A word first recorded as a noun in the Act of 1541 where the noun meant ‘a layer of cloth in the finished piece’ (OED). As a verb it was to fold cloth backwards and forwards, in cuttles, instead of rolling it.'
In Yorkshire the ‘dam’ was usually the pond or reservoir at a mill or water wheel, rather than the bank which held back the water, although occasionally it probably had that meaning.
From the eighteenth century coal-owners were granted rights which related to stacking coal and pit waste and opening up ways through fields where no such liberty had previously existed. Provision was made lest ‘damage’ be done to a tenant’s land.
‘Damask’ derives ultimately from Damascus and the word was used for imported products associated with that city. It is best known as the name given to a rich silk fabric or a twilled linen decorated with images.
The verb to ‘damask’ shares the same origin as the fabric of that name but it meant to decorate a metal object with designs which were cut into the surface and filled with gold or silver.
This is a miners’ term for two quite different gases; that is carbonic acid gas, sometimes called ‘choke-damp’ and carburetted hydrogen or marsh gas, also known as ‘fire-damp’.
This word was used repeatedly in the accounts of Selby Abbey. It referred to thatching materials harvested in places such as the Carrs which adjoined Selby Dam.
To dandle a child is to move it gently up and down in the arms or on the knee, but a ‘dandling’ was a pet or favourite, so the meaning in this case may be to ‘favoured treatment’, since it was used in a marriage settlement dispute.
In building contexts the verb meant to coat or cover a wall with a layer of plaster, mortar or the like. If the walls were made of laths or wattle the dauber will have used clay or mud mixed with straw.
‘Day’ was the miners’ word for the ground surface, and the ‘day-hole’ was a drift mine, one in which a gallery was driven from the surface on an inclined plane.