HURRYMENT. Hurry. Used in the Southern States.

Somehow in my hurryment I drapt my pan, jest like I did when I heard Old Blaze squeel.-Chron. of Pinevile, p. 174.

HURRY UP THE CAKES, i. e. Be quick; look alive. This phrase, which has lately got into vogue, originated in the common New York eating-houses, where it is the custom for the waiters to bawl out the name of each dish as fast as ordered, that the person who serves up may get it ready without delay, and where the order, 'Hurry up them cakes,' &c., is frequently heard.

HUSKING. The act of stripping off husks from Indian corn.

In New England it is the custom for farmers to invite their friends to assist them in this task. The ceremonies on these occasions are well described by Joel Barlow, in his poem on Hasty Pudding:

For now, the cow-house fill'd, the harvest home,
Th' invited neighbors to the Husking come;
A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play,
Unite their charms, to chase the hours away.

With each smut ear, she smuts the luckless swains;
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,

Red as her lips, and taper as her waist,

She walks around, and culls one favor'd beau,
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow.
Various the sport, as are the wits and brains

Of well-pleas'd lasses and contending swains;
Till the vast mound of corn is swept away,

And he that gains the last ear, wins the day.-Canto 3.

He talked of a turkey-hunt, a husking-bee, thanksgiving ball, racing, and a variety of things.—Margaret, p. 48.

HYST. (Corruption of hoist.) A violent fall. Ex. 'His foot slipped, and he got a hyst.' Mr. J. C. Neal thus discourses on this word: A fall, for instance, is indeterminate. It may be an easy slip down-a gentle visitation of mother earth; but a hyst is a rapid, forcible performance, which may be done either backward or forward, but of necessity

with such violence as to knock the breath out of the body, or it is unworthy of the noble appellation of hyst. It is an apt, but figurative mode of expression, and it is often carried still further; for people sometimes say, "Lower him up, and hyst him down."-Charcoal Sketches.

I can't see the ground, and every dark night am sure to get a hyst— either a forrerd hyst or a backerd hyst, or some sort of a hyst, but more backerds than forrerds.-J. C. Neal, Sketches.

I.

I DAD! An exclamation used in the Western States.

"I dad! if I didn't snatch up Ruff and kiss him." Here the emotion of the old man made a pause.-Carlton, The New Purchase, Vol. I. p. 179. IF SO BE AS HOW. A vulgar expression used by uneducated people in the interior parts of this country and in England.

ILL. The common abbreviation for Illinois.

ILLY. A word occasionally used by writers of an inferior class, who do not seem to perceive that ill is itself an adverb, without the termination ly.

TO IMPROVE. To occupy; to make use of, employ.Pickering's Vocab. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, “in the first sense, is in constant use in all parts of New England; but in the second sense (when applied to persons, as in the following example,) it is not so common."

In action of trespass against several defendants, the plaintiffs may, after issue is closed, strike out any of them for the purpose of improving them as witnesses.-Swift's System of the Colony Laws of Connecticut, Vol. II.

Dr. Franklin, in a letter to Dr. Webster, dated Dec. 26th, 1789, has the following remarks: "When I left New England in the year 1723, this word had never been used among us, as far as I know, but in the sense of ameliorated or made better, except once, in a very old book of Dr. Mather's, entitled Remarkable Providences."

Ann Cole, a person of serious piety, living in Hartford, in 1662, was taken with very strange fits, whereon her tongue was improved by a demon, to express things unknown to herself.-Cotton Mather, Magnalia, Book VI.

IMPROVEMENT. The part of a discourse intended to enforce and apply the doctrines, is called the improvement.—Webster.

The conclusion is termed, somewhat inaccurately, making an improvement of the whole. The author, we presume, means, deducing from the whole what may contribute to the general improvement.—British Critic, Vol. I. p. 379. IMPROVEMENTS. Valuable additions or meliorations; as buildings, clearings, drains, fences on a farm.-Webster. IMMEDIATELY, for as soon as. Ex. The deer fell dead immediately they shot him.'

IMMIGRANT. A person that removes into a country for the purpose of a permanent residence.-Webster.

IMMIGRATION. (Lat. immigratio.) The passing or removing into a country for the purpose of a permanent residence. -Webster. An entering or passing into a place.—Todd. Knowles.

Richardson.

The immigrations of the Arabians into Europe, and the Crusades, produced numberless accounts, partly true and partly fabulous, of the wonders seen in Eastern countries.-Warton's Hist. Eng. Poetry, Vol. I.

Immigration has doubtless been a prolific source of multiplying words. -Hamilton, Nuga Literariæ, p. 381.

Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, observes that this word, as well as immigrant, and the verb to immigrate, were first used in this country by Dr. Belknap, in his History of New Hampshire, who gives his reasons for their use. Immigrant is original with Dr. B.; but the others have long been used by good English anthors, though of course less frequently than by American writers, who have more need of them. IND. The common abbreviation for Indiana.

INDIAN BED. An Indian bed of clams is made by setting a number of clams together on the ground with the hinge uppermost, and then kindling over them a fire of brushwood, which is kept burning till they are thoroughly roasted. This is the best way of roasting clams, and is often practised by picnic parties.

INDIAN FILE. Single file; the usual way in which the Indians traverse the woods or march to battle, one following after and treading in the footsteps of the other.

INDIAN GIVER. When an Indian gives anything, he expects an equivalent in return, or that the same thing may be given back to him. This term is applied by children in New York and the vicinity to a child who, after having given away a thing, wishes to have it back again.

INDIAN MEAL.

Meal made from Indian corn. INFLUENTIAL. Having influence.-Pickering, Vocabulary. Persons who are strangers to the influential motives of the day.-Marshall, Life of Washington, Vol. V. p. 380.

This word has been called an Americanism; but such is not the case. "I once," said Canning to Mr. Rush, "had a skirmish about language with him, (Mr. Pinckney, of Maryland, our ambassador,) but he worsted me. I said there was no such word as influential, except in America; but he convinced me that it was originally carried over from England." Lord Stafford has remarked, that it was so good a word, they ought to bring it back. "Yes," said Mr. Canning, "it is a very good word, and I know no reason why it should have remained in America, but that we lost the thing." -Rush, Mem. of a Res. at London, p. 260.

I take the following examples from Richardson:

And now our overshadow'd souls (to whose beauties stars were foils) may be exactly emblem'd by those crusted globes, whose influential emissions are intercepted by the interposal of the benighting element, while the purer essence is imprisoned within the narrow compass of a centre.Glanville.

Thy influential vigor reinspires

This feeble frame, dispels the shade of death,

And bids me throw myself on God in prayer.-Thomson, Sickness.

IN FOR IT. Engaged in a thing from which there is no retreating.

You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow;

But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now.-O. W. Holmes,
Poems, p. 144.

TO INHEAVEN. A word invented by the Boston transcendentalists.

The one circumflows and inheavens us. The infinite Father bears us in his bosom, shepherd and flock.-Margaret, p. 412.

J.

TO JAB. To strike or thrust with a knife; as, 'he jabbed a knife into me.'

JACKASSABLE. At a call for a meeting of citizens to repair a corduroy road in Michigan, the Niles Advertiser winds up with the following stanza:

Those who would travel it

Should turn out and gravel it;

For now it's not passable,

Nor even jackassable.

Compare Boatable.

JAG. A small load.-Forby. Webster.

As there was very little money in the country, the bank bought a good jag on't in Europe.-Maj. Downing's Letters, p. 168. ·

JAIL BIRD. A prisoner; one who has been confined in prison.-Webster.

JAW. In low language, gross abuse.-Johnson.

TO JAW. To scold; to clamor; to abuse grossly.-Todd.

He never heard freedom of speech afore, that feller, I guess, unless it was somebody a jawin' of him.-Sam Slick in England, ch. 20. TO JEOPARDIZE. To expose to loss or injury.-Webster. This verb is often seen in the debates of Congress, as they are reported in the newspapers. It is, doubtless, a corruption of the ancient verb to jeopard, as deputize is of depute.Pickering. This word is much used in the United States, and less frequently in England.

The profound respect for the cause of truth which led Mr. Tooke not to jeopardize its interests by any hasty assumption of its name and pretensions for a discovery yet incomplete, constitutes one of his surest holds upon posterity.-London Athenæum, March 18, 1848.

JERKED MEAT. Beef and other kinds of fresh meat dried in the open air without salt. In Lower Canada and Newfoundland, fish are dried in the same manner.

In genuine Western style they welcomed me with their dough biscuits and jerked venison.-Carlton's New Purchase, Vol. II. p. 238.