.1632)

j narke standyng in the chese chamber and oon of the newe small cheyers (1489)

Will of Isbell Geffron, Early #Northampton Wills, p. 152
Eight large round white cheeses sit on two wooden shelves. We catch a tiny glimpse of more cheeses on a shelf above. It all smells lovely, I'm sure.
May 24, 2025 at 3:17 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

77-year antedating of hunting-horn (in #OED from 1694)

Then he maid one of his servants go in unto the park and blow on ane hunting horne, bot assoone as the wyld beastes off divers sortes heard the blowing of the horne, they cam skipping ... (1617)

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A medieval hunting scene in open woodland on a bright day. A stag flees from a band of huntsmen, some on horseback, some with hounds. Three of the huntsmen are blowing curved horns.
May 21, 2025 at 9:34 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

13-year antedating of #tennis court (in #OED from 1564)

iij burgage ... with a tenys cowrt with a toft of grounde in whiche standeth a lytle house ... (1551) [in Bridport]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 4, p. 360
This may be the most difficult image I've ever tried to describe! It's a black and white etching, and I can confidently say there are four players, playing doubles. Beyond that, God only knows! There are balls everywhere. All the players seem to be thwacking thin air at once. The spectators, safely enclosed in some kind of penthouse, are barely watching the game. I have no idea what's going on.
May 14, 2025 at 11:13 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

252-year antedating of stack-yard 'rick-yard' (in #OED from 1569)

Stakkeyarde (1317)

#EPNS Place-Names of #Nottinghamshire, p. 283
A dog supervises as three humans unload hay from a horse-drawn cart and place it upon an impressively large rick. Good work, that dog!
May 10, 2025 at 10:15 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

211-year antedating of horse-grass ‘area of grazing land sufficient to feed a horse’ (in #OED from 1493)

le Horsgres (1282)

#EPNS Place-Names of #Nottinghamshire, p. 282

OED’s earlier quote (ante 1000) belongs under garston ‘paddock’, not here.
The Oxford English Dictionary entry for horse-grass. The first example cited is “Onbutan ðone horsgærstun”, from a tenth-century text published in John Mitchell Kemble's ‘Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici’.
May 7, 2025 at 7:16 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

79-year antedating of pinnocky ‘consisting of sticky red clay mixed with small stones’ (in #OED from 1875)

Coomby and pinnacky soils are nearly under the same system [of crop-rotation] as the clay already described (1796)

John Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of #Kent p. 73
Photo of crop cultivation on red clayey soil. Two rows of shoots and green leaves are beginning to appear, next to a number of apparently empty furrows.
May 3, 2025 at 11:12 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

165-year antedating of horse-monger ‘dealer in horses’ (in #OED from a.1400)

Horsmongeres-streta (c.1235) [in Oxford]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Oxfordshire, p. 38
Oil painting by Alfred James Munnings - "The Horse Fair (A Suffolk Fair)" (1904). Half a dozen men, two smoking pipes and all but one wearing hats, evaluate a fine looking horse on a grassy spot beside the tents and stalls of a busy outdoor market. One chap seems to be trying to check the horse's teeth. The white-suited horse trader looks rather unimpressed by whatever his potential customers are mumbling. There are no women to be seen. Another horse looks on dolefully.
May 1, 2025 at 8:39 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

78-year antedating of toll-hall ‘hall where tolls are collected, town-hall’ (in #OED from 1395)

La Tolhalle (1317) [in Bridport]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 4, p. 360
Oil painting by Bernard Finnigan Gribble - "The Old Custom House at Poole, Dorset" (1937). A grand three-storied Georgian brick building, with twin stairways to a first-floor entrance, stands at a road junction by the quayside. A handful of people are walking along or interacting in the streets, and steam rises from the funnels of ships in the harbour.
April 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

322-year antedating of fish-stall (in #OED from 1818)

the ffyssh stall as yt standyth in the fysh market in the town of Northampton (1496)

a ffysshstall now in the tenur of William Sywell fyssher (1503)

Wills of John & Annes Esex, Early #Northampton Wills, NorthantsRS 42: 212,232
Oil painting by Gillian Roberts - "The fish stall, Borough Market". The stallholder, wearing blue overalls and a flat-cap, is serving several customers in a busy street scene. The style is impressionist, and many details are left to the imagination, yet the fish shine unmistakably.
April 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

196-year antedating of conifer (in #OED from 1851)

Coniferslad (1655), Conifer Sladd (1728) [in Little Barningham]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Norfolk Part 3, p. 58
Photo of a conifer plantation in a shallow valley.
April 21, 2025 at 1:51 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

124-year antedating of watermill (in #OED from 1371)

le Watermulne (1247)

#EPNS Place-Names of #Warwickshire, p. 331
Oil painting by Jacob van Ruisdael - "Landscape with a watermill and men cutting reed" alias "Watermill near a farm" alias "A thatch-roofed house with a water mill" (c. 1653).
April 20, 2025 at 2:37 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

100-year antedating of cherry-tree (in #OED from c.1400)

Chirretreaker (c.1300) [in Calthorpe]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Norfolk Part 3, p. 70
Photo of an avenue of cherry-trees in blossom, in a park, on a sunny day. Pink fluffy blossom on the branches and on the ground.
April 16, 2025 at 3:21 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

21-year antedating of bound-stone (in #OED from 1602)

lapid’ voc’ the Bonde stones apud Cokes (1581) [in Winterborne Came]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Dorset 1, p. 264
Black and white photo showing a boundary stone standing next to a sign-post at the junction of two rural lanes.
April 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

201-year antedating of watering-stone 'stone water-trough' (in #OED from 1788)

Item one watring stonne one bucket a horse hocke & an old plowe – 2s. (1587)

Inventory of Agnes Steele, in Old Place, New Perspectives: a History of the Manor House of Old Sleaford, Lincolnshire, p. 102
Photo of an old grey stone water-trough, standing on an area of grass. It is empty and weather-worn, with patches of yellow and reddish lichen.
April 8, 2025 at 7:50 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

438-year antedating of lathe-yard 'barn-yard' (in #OED from 1891)

le latheyerd (1453) [in Cawston]

#EPNS Place-Names of #Norfolk Part 3, p. 75
Black and white photo of a barn-yard on a farm. An old chap leans on the gate. There is an open-fronted barn behind him. In the yard, a tractor and a few heaps of straw have a scattering of snow upon them.
April 3, 2025 at 8:26 AM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

2-year antedating of flock-master 'sheep-farmer' (in #OED from 1798)

Cabbages ... are highly recommended by some, to large flock-masters, by way of securing food in very hard winters, when turnips cannot be used (1796)

J. Boys, A General View of the Agriculture of #Kent, p. 103
Photo of a sheep happily munching on some cabbage. Nom nom nom.
April 1, 2025 at 9:20 PM
paulcarbuncle.bsky.social
#oedantedatings

290-year antedating of saltweller 'one who boils water to extract salt' (in #OED from 1624)

Simon Saltwellare (1334)

Hanley & Chalkin, 'The #Kent Lay Subsidy Roll of 1334/5', in Du Boulay (ed.), 'Documents Illustrative of Medieval Kentish Society' (KAS, 1964), pp. 58–172, at p. 83
A saltweller stokes the wood-fuelled fire beneath a large open pan of boiling brine.
March 30, 2025 at 11:41 AM