Mrs Ann Miller is an Englishwoman who has put down her roots in Wicklow and she wrote to me about a word still used, she tells me, in the Lincolnshire of her youth.
The word, kevass, a verb, is new to me, and as far as I know, is not used in Ireland. It means to hurry, bustle, usually to no great effect.
One of the dialect dictionaries glosses kevass as "to run up and down; to romp about; to bustle" and gives an example of the word's use from Mrs Miller's district: "They were kevassing about long enough."
The trouble with most dialect dictionaries, and with many's the dictionary besides, is that they don't bother with etymologies, but this word poses no problem. It is from the Middle English chevise, to get on, to speed, succeed, to busy oneself; and it, in turn, comes from the Old French cheviss - present participle stem of chevir, to bring to a head or end.
Mr Aidan O'Hara, author and folklorist, has kindly sent me a word list from the works of Harry Percival Swan, author of Romantic Inishowen, Twixt Foyle and Swilly and Highlights of the Donegal Highlands, three books I once owned, lent, and never got back.
There are some rare beauties here. The cow is tidy, means she is in calf. This is from Scotland. In Burns country it is applied to a cow, but also to a woman as "a tidy bride, one who goes home to the bridegroom's house in a state of pregnancy," according to Wright's dictionary. The word is from Middle English tid, time. Compare the German zeitig, Dutch tijdig, Swedish and Danish tidig, timely.
A nebby Donegal girl is saucy. Wright has this from Scotland and Northumberland. Simmons's Donegal Glossary of 1890 has it as well. There is an adverb, nebbily, meaning sharply. Wright quotes this exchange from Ayr: "When are they gaun to bury your mother?' `No till she dees, I hope,' says the lassie nebbily, for she thocht the man was jokin." From Middle English neb, a bird's beak.
Pree, verb, means taste. This is a contracted form of prieve. This too is Scots. "The proof of the pudding is in the preeing of it", is a Donegal version of the saying I myself once heard. To pree also means to kiss in Scots, and this too, I've heard in Donegal. "Aye he preed her cherry mou", wrote the great Hogg long ago. From Old French prover, from Latin probare, to test as to goodness.