We were talking about idioms, and how some of the sayings we use in English have lost their original meanings completely; someone gave as an example ‘cold as a hornywink’. We all laughed because we had never heard this before, and it even sounded slightly rude!
On investigation the explanation was totally innocent; a hornywink, or horniwink, or horniwig, is a local word for a lapwing, by local I mean local to the southwest of England. This wonderful bird has a lot of other names, including peewit and green plover. They are black and white, but actually, if you can look at them closely, the black actually has a very green tinge; in the breeding season they can even appear with a purple sheen.
There is an interesting site I have found which describes lapwings as ‘birds conspicuous for their eerie calls, unusual crests and tumbling flight‘. Because they are birds of lonely places, Cornish has a word for such a place, horniwinky, which means a desolate or empty landscape. The lapwing has a different nick-name in other parts of the country, but an analogy can be drawn with how the name of the bird is then used to describe the place it lives, for example in Lincolnshire,which can be a very cold county peewit-ground or peewit-land describes a poor barren area where pewits/lapwings might have their nests. In the north of England they are called teufits/teeafits/tufits/tewits/tewhits/tiuits, and even teuchats. Teufit etc.-land would be similarly remote, desolate and cold. people who lived in those areas might also be called by the bird’s local name!
For a relatively small bird it has a huge number of local names… but maybe all birds have many local names and I just am ignorant of them. other names for peewit are puwit and peeseweep, pye-wipe and bullock-a-week, hornpie and flapjack; also there are chewit, toppyup, peasiewheep, teewhup, ticks nicket… Good heavens! I’ve lost count of the number of names!
And here is the list:
- hornywink
- horniwink
- horniwig
- lapwing
- peewit
- green plover
- horniwinky
- teufits
- teeafits
- tufits
- tewits
- tewhits
- tiuits
- teuchats
- puwit
- peeseweep
- pye-wipe
- bullock-a-week
- hornpie
- flapjack
- chewit
- toppyup
- peasiewheep
- teewhup
- ticks nicket
Lois Elsden 
I like hornywink best. It reminds me of something Benny Hill would do. Around here we have OOOHYOOYOOYOO birds but I can’t tell how they got the name as I’d be banned from the blog.
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I think I may have heard of those birds but with a different name!!
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Hehe! I thought maybe it was the English equivalent to our Norwegian equivalent. That is if you interpret it in the sleeziest way…
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Teeheehee! I had a few unusual sites come up when I googled it!
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