Just For Fun, Part 2

Just For Fun

Americans are great lovers of the euphemism. Especially in the Old West, the average man would rather say someone was “beef plum to the hock” instead of just saying “he’s big and fat.” Here are a few of those old phrases and sayings – just for fun.

Part 2: N-Z

  

Nester - a derogatory term for a homesteader, farmer or small rancher - also churn-twister, colonist, hay shaker, hoe-man, home sucker, pumpkin piler, plow chaser, soddy, sodbuster or sandlapper

Nice kitty - a skunk

Off his feed - feeling poorly or feeling bad

Old - used as a term of rank or camaraderie with no real reference to age, as in "old man" (the boss of a cow outfit)

One-horse outfit; rawhide outfit; shirttail ranch; two-by-four outfit; greasy sack outfit; cockebur outfit; starve-out ranch - a small ranch, probably with too little grass, too few hands, too little land, and too little money; one-horse outfit can also mean anything small or inconsequential

Outfit - a ranch, ranch crew, or any crew or organization rigged to do any job; also, someone's personal gear, or almost anything

Outrider - a range rider; a cowboy who rides his employer's range far and yon to spot trouble (like a line rider, only the line rider stops at the ranch's boundaries while the outrider goes everywhere on the property); outridings are inspection trips

Over the willows - a river in flood (willow borders most streams in the Western plains and mountains

Pack - to ride into remote country carrying supplies on horseback; to carry loads on pack animals; to carry anything regularly (as in a sheriff packing a star or a cowman packing irons or brands)

Pack the mail - to ride fast

Pail - to milk a cow; sometimes to water a cow from a bucket

Palaver - a parley or long talk, such as between Whites and Indians

Pants rats; seam squirrels - body lice

Pard - partner; often the fellow a cowboy was paired with on daily jobs, but used in other Western contexts as well

Paul Pry - a meddler

Paw around for turmoil - to look for trouble

Pecos swap - theft

Pecos Bill - a teller of windies, a peddler of loads, a fellow who likes to stiff dudes

Penny ante - literally, a poker game in which the ante is limited to a penny; figuratively, anything small and inconsequential

Picked brand - the legal use would be to remove hair around a blotched or unclear brand; the illegal use is to pluck the hair of a calf in the shape of a brand so that from a distance, the calf looks branded but later a rustler can rebrand the animal with his own brand

Pistol - a green hand, inexperienced cowboy or pocket flask of booze (revolvers were called six-shooters, shooting irons, etc. but not pistols)

Play a lone hand - to act alone

Play both ends against the middle - from the game of Faro, where you can fix the game by trimming the cards at either end of the deck

Plumb - as a modifier, it means completely or absolutely (as in "he hit the target plumb center"); as a verb, "to plumb a track" means to follow a faint trail

Plunder - what a man kept in his possibles sack or war bag; his belongings

Porch percher - a loafer

Possum - a crafty, dissembling or cowardly person; to possum or play possum is to dissemble or pretend, as in feigning sickness

Pumpkin roller - a complainer in a cow camp or an inexperienced hand

Puncture lady - a gossip; what was punctured was someone's reputation

Put him to bed with a pick and shovel - to bury someone

Quirly - a hand-rolled cigarette

Quit the flats - to leave the area

Rafter - to lie under your blankets with your knees sticking up

Rag out - to dress up fancily

Ramrod - the working boss of a ranch

Ranahan, ranny - a top hand; a good cowboy

Rawhide job - a tough job

Red-eyed, red-rumped - angry

Rib up - to persuade

Ride for a blind bridle - to work for a farmer, whose horses wore blinders

Ride into someone's dust - to follow someone

Ride like a deputy sheriff - to ride recklessly

Ride over that trail again - explain that better

Ride the river with - cattle drives often had to cross flooding rivers in the Spring, so this expression came to mean a man who will stick no matter how tough it gets

Ride under a cottonwood limb - to get hanged

Rildy - a blanket or quilt

Ringy - riled up, as a horse wrings it's tail when nervous; a ringy woman is high-strung

Road agent, roadster - a highwayman, a stagecoach holdup man

Roll in - depending on the context, either to arrive or to go to bed

Roll the cotton - for a cowboy to roll up his bedroll

Roll your wheels - get going

Rotten-logging - cowboy slang for a couple sitting on a log and kissing

Run like a Nueces steer - to run fast and recklessly

Running mate - a cowboy's partner or spouse

Salty dog - anyone really good at his work; also a tough fellow full of spirit or fight

Sand - what a man has in his craw when he's brave; courage, grit

Sand augur - a little sand whirlwind; a dust devil

Savvy - understanding; noun, verb and adjective usage; possibly from Spanish sabe or possibly from Indian pidgin English from the maritimes

Sawbones - a doctor, especially a surgeon; other names for physicians include Epsom Salts, Genuine Jimmy, old pills, pill roller and Quinine Jimmy

Scallyhoot - to make tracks, run off, skedaddle

Scissorbill - a cowboy term of contempt for a shirker or incompetent

Scrape - a difficulty, predicament or fight

See a man about a horse - to urinate; an old excuse to leave company and seek the outhouse

See the elephant - what you got to do at the climax of your journey - see whatever there was to be seen and do whatever there was to do; often this term had to do with seeing more than enough and heading home in disappointment

Severe - wild, headstrong, as in a horse or a man who "never killed a man who did not deserve killing"

Shading - resting, as a cowboy does when he finds a shady spot on the range

Shadow rider - a man so vain he rides around admiring his own shadow

Shag out - a Texas expression meaning to run out on someone, to back out

Shanghai - to spirit someone away using force, drugs or other means, especially to recruit sailors for long voyages; believed to originate in San Francisco in the 1850's

Shenanigan - a trick, a bit of nonsense or tomfoolery; possibly from 1850's California or from an Irish word meaning "I play tricks"

Shepherd's Bible - what a cowboy called a mail-order catalog

Shindig, stomp - a dance or party

Shine - to do well or stand out; shining times are standout times, to be savored and remembered

Shop-mades - custom-made boots; cowboys scorned ready-made boots

Short - past due to head somewhere else

Short of hat size - what a cowboy called a shepherd, who was a little crazy

Shorten his stake rope - to get someone under control, to cramp their style

Silver exchange - a gambling hall

Six-shooter coffee - proper cowboy coffee, strong enough to float a six-shooter

Size up - to take the measure of a man or situation

Smart Aleck - a know-it-all

Smart as a whip - very smart; first used in Salt Lake City in 1860

Snaky - a devious, treacherous, shady man

Snorty - a contrary or belligerent cow, an irascible man or a high-spirited horse

Soak - to rest, to loaf

Sod-pawing mood - anger

Sold his saddle - a cowboy who's hit bottom, who's lost his status

Spoon - to turn over in your sleep

Spraddled out - dressed in your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes

Spread - a ranch - land, buildings, hands and critters all together

Spread the mustard - to put on airs

Stackwad - a lazy cowboy who looks for the easy jobs

Storm the puncheons - to dance; puncheon flooring is made of logs cut in half and sunk rounded side down into the ground

Stove up - beaten up, worn out, banged up, damaged

Straight goods - the truth

Stub horn; wrinkle horn - an old cow with wrinkled horns or an old cowman

Stuffed shirt - pompous, over formal manners; also stuffed-shirtism

Stuffing dudes; stringing a whizzer; stretching the blanket; loading - telling dudes tall tales (yarns, windies, stringers, corral dust)

Sull - to act sullen

Sure as shooting - damn sure

Water shy - a person who doesn't bathe enough

Water at night - to be on the dodge; to water your horse after dark when nobody can see you

Wear the bustle wrong - pregnant

Well-heeled - well-off, either for money or firearms

What I know about that you could put in one eye - I don't know a damn thing about it

What in the Sam Hill - named after the eccentric son of railroad tycoon James J. Hill

When cows climb trees - never

While the gate's open - while the opportunity is here

Whittle whanging - quarreling

Win your spurs - to earn your place or standing, as a cowboy or in any endeavor

Wish book - a mail-order catalog

Wooden overcoat - a coffin

Yarn - to tell a tale, probably an adventure and probably a tall tale; the tale itself is a yarn

Sources:

A Dictionary of the Old West, Peter Watts, 1977

Dictionary of the American West, Win Blevins, 1993

J.E.S Hays

www.jeshays.com

hays.jes@gmail.com