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Clear
A road or way to a well.

A kind of woollen cloth with a nap, originally made in Wales, a term noted in the OED from the Act of 1551-2.
places Beverley
dates 1444 1551-1552

spellings walted
In shoemaking, the welt was a strip of leather that joined and was attached to the sole and upper leather, holding them together. The verb meant to repair or renew welts and this was seen as a cobbler’s task not a shoemaker’s.
dates 1540 1545 1559 1572 1582 1589 1773

To roll or turn something over.
places Harewood
dates 1263

wen

A wart or growth, a tumour on an animal.
places Wycliffe
dates 1559

A girl.

To go, return or depart for.
places Cawood York
dates 1428 1429

wer

spellings were
A dialect form of ‘was’.
places Glaisdale
dates 1555

A term used in east Yorkshire for a man from the Westing Riding.
dates 1592

A male sheep, a castrated ram.
dates 1297 1521 1559 1642 1654

A castrated male sheep, from weaning until first shearing.
dates 1500 1557 1563

Of uncertain meaning but contrasted with 'leather well tanned and curried', so probably leather still wet from the currying process.
places Beverley
dates 1627

wey

A measure for dry goods, with values determined by the commodity. It was used particularly for salt in Yorkshire.
dates 1395 1453 1642 1678

To beat, thrash or flog.
places Baildon
dates 1736

spellings wharl wherelle
These are local variations of ‘quarrel’, in the sense of quarry or stone-pit, and they occur from the fourteenth century.
dates 1379 1422 1500 1794

A regional spelling of quarter.
dates 1515 1530 1540 1658

An alternative spelling of quartern, that is a quarter of anything, a measure of various commodities.
dates 1724 1758

‘Wheel’, more than any other word in the vocabulary of the Hallamshire cutlers, has the power to evoke the great days of the industry. It came into use in the Middle Ages when water wheels on the fast-flowing Don and its tributaries powered the region’s corn and fulling mills, but was used from the Tudor period, certainly from 1496 (WPS166), to refer to the water wheels which drove the grinders’ wheels.
dates 1530-1531 1542 1547 1590 1607-1608 1637 1715 1728

Sometimes the band or tire of a wheel on a vehicle.
dates 1557 1647 1697 1739

A trundle bed.
places Stockeld Lepton
dates 1578 1644

Associated with a cutler's wheel.
places Attercliffe
dates 1716

A term which covered the tools and implements that a cutler might need for the grinding processes, distinct from ‘smithy gear’ since the two occur together in the will of Robert Skergell in 1557.
dates 1557

This word occurs only rarely but it marks a transitional stage in the development of ‘wheel’ as a term for a building.
places Sheffield
dates 1587

The site of a cutler’s wheel.
places Ecclesfield
dates 1549 1557 1578-1579

spellings quelewright
A maker of wheels and wheeled vehicles.
dates 1308 1346 1379 1399 1400 1504 1596

A dialect form of 'quere', that is the quire or choir in the church.
dates 1466 1510 1533

Quarriers or quarry workers.
dates 1297 1323 1379 1422 1473 1522 1543

spellings whik
These are variants of ‘quick’, usually in the sense of living as opposed to dead, and they occurred regularly in the north and north midlands, at least as far south as Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
dates 1455 1505 1699

spellings wicken wickenberry quicken quickenberry wiggen
The mountain ash or rowan.
dates 1562 1650 1674 1729 1779 1782

spellings whilst
Regularly used to mean ‘until’.
dates 1674 1725 1741 1797

For 'quilt'.
places Newark
dates 1455


A tough but thin kind of hempen cord, the material used for whip-lashes or the tips of them.
dates 1377-1378 1504 1642

A frame saw with a narrow blade, used especially for curved work.
dates 1556 1653

spellings whipping stock
A post set up in a public place to which offenders were tied and whipped.
places Ovenden
dates 1664

An obsolete spelling of quishing, which is the typical early form of cushion.
dates 1432 1549

A word or sound used to request silence.
places Holmfirth
dates 1689

A neckerchief worn by women.
places Adwick
dates 1691

spellings quitclaim
For ‘quitclaimed’ that is released from an action or claim by a legal document called a ‘quitclaim’.
places Whenby
dates 1455

A rare word of uncertain meaning. It may refer to the ashes which resulted from burning the ramell after woods had been felled.
dates 1720

An unidentified type of bird hunted in woodland.
places Ossett
dates 1285

The meaning clearly depends on the context since the two suggested alternatives are contradictory, that is a pickled herring or a fresh herring. The early references here were probably to salted herrings.
dates 1377-1378 1388 1395-1396 1461 1465 1526 1729

A term for tin-plate, that is iron whitened by a thin coating of tin.
dates 1457-1458 1600-1699

Leather of a white or light colour and soft pliant consistence, prepared by tawing (OED).
dates 1299-1300 1395 1465 1532 1579 1583

A plasterer.
places West Riding York
dates 1333 1754

Used of various alloys which owe their light grey colour to lead, tin or zinc.
places Sheffield
dates 1726

A kind of stone used for the final stage of grinding, of a finer texture than those used generally.
dates 1587 1714

It has two meanings but is generally used of a tinsmith, that is a worker in ‘white iron’. Rather more loosely it was applied also to those workmen who ‘finished’ off metal goods, as opposed to those who forged them (OED).
places Sheffield
dates 1700

The traditional hedgerow tree in many parts of Yorkshire.
places Mirfield
dates 1755

Trees with light-coloured wood, a term generally used to describe the lime, the white poplar and the wayfaring tree (OED). However, there may have been regional differences.
places Esholt
dates 1763

For acquittance.
places Great Preston
dates 1547

Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0