cuittle

Cuittle \KY-tl\ verb 1. to wheedle, cajole, or coax. This week's word might not have taken the cake if it hadn't been for Dictionary.com's examples. Some words have poetry in their meanings, and cuittle is one of them. As you can see, it rhymes with "idol," and its synonyms look like they are a combination of them: wheedle (we-dl), cajole and coax. If I were going to make up a word like cuittle, I'd have made it cajeedle, but words are not mine to make. But unusual spellings/pronunciations are not enough to whet my wheedle. Let's hear from Sir Walter Scott, shall we?

Quotes:

The Papist threatened us with purgatory, and fleeched us with pardons; — the Protestant mints at us with the sword, and cuittles  us with the liberty of conscience…

-- Sir Walter Scott, The Abbot , 1820

I'm fascinated to know what this means. So I looked up to see what the context of this quote is:

So soon as the more numerous body of riders had

turned off to pursue their journey westward, those

whose route lay across the river, and was directed 

towards the north, summoned the Bridgeward, and

demanded a free passage.

" I will not lower the bridge," answered -Peter, in

a voice querulous with age and ill-humour. — " Come

Papist, come Protestant, ye are all the same. The

Papists threatened us with Purgatory, and fleeched

us with pardons ; — The Protestant mints at us with

the sword, and cuittles us with the liberty of con-

science ; but never a one of either says, ' Peter, there

is your penny.' I am well tired of all this, and for

no man shall the bridge fall that pays me not ready

money ; and I would have you know I care as little

for Geneva as for Eome — as little for homilies as

for pardons; and the silver pennies are the only

passports I will hear of."

Being a Protestant, I wanted to find out what we do, and how it differs from the Catholic especially in the area of how we treat bridgewards. The Catholic - excuse me, Papist - threatened him “with purgatory and fleeched him with  pardons.” Taken from the context, fleeched would be analogous to cuittles, which is sort of like the the carrot Boyd Crowder offers his meth cookers, rather than the stick (purgatory and sword). There is no dictionary definition for fleeched, but for mints there is, which is "to hit or strike at (someone or something)." As opposed to the chocolate treat found on the pillows of finer hotels.

So I learned two new words (cuittle and mints), and am left wondering at another (fleeched). And to top it all off?

Origin:

Cuittle  is of uncertain origin.

A mystery wrapped inside an enigma fleeched inside a contradiction.

I guess the lesson from all of this is that for all the mintsing, and fleeching and cuittling and threats, the only way to get across is to pay the penny.

There’s probably a sermon there somewhere…