widdershins - in a direction contrary to the sun's course, considered as unlucky + (notebook 1924): '*V* I think you're wrong there' + (notebook 1931): 'withershins' + The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Supplemental Nights, vol. VII, 126n: The Tale of the Warlock and the Young Cook of Baghdad: (part of a formula intended to procure illicit intercourse) 'tie the image in five places with coir left-hand-twisted (i.e. widdershins or 'against the sun')'.
reverence - a reverend or venerable person (obs. rare.) + Right Reverend - a bishop (colloq.) + reverence (Slang) - excrement.
Mag Raith (mogra) (gael) son of Mac Raith ("son of grace") + mo ghradh (mugra) (gael) - my love + Magrath seems to be the Cad, Gill, Snake; he is HCE's enemy, traducer, Anna Livia's special hate. His wife is Lily Kinsella, his servant is Sully the Thug (Glasheen, Adaline / Third census of Finnegans wake)
Northern Whig - Belfast newspaper + Norwegian Captain [311.05]
beastman - local, a cattleman + best man + batsman.
theme + sema (gr) - sign, mark, token + that seems.
slater - one whose work consists in laying slates + Slater, Oscar - convicted of murdering an old woman with a hammer. Conan Doyle got him freed.
serge - a durable twilled fabric having a smooth clear face and a pronounced diagonal rib on the front and the back, often used for suits + search.
horridly - in a horrid manner, or to a horrid degree; dreadfully, frightfully, abominably + hardly.
irreverend - not reverend, unworthy of veneration
Master McGrath (song) + Magrath.
stammer - a stammering mode of utterance + hammer.
Kuckuck (ger) - devil; cuckoo
bedding - a collective name for the articles which compose a bed, esp. the mattress, feather-bed, or other article lain upon, and the bed-clothes + devil
sexton
- a church officer having the care of the fabric of a church and its contents,
and the duties of ringing the bells and digging graves + Joyce's note: 'bride & priest
sober / best man / kicks [sacristan]'
the bride were sober. / –Magrath was
best man. You saw him ^+or+^ , did you? / –I saw him kicking the sexton. | JJA 58:085 | probably Nov-Dec 1924 |
good man - the head of a household; sometimes used as a vague title of dignity or a respectful form of address; applied euphemistically to the Devil + Fox Goodman.
sacristy - the repository in a church in which are kept the vestments, the sacred vessels and other valuable property
beadle - an inferior parish officer appointed by the vestry to keep order in church, punish petty offenders, and act as the servitor or messenger of the parish generally; a parish constable.
Beefeater + blue and buff - Whig colours; also, colours of Duke of Beaufort (and his hunt) + black and blue - bruised.
Flood, Henry (1732-91) - Irish politician, associate of Grattan. W. H. Grattan Flood wrote A History of Irish Music.
brolly - clipped and altered form of umbrella + brolis (Lithuanian) - brother.
sesuo (Lithuanian) - sister
cackles (laughter)
divil = devil + -een (Irish) - (diminutive).
a lump in one's throat - a feeling of tightness or pressure in the throat due to emotion
cygnus (l) - swan
lachel (ger) - smile + leck- (ger) - lick; leak.
lach- (ger) - laugh + lach (Dutch) - laugh, smile + J.M. Barrie: The Twelve Pound Look.
wifish - belonging to or characteristic of, or having the character of, a wife
cacche - obs. f. catch (v.) + cachinno (l) - to laugh aloud + cacchi (it) - penises (euphemistic).
whooping cough - a contagious disease chiefly affecting children, and characterized by short, violent, and convulsive coughs, followed by a long sonorous inspiration called the whoop.
Siol Elaigh (shil eli) (gael) - Progeny of Ealach ("skillful" [?]), tribal land, Co. Wicklow, famous for oakwoods and blackthorns; anglic. Shilleagh + Finnegan's Wake 4: 'Shillelagh law was all the rage'.
epexegesis - the addition of a word or words to convey more clearly the meaning implied, or the specific sense intended, in a preceding word or sentence; a full or additional explanation
point of order - a query in a formal debate or meeting as to whether correct procedure is being followed
perkunas (Lithuanian) - thunder, thunderclap + pecuniary - related to money + peculiar point.
beyond + Yawn.
pinni- - feather, fin + pinniger (l) - feather-bearing, feathered, winged + pinigai (Lithuanian) - money, coin.
pretension - the advancing of a claim; an intention, a design, aim, aspiration
epexegesis (gr) - detailed account, explanation + I Am Resting in the Arms of Jesus (song) + piece of cheese + "always talking of you sitting around on the pig's cheeks" [025.12]
avis, oska (Lithuanian) - sheep, goat
childbearing - the bringing forth of a child; parturition
bloody + blogas (Lithuanian) - bad.
split one's sides - to laugh violently
ladies + laete (l) - joyfully.
hereditate (l) - by inheritance
swart - dark in colour; black or blackish
hair + Hvorledes har De det i dag, min sorte herre? (Danish) - How are you today, my dark sir?
three + man to man - honestly, sincerely + Finnegan's Wake (song): 'Twas woman to woman and man to man'.
bully - capital, first-rate, 'crack'; resembling a bully or ruffian
burley - burlesque
hurley - the Irish game of 'hurling', hockey + hurly-burly - commotion, tumult, strife, uproar.
bulkhead - one of the upright partitions serving to form the cabins in a ship or to divide the hold into distinct water-tight compartments, for safety in case of collision or other damage.
'tweendecks - the usual sailors' abbreviation of between-decks (in the space or spaces between the decks of a ship; the space or spaces themselves)
ship + Schublade (ger) - drawer + Schub (ger) - push.
tiara - the raised head-dress or high peaked cap worn by the Persians and some other eastern peoples, varying in shape according to the rank of the wearer; a kind of turban; a high ovate-cylindrical or dome-shaped diadem worn by the pope + tiroir (fr) - drawer (of furniture) + shopladies' drawers.
Massa - representing master in the written form of Black speech
floating - having little, or comparatively no attachment; not fixed or settled in a definite state or place; fluctuating, variable, unstable
secretaire - piece of furniture with drawers, for papers etc. + sliding - that slides or slips away; transitory; unstable, inconstant + draws - drawers.
budge - a kind of fur, consisting of lamb's skin with the wool dressed outwards + badge + In his study of Joyce's sources, Mr. Atherton points out that Joyce "undoubtedly knew a great deal about Egyptology, and had more than one source-book". Using the phrase "a budge of klees", he explains that it is an acknowledgement by Joyce that the works of Sir E. A. Wallis Budge are a "bunch of keys" to FW.
Klee (ger) - clover + Paul Klee - Swiss painter + keys + Book of Kells.
Schalter (ger) - switch; ticket window + Schulter (ger) - shoulder + shoulder
sidabras (Lithuanian) - silver
seh' dass (ger) - see that + so dass (ger) - so that + ziedas (Lithuanian) - ring.
anulus (l) - ring + anular (Portuguese) - the ring finger.
finger + findrinny (Anglo-Irish) = fionndruine (findrini) (gael) - white-bronze, silver-bronze (used to make rings).
croce (it) - a cross; an affliction
curling tongs
kink - to form a curl, curve, or kink
ruck - a quarrel, a row; a multitude, crowd, throng
noise - to report, rumour, spread (abroad); to spread rumours or a report concerning (a person, etc.); esp. to defame, speak ill of
sap - the vital juice or fluid which circulates in plants; juice or fluid of any kind (obs.); a simpleton, a fool + sap (Gipsy) - snake, serpent.
mort - a harlot, a loose woman + The House That Jack Built (nursery rhyme): 'the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that gnawed the rope that tied the sack that held the malt that lay in the house that Jack built'.
bilk - to cheat, deceive; to elude, evade, escape from
jest - a mocking or jeering speech; The opposite of earnest or seriousness; trifling sport, fun.
junk - any discarded or waste material that can be put to some use
jugular - Anat. Of, pertaining to, or situated in the neck or throat.
jack up - to raise, increase; to force or bolster up; to arrange, organize, fix up; to do for, ruin + to jack in - to abandon, leave, give up, stop.
Jock - a by-form of the name John; sometimes a generic name for any man of the common people + Jack the Ripper + As I Went Up the Brandy Hill (song): 'Up Jock'.
wrapper - an outer garment, esp. for indoor wear or use in household work, designed for loosely enveloping the whole (or nearly the whole) figure; a loose robe or gown