Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/347




 * Speel; to climb. (Patterson: Ulster.)


 * Spink; a sharp rock, a precipice. (Tyrone.) Splink in Donegal. Irish spinnc and splinnc, same sounds and meaning.


 * Spit; the soil dug up and turned over, forming a long trench as deep as the spade will go. 'He dug down three spits before he came to the gravel.'


 * Spoileen; a coarse kind of soap made out of scraps of inferior grease and meat: often sold cheap at fairs and markets. (Derry and Tyrone.) Irish spóilín, a small bit of meat.


 * Spoocher; a sort of large wooden shovel chiefly used for lifting small fish out of a boat. (Ulster.)


 * Spreece; red-hot embers, chiefly ashes. (South.) Irish sprís, same sound and meaning. Same as greesagh.


 * Sprissaun; an insignificant contemptible little chap. Irish spriosán [same sound], the original meaning of which is a twig or spray from a bush. (South.)


 * 'To the devil I pitch ye ye set of sprissauns.'


 * (Old Folk Song, for which see my 'Ancient Irish
 * Music,' p. 85.)


 * Sprong: a four-pronged manure fork. (MacCall: South-east counties.)


 * Spruggil, spruggilla; the craw of a fowl. (Morris: South Monaghan.) Irish sprogal [spruggal], with that meaning and several others.


 * Sprunge [sprunj], any animal miserable and small for its age. (Ulster.)


 * Spuds; potatoes.


 * Spunk; tinder, now usually made by steeping