Peter and Wendy was written 100 years ago and since then a lot of words in English have changed or aren’t used quite so often. Here’s a helpful list of some you may not recognise:
Anon – Soon
Bacchanalian – Drunken. Named after the Roman god of wine and partying, Bacchus
Blackavized – A man who is bearded and dark-looking
Bo’sun – A position in a ship’s crew, coming from the much longer word ‘boatswain’. The bo’sun’s job is to control the work of the other seamen
Buckler – A small shield
Bulwarks – Bulwarks are the reinforcement on the sides of a ship that help prevent the sea from washing into the ship and pushing people overboard
Charles II – King of Scotland, England and Ireland in the seventeenth century. He was known for his interesting clothes
Cozening – Misleading with a trick or fraud
Distingué – Distinguished
Delawares and Hurons – Real tribes of American Indians known for their fierceness. The Piccaninnies are far fiercer than these tribes!
‘Eligible for Pop’ – Captain Hook probably used to be a pupil at an exclusive private school like Eton. Pop is the name for the ‘Eton society’ and members are very privileged
Embonpoint – From the French words ‘en bon point’ meaning ‘in good condition’, embonpoint means plump or round
Fo’c’sle – The shortened form of the word ‘forecastle’ meaning the raised part of the deck at the front of the ship
‘Getting into shirts’ – When boys grew old enough to go to school, they stopped wearing smocks/pinafores and started wearing shirts and trousers (See also: pinafore)
Halfpenny-worth – A halfpenny was the smallest amount of money, worth around 1/500th of a pound
Housewife – A sewing kit
Mammee-apple – A type of fruit similar to an apricot
Mea Culpa – A Latin phrase meaning ‘it’s my fault’
Miasma – A general word for bad air. In Peter and Wendy, it refers to the horrible mist around the pirate ship.
Night-nursery – In Edwardian times, children would have a day-nursery and a night-nursery. They slept in the night-nursery, and played and had lessons in the day-nursery
Nonconformist – Someone who doesn’t go to an Anglian/Church of England church. Smee is a Nonconformist because he is Irish, so probably Catholic
Papoose – a child of the redskin tribe. The word comes from the Algonquin language
Piccaninny – The American Indian tribe who live in the Neverland. This was a common term used for black children but is now not used
Pinafore – A pinafore is a sleeveless dress. In Edwardian times, young children – both boys and girls – used to wear them
Raconteur – A great storyteller
Spanish Main – In the 1500s the Spanish conquered a lot of Central America. The Spanish Main was the coast of these countries on the Spanish side, where pirates would often lie in wait for treasure ships bound for Europe
Sea-Cook – Long John Silver, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island; he was a fearsome pirate, so for him to be scared of Hook shows just how terrible the captain is!
Three per cents – Related to purchasing a house. Because Wendy’s husband bought the house from her father, he didn’t have to pay the full price
Tinker Bell’s furniture – All of Tinker Bell’s furniture names are a play on real styles of furniture, as well as referencing mythological figures:
- Queen Mab was the leader of the fairies. The furniture reference is ‘Queen Anne’
- Puss-in-Boots is a fairy tale from France about a cat who uses trickery to make his poor master rich
- Pie-crust references a type of table with a carved edge that looks like the fluted edge of a pie dish. A reversible table is one that is double-sided; Tinker Bell’s wash-stand is probably polished wood on one side and tiled on the other so she can easily wipe away any drips from her wash-basin
- Charming the Sixth is a humorous reference to the prince in fairy tales always being called ‘Charming’. There must have been a lot of ‘King Charming’s! The furniture reference is to ‘Louis XIV’
- Tiddlywinks is of course a fun game, but a ‘Tiddlywinks chandelier’ is a reference to the ’Tiffany lamp’, which features an intricately-patterned glass shade. The style originated from the Tiffany Studios (a glassmaking company founded by artist Louis Comfort Tiffany) and is still reproduced by designers today
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