summat
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- summit, sommat, sommit
- sumat, summet, zumat, zummat, zummet, zummut (19th century)
- summut, zum'ot, summot (18th–19th centuries)
- sumet (17th century)
Etymology edit
Dialectal variant of somewhat attested from the 18th century. Joseph Wright suggested that it might be a contraction of "some that" in A Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill (page 78).
Pronunciation edit
Pronoun edit
summat (indefinite pronoun)
- (England, especially Lancashire, Yorkshire, informal) Something.
- 1809, Theodore Hook, “Killing No Murder”, in The Sporting Magazine, volume 34, number 202, page 185:
- ...every gentleman tips us summat, we looks for it as natural as possible.
- 1825 October 12, Walter Scott, Letters (published 1935), IX.245
- They require the atmosphere of a cigar and the amalgam of a sum'mat comfortable.
- 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Adam Bede […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, page 10:
- A man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things.
- 1929, John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent, page 129:
- He were a-going to gie I summat for’n, but like enough it’ll be worth more to a gent like yourself.
- 1947, Thomas Armstrong, King Cotton, page 53:
- Does he think I’ve been soaping up to the Governor or summat?
- 1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter IV, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
- 2006, Robin Jarvis, Thomas, page 20:
- Why go all the way to find summat that ain’t there?
Adverb edit
summat (not comparable)
- (England, especially Lancashire, Yorkshire, informal) Something (“to a degree”); somewhat.
- 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter VIII, in Adam Bede […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first, page 172:
- It's summat-like to see such a man as that i' the desk of a Sunday!
Anagrams edit
Finnish edit
Noun edit
summat