Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/343

 fish shops. The name, which is now known all over the Three Kingdoms, is anglicised from Irish sleabhac, sleabhacán [slouk, sloukaun].


 * Slug; a drink: as a verb, to drink:—'Here take a little slug from this and 'twill do you good.' Irish slog to swallow by drinking. (General.) Whence slugga and sluggera, a cavity in a river-bed into which the water is slugged or swallowed.


 * Slugabed; a sluggard. (General in Limerick.) Old English, obsolete in England:—'Fie, you slug-a-bed.' ('Romeo and Juliet.')


 * Slush; to work and toil like a slave: a woman who toils hard. (General.)


 * Slut; a torch made by dipping a long wick in resin. (Armagh.) Called a paudheoge in Munster.


 * Smaadher [aa like a in car]; to break in pieces. Jim Foley was on a pooka's back on the top of an old castle, and he was afraid he'd 'tumble down and be smathered to a thousand pieces.' (Ir. Mag.)


 * Smalkera; a rude home-made wooden spoon.


 * Small-clothes; kneebreeches. (Limerick.) So called to avoid the plain term breeches, as we now often say inexpressibles.


 * Small farmer; has a small farm with small stock of cattle: a struggling man as distinguished from a 'strong' farmer.


 * Smeg, smeggeen, smiggin; a tuft of hair on the chin. (General.) Merely the Irish smeig, smeigín; same sounds and meaning.


 * Smithereens; broken fragments after a smash, 4.


 * Smullock [to rhyme with bullock]; a fillip of the finger. (Limerick.) Irish smallóg, same meaning.