bumbarrel

[prettygoodword]

bumbarrel (BUM-baer-l) - n., the long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus sub. rosaceus).


A British name for the British variety of the bird. Other dialect names for it include fuffit, poke-pudding, hedge mumruffin, jack-in-a-bottle, bum-towel, prinpriddle, feather-poke, long-tailed mag, and millithrum (that is, miller’s thumb).


© Tony Davison

John Clare describes them:

And coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again

---L.

Comments

[flwyd]

All of those dialect names sound like a string of euphemisms for sexual organs.

[prettygoodword]

*points to the common name*