Below is a list of mostly forgotten terms, people, and the
occasional song, drawn from a reading of mostly frontier fiction, 1880–1915.
Each week a new list, progressing through the alphabet, “from A to Izzard.”
waddy = a cowboy;
also, a rustler. “A genuine rustler was called a ‘waddy,’ a name difficult to
trace to its origin.” Emerson Hough, The
Story of the Cowboy.
wady = dry riverbed. “I worked in the other
direction by spells till I got to a little wady.” Harry Leon Wilson, The Lions of the Lord.
walk Spanish = to follow an unwelcome order. “He’d
meet your representative like a gentleman, and step around lively and walk
Spanish for you, if you so much as winked.” Samuel Merwin, The Road-Builders.
walk-a-heap =
Indian term for a foot soldier. “The army is goin’ to come up agin’ us—pony
soldiers, and walk-a-heaps, and twice guns, to take our water-holes.” Roger
Pocock, Curly.
walk-down = a method of catching wild horses by
following them until they are exhausted. “They were so worn and tired they
marched up to and through the corral gate like a bunch of wild horses after a
‘nine-day walk-down.’” Edgar Beecher Bronson, Reminiscences of a Ranchman.
walking beam = on a steam engine, a lever that
oscillates on a pivot and transmits power to the crankshaft. “When
‘Walkingbars’ got down to earnest pitching it seemed—and usually proved—as hard
to stop him as to stay the mighty swing of a side-wheeler’s walking-beam.” Edgar
Beecher Bronson, Reminiscences of a Ranchman.
walking boss = the superintendent of two or more
logging camps. “He and Wright held council with McKenna, Tobin, Deever, and
MacNutt, the former being Kent’s walking boss and the last three his foremen.”
A. M. Chisholm, The Boss of Wind River.
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| Wall tent |
wambling = wobbling, rolling. “Whenever he spoke,
Dan had a habit of wambling and grinning, thereby disclosing his
tobacco-colored teeth, and quivering like a creature in convulsions.” Willis
George Emerson, Buell Hampton.
wamus = cardigan sweater. “‘Mebby he’s got papers in his wamus,’ says Boggs, ‘which onfolds concernin’ him. Go through him, Texas, anyhow.’” Wolfville Days, Alfred Henry Lewis.
wanegan = a long, heavy, flat-bottomed scow.
“Last of all came the ‘wanegan,’ also known as the ‘sweep.’” A. M. Chisholm, The Boss of Wind River.
wapato = an aquatic plant producing edible
tubers used as food by North American Indians. “Across the open he saw his wife
at the camp-fire, preparing her dish of wapato.” Ada Woodruff Anderson, The Heart of the Red Firs.
wapiti = Indian word for elk. “There were
survey maps, tassels of oats, and a great Wapiti head upon the wall.” Harold
Bindloss, Alton of Somasco.
ward bummer = political trickster; ward heeler.
“When the blatant noises in Congress and conventions and the ward bummers in
the beer halls quit war talk, the late unpleasantness will be forgotten.”
Patience Stapleton, Babe Murphy.
warped up = disturbed, bent out of shape. “He had
a plumb ornery fighting look in them deep-set eyes of his, and blame me if I
didn’t someway feel sorry for him,—he’s that warped up.” Harry Leon Wilson, The Lions of the Lord.
washee-washee = derogatory term for a Chinese person.
“I reckon I was a public benefactor when I sheared that washee-washee, and I
deserve the pig tail as a decoration for my services.” Florence Finch Kelly, With Hoops of Steel.
wash-up = the washing of a collected quantity of
ore. “Goin’ out? Not this year, I guess. Wash-up’s comin’.” Jack London, A Daughter of the Snows.
watch charm = a small ornament designed to dangle
from a watch chain. “She reached into the bosom of her dress an’ fished out a
real revolver, about the size of a watch-charm.” Robert Alexander Wason, Happy Hawkins.
water bench = a cabinet with a lower portion closed
with doors for milk pails, an open shelf for water pails, and an upper section
with shallow drawers. “I don’t know how it got over us, but there it was with
th’ safe an’ water-bench a holdin’ th’ timbers off’n us.” Dell Munger, The Wind Before the Dawn.
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| Waterbury watches |
Waterbury watch = an inexpensive pocket watch produced
1880s-1890s by the Waterbury Watch Company in Connecticut; often given free
with purchase of cheaply made clothing and other products, thus associated with
shoddy workmanship. “Ye can wind up me affairs and welcome if ye’ll take the
time. They’re just the Waterbury watch inside me pocket.” Marguerite Merington,
Scarlett of the Mounted.
waterfall = a chignon; a hairstyle with hair
pinned into a knot at the nape of the neck; also a wave of hair falling down
the neck. “My mother was making a company for me, putting up my waterfall and
curling my beau-catchers.” Harry Leon Wilson, The Lions of the Lord.
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| Chignon, c1898 |
wattle = a mark of ownership made on the neck
or the jaw of an animal by pinching up a quantity of skin and cutting it down
but not entirely off, leaving a hanging flap of skin. “He’s plumb shore to
dewlap and wattle his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd o’ humans
as fer as you could see him.” Edgar Beecher Bronson, The Red-Blooded.
 |
| Watts, Happy Warrior, 1884 |
wean = a young child. “She opened her arms to
receive a violet-eyed wean brought in by a young woman of perhaps twenty.” A.
B. Ward, The Sage Brush Parson.
wear the willow =
mourn the loss of a lover. “It seems to me it’s time for you to wear the willow
and trot off down the hill.” O. Henry, Heart of the West.
 |
| Weary Willy (far right), 1898 |
webfeet / webfooters = residents of Oregon and the rainy
Pacific Northwest. “At last I’ve fetched up with the ‘Webfeet’ way down here on
old Puget Sound.” William De Vere, Jim
Marshall’s New Pianner.
well-shooter =
detonator of explosives in oil wells to start or renew a flow of oil. “A
three-gallon can of nitro-glycerine which he let slip out of his hands one day,
while giving a well-shooter a hand, had removed him at once from the worries
and ambitions of his kind.” George W. Ogden, The Long Fight.
wet = to drink to, toast. “Not till we wet
your wedding.” Herman Whitaker, The
Settler.
wet blanket branding
= to manipulate a brand by applying “the hot iron through a piece of wet
blanket” to give a new brand “the appearance of age.” Charles Alden Seltzer, The Coming of the Law.
whack up = to share or divide equally. “Let’s go
coax the little Bradley girl and one other to go down to Denver for a lark.
I’ll be generous and whack up with you.” Hattie Horner Louthan, This Was a Man!
whacker = a shortened form of bullwhacker. “I
told them I’d be back with the whackers if I didn’t find you.” Harry Leon
Wilson, The Lions of the Lord.
whang = a thong or whip of hide or leather.
“He whipped out the aneroid, dangling at the end of its whang-leather.” Robert
Dunn, The Youngest World.
What Katy Did = a
children’s book by Susan Coolidge, published 1872. “I have read some
girl-books, a few years ago—‘Hildegarde Grahame,’ and ‘What Katy Did,’ and
all.” Mary MacLane, The Story of Mary
MacLane.
wheelers = in
freighting and stagecoaches, the horses or mules nearest the wheels and needing
to be the strongest. “‘Them mules, Tom an’ Jerry, is obtained by me orig’nal in
Vegas. They’re the wheelers of a eight-mule team.’” Wolfville Nights, Alfred Henry Lewis.
wheeze = a trick or dodge frequently used.
“Throwing the blame of poor meals upon the cook is an old wheeze of the mean
boss.” Martin Allerdale Grainger, Woodsmen
of the West.
whiffet = a small, young, or unimportant person.
“Think I am scart of that little curly-headed whiffet? Not me!” John G.
Neihardt, Life’s Lure.
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| Two men with whipsaw, c1896 |
Previous: U-V (ulster – vug)
Next: W (whipstock – wurrah!)
More:
Sources: Cassell’s
Dictionary of Slang, Dictionary of the American West, The Cowboy Dictionary,
The Cowboy Encyclopedia, Cowboy Lingo, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and
various online dictionaries
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons
Coming up: Bret Harte, Frontier Stories (1887)
Wady is a cool word. I used to use it in writing but seemed to have forgotten it. Thanks for the reminder. Walk a heaps. I remember that from some western or another. thought it was a cool term, and accurate.
ReplyDeleteCurious the use of "heap" in Indian lingo. I don't know how it came into common use.
DeleteMost of these are unfamiliar to me, except for waddy, whipsaw, whang. Thanks for defining 'em.
ReplyDeleteThe word waddy still is in use today, though I seldom come across it except among hardcore westerners and cowboy poets.
ReplyDeleteOne of my best efforts ever as I was familiar with seven of these. Helped a farmer fix a water gap three times as a teenager. When he first used the term I thought we were going to fix a dam.
ReplyDeleteSeven is good. Growing up on the flat farmland of central Nebraska, I did not know of term water gap until I came across it in reading.
Delete"Whipsaw," as in a saw used by lumbermen, is the only word I'm familiar with. Wapiti sounds vaguely familiar in a different context but I could be wrong.
ReplyDelete