a poet who lived
in Normandy at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The Parisian
form is _chantier_, which Cotgrave explains as "a Gauntrey... for
hogs-heads to stand on." Here is a clear example of a word which is of
Norman, or A.F., origin; and there must be many more such of which the
A.F. form is lost. There is no greater literary disgrace to England
than the fact that there is no reasonable Dictionary in existence of
Anglo-French, though it contains hundreds of highly important legal
terms. It ought, in fact, to have been compiled before either the
_English Dialect Dictionary_ or the _New English Dictionary_, both
of which have suffered from the lack of it.

It would indeed be tedious to enumerate the vast number of French
words in our dialects. Many are literary words used in a peculiar
sense, often in one that has otherwise been long obsolete; such as
_able_, rich; _access_, an ague-fit; _according_, comparatively;
_to act_, to show off, be ridiculous; _afraid_, conj., for fear
that; _agreeable_, willing; _aim_, to intend; _aisle_, a central
thoroughfare in a shop, etc.; _alley_, the aisle of a church; _allow_,
to suppose; _anatomy_, a skeleton; _ancient_, an ensign, flag;
_anguish_, inflammation; _annoyance_, damage; _anointed_, notoriously
vicious; _apron_, the diaphragm of an animal; _apt_, sure;
_arbitrary_, impatient of restraint; _archangel_, dead nettle;
_argue_, to signify; _arrant_, downright; _auction_, an untidy place,
a crowd; _avise_ (for _advise_), to inform. It is needless to go
through the rest of the alphabet.

Moreover, dialect-speakers are quite capable of devising new forms
for themselves. It is sufficient to instance _abundation_, abundance;
_ablins_, possibly (made from _able_); _argle_, _argie-bargie_,
_argle-bargle_, _argufy_, all varieties of the verb _to argue_; and
so on.

The most interesting words are those that have survived from Middle
English or from Tudor English times. Examples are _aigre_, sour, tart,
which is Shakespeare's _eagre_, _Hamlet_, I, v 69; _ambry_, _aumbry_,
cupboard, spelt _almarie_ in _Piers the Plowman_, B XIV 246; _arain_,
a spider, spelt _yreyn_ in Wyclif's translation of Psalm XC 10, which,
after all, is less correct; _arles_, money paid on striking a bargain,
a highly interesting word, spelt _erles_ in the former half of the
thirteenth century; _arris_, the angular edge of a cut block of stone,
etc., from the O.F. _areste_, L. _arista_, which has been