Thursday, October 8, 2009

Nesh



nesh \ˈnesh\ adjective: (British regional dialect) 1. soft, delicate, 2 a. averse to cold weather, b. of or relating to persons sensitive to cold

Etymology: Old English hnesce soft

Bathsheba and her housekeeper/confidant Liddy discussed Fanny, whose lifeless body lay downstairs. Would Fanny’s ghost haunt the house as they tried to sleep through the night? Liddy concluded, “She was such a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn't appear to anybody if it tried, I'm quite sure.” (The scene is from Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd [1874].)

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