Adze – a hand tool with a heavy steel blade attached at right angles to a wooden handle, used for the dressing of timber.

Apothecary shop – an archaic word for drug store or pharmacy.

Bairn – a common Scottish idiom for a child.

Bed tick – a strong cotton fabric, often striped, used as a mattress cover.

Berlin, Ontario – settled largely by people of German origin. In 1916, torn apart by the tensions of World War One, the thriving peaceful city changed its name to Kitchener. Many wished to distance themselves from the stigma attached to the name of the German capital while others remained silent for fear of being accused of enemy sympathies.

Bob sleigh – a sleigh with a moveable front bob or steering mechanism that enables the rider to direct it down a steep bank. Also used to describe larger sleighs pulled by a team of horses.

Bolster – a long narrow pillow or cushion.

Bootjack – a wedge-shaped device that grips the heel of a boot to enable the foot to be withdrawn easily.

Cannon bone – a bone in the legs of horses and other hoofed animals consisting of a greatly elongated fused metatarsal.

Carbolic soap – a rough soap made with a disinfectant ingredient.

Cocoa – a powder made from cocoa beans after they have been roasted and ground; used in a hot drink made from cocoa and milk.

Chancel – the part of a church building containing the altar and choir.

Cistern pump – a hand pump, often in a farm kitchen, which pumped water from a tank or cistern in the basement. This concrete reservoir was filled by rainwater that drained off the roof.

Colporteur – a church employee who distributes Scriptures and other religious materials, often door to door.

Copper flashing – a thin metal sheet used to weatherproof the valley between the slopes of a roof or the junction between a chimney and a roof.

Communion rail – the railing around the altar area where people kneel to receive communion.

Cooper – a person skilled in making or repairing barrels or casks.

Corduroy – a heavy cotton pile fabric with lengthways ribs. Similarly, a corduroy road was made by laying logs side by side and tightly together. These were placed crossways over swampy areas of the road bed and covered with gravel.

Corncob doll – a decorative figure made of a corn cob and plaited straw.

Cradle grain – a framework of several wooden fingers attached to a scythe to gather the grain into bunches as it is cut.

Crazy quilt – a quilt made of random pieces of rich, colourful fabric and blanket stitched.

Curry – to brush or groom a horse.

Cutter – a type of sleigh with curved runners instead of wheels, pulled by a single horse over the snow.

Democrat – a style of buggy that had two or three parallel bench seats.

Dresden plate quilt – a quilt sewn in the design of elaborate fluted circles.

Driver – a light driving horse kept for pulling a buggy or cutter on the road, in contrast with the more ponderous draught breeds used for heavy farm work.

Drugget – a coarse fabric.

Eaton Beauty doll – an elegant doll made with head and hands of fine porcelain and outfitted in a velvet and silk dress; offered for sale in Eaton’s catalogue.

Eiderdown – the breast down of the female eider duck, used for stuffing pillows, quilts etc.

Face cord – a pile of cut and stacked firewood 16" deep by 4 feet high and 8 feet long; one-third of a standard 128 cubic foot bush cord.

Farrier – a person who shoes horses or another name for a veterinary surgeon.

Fortnight – a period of fourteen consecutive nights; two weeks.

Flannels – bed sheets made of a soft light wool fabric.

Galloping consumption – a rapid wasting away of the tissues of the body, especially in tuberculosis of the lungs.

Gangway – the sloped mound of earth allowing access to the upper floor of a bank barn.

Gargling oil – a medicinal liquid used to reduce infection and inflamation of the throat.

Grog – diluted spirit, usually rum, as an alcoholic drink.

Groomsman – a man who attends the bridegroom at a wedding, usually the best man.

Hame strap – the strap connected to the two curved bars holding the traces of the harness and attached to the collar of a draught animal.

Hand – a unit of length equalling four inches used for measuring the height of a horse at its withers (taken from a man’s standard handbreadth).

Horehound – a bitter herb of the mint family with small white flowers that contain a bitter juice formerly used as cough syrup or flavouring; sometimes used in the making of a hard candy.

Icebox – an insulated cabinet packed with ice for storing food.

Indian summer – a period of unusually warm weather in the late autumn.

Jerkin – a sleeveless short jacket worn by men or women.

Joiner – a person skilled in making finished woodwork, such as windows, stairs, caskets.

Kohlrabi – a variety of cabbage whose thickened stem is eaten as a vegetable; common during pioneer times.

Kneeler – a hinged bench on which a worshipper knelt during portions of the church service, normally attached to the pew in front.

Lectionary – a book containing appointed readings to be used in church services throughout the year.

Leg-of-mutton – a sleeve or sail, tapering sharply.

Lemon balm – a perennial mint with white or yellowish flowers and aromatic leaves; used in flavouring food, liqueur, tea and medicines.

Looking glass – an archaic word for mirror.

Mangling laundry – the process of squeezing the wash water out of the clothes by passing them between two heavy rollers.

Mercator’s map – a map commonly used in classrooms of 1904, named after the Flemish cartographer and mathematician Gerardus Mercator. (1512 – 1594)

Merino – a particularly fine wool from a breed of sheep originating in Spain.

Mow – the upper part of a barn where hay or straw is stored; the term can also refer to the pile of hay or straw itself.

Murther – an archaic or obsolete variation of the word ‘murder.’

Muslin – a fine plain-weave cotton fabric, available in a variety of weights. Book muslin was one of the most delicate varieties, gauzy and stiff, almost always used for girls rather than women. A white dress of book muslin with a wide, coloured sash was typical party wear.

Nightjar – any of a family of nocturnal birds which have large eyes and feed on insects.

Pacer – a horse trained to move his legs in a particular gait.

Page-wire fence – a common term for a woven wire fence that has rectangles in the shape of a page.

Parlour – a Victorian sitting room, especially one kept tidy for the reception of visitors.

Pin money – money saved or earned by women for incidental purchases, often in coins or small denominations of paper currency.

Pinafore – an apron-like garment, usually with a bib, buttoned or tied at the back and worn over a dress.

Pitch holes – soft holes in the built-up layers of hard-packed snow, often appearing during a thaw. Caused by the horses’ shoes and the runners of passing sleighs and cutters, they were potentially dangerous if they were sharp and deep enough to make a horse stumble or to lodge the runners.

Pocketbook – a leather pocket purse formerly used by men.

Prior – the head of a priory or other religious house; in an abbey, the person next below the abbot.

Quoined corners – the alternating large squared stones or raised brick panels set in the external corner of a building. In early Ontario homes, these were often yellow or buff bricks placed in the corner of a red brick wall for decorative effect.

Rag and bone man – a man who buys and sells discarded clothing and other household items.

Rainwater leader – the metal pipe used to carry rainwater from the eave trough to the ground or rain barrel.

Razor strop – a leather strap used to sharpen razors; often used to mete out corporal punishment to children at the turn of the 20th century.

Rod – a unit of length equal to 16 ½ feet. Most 100 acre pioneer farms measured 80 rods by 200 rods.

Rubbers – a rubberized waterproof overshoe.

Sailor King – a common epithet used of King William the Fourth well-known for his love of the high seas. (August 21, 1765 – June 20, 1837)

Scythe – a long-handled tool for cutting tall grass, hay or weeds; having a curved sharpened blade that moves parallel to the ground.

Shakedown – a pioneer term for a bed, particularly a makeshift one.

Shanks’ pony – one’s own legs as a means of transportation.

Sheaves – the plural of sheaf which is a bundle of reaped but unthreshed grain tied with one or two bands.

Shinplaster – a piece of paper money of small face value, usually twenty-five cents; printed in 1870, 1900 and 1923.

Shoofly Pie – a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe containing flour, brown sugar and shortening covered with molasses, eggs, soda and hot water.

Sir John A. – an abbreviation for Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada. (1815 – 1891) Born in Glasgow Scotland, this pragmatic but visionary statesman was a picturesque and colourful leader and one of the Fathers of Confederation.

Soffits – the underside of an overhanging eave on a building.

Spiles – a spout or rigid tube for tapping sap from the sugar maple tree; inserted into a hole that has been drilled in the trunk of the tree.

Spool bed – a bed with a wooden headboard and footboard made of turned spindles.

Stooking – the work of setting clusters of sheaves upright in a field to dry the heads of grain.

Stone boat – a low solidly-built wooden sledge used to gather stones from the fields; drawn by horses.

Stone pig – a corked container made of crockery and filled with hot water to provide warmth under blankets or covers.

Stuck pig – an expression describing a hog that has been killed by sticking a knife into its heart in the butchering process.

Sweating like a hen drawing rails – a humorous rural idiom describing extreme perspiration. Normally a team of horses would have been used to pull or draw fence rails.

Taking a turn – a rural idiom meaning to experience a sharp change in health, usually a deterioration.

Toadflax – a perennial plant having narrow leaves and spurred two-lipped yellow-orange flowers. Also called butter-and-eggs.

Travelling a stallion – an expression referring to the business of taking a stallion of exceptional bloodlines from farm to farm to breed mares. Usually the stallion was led behind a driving horse and buggy.

Throwing a foal – giving birth to a foal.

Valenciennes lace – a flat bobbin lace typically having scroll and floral designs and originally made of linen; first made in Valenciennes, a town in northern France.

Waist – a girl’s or woman’s blouse often with long sleeves and hooked or buttoned in the back.

Wedding ring quilt – a hand-pieced quilt sewn in the pattern of entwined wedding rings.

Wheat smut – a fungal disease of grain in which black sooty masses of spores cover the affected parts.

Wicket – a small window or opening, especially one fitted with a glass or grate; often used at train stations to sell tickets.

Wincey – a flimsy inexpensive fabric made of cotton or flannelette and used in everyday clothing during pioneer times.

Windrow – a long row of hay that has been raked into a low ridge to achieve the best conditions for drying or curing.