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• neb n. a person’s nose; the beak of a bird; a projecting point or tip
• slitter v. work or eat messily, splash about; smear or stain (with something)
• hirple v. hobble, limp, walk unsteadily; move unevenly
• feeze v. twist, cause to revolve; wriggle, wag; ingratiate oneself (with someone)

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feeze v. twist, cause to revolve; wriggle, wag; ingratiate oneself (with someone)

“feeze v. twist, cause to revolve; wriggle, wag; ingratiate oneself (with someone)”

5th August 2008

feeze

Feeze is a word that seems to be on the decline, so if you know it, we would be very interested to hear from you. The noun fize, meaning a screw, is recorded from the seventeenth century in a number of local records. An inventory from 1685 that relates to the Dalyell Family home, the House of the Binns in West Lothian, includes such items as: "a large timber press with 2 timber fizes". The word was borrowed from Middle Dutch vise (vijs in modern Dutch), also meaning screw.

Deriving from the noun, the verb is first recorded in the late eighteenth-century meaning twist or turn. It often appears in the context of music and dancing, as in William Jamie’s poem The Muse of the Mearns (1844): "He quickly gied the bags a hease, The chanter round did gently fease". Slightly later, it appears as a term meaning wriggle or wag, as in Alexander Smart’s Rambing Rhymes (1834): "Auld Carlo then his tail wad feeze Sae keen an’ frisky". Feeze can also indicate vigorous activities involving hard work, and if something feezes aboot it moves to and fro like a clock pendulum.

Another meaning of feeze is to fawn, flatter, or insinuate yourself into someone’s favour. As Rev John Jamieson puts it in his pioneering Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808): "One feezes himself into the good graces of another". The Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) includes an illustrative quotation reported to the dictionary from Shetland in 1951: "Efter wir wharrel, he cam back da neist day tryin ta feeze aboot me; bit I wisna haein ony o his feezins". If you have any contemporary examples that could help us to update our dictionaries, please get in touch.