dodman
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdɒdmən/
ipa: /ˈdɑdmən/
Forms: form: dodmans
form: dodmen
Etymology: Possibly dod (“(archaic) rounded, bare hilltop”) + -man, in the sense of a creature carrying a hill on its back. The word dod is from dod (“to clip, cut or lop off”), from Middle English dodden (“to shave, shear; to trim (a plant); to poll (cattle); to cut off (someone's head)”), from dod, dodde (“measure of grain”), from Old English.
The surveyor sense appears to be based on a misconception by English amateur archaeologist and author Alfred Watkins (1855–1935) in his book The Old Straight Track (1925).
Senses: examples: text: Yt is as great pyte to se a woman wepe / As yt is to se a sely dodman crepe, / Or, as ye wold say, a sely goose go barefote.
ref: 1538, John Bale, Kynge Johan; published as J[ohn] Payne Collier, editor, Kynge Johan. A Play in Two Parts. […], London: Printed for the Camden Society […], 1838, →OCLC, page 7:
text: In that a Snayl or Dodman, vvhich is not only not vvarm, but to our feeling, very cold, is fain to brood its as cold svveatty eggs, neſted upon a cold vvet earth, beſpievving them about vvith the fuzze of a cold clammy froth, in coldish [d]raughty vveather, and all making vvay to a kind and timely hatching of them: […] I dare undertake to light ſooner of that vvarmth and reek and air, that vvill hatch an hens egge, than that cold and devv and clammineſs, that goes to the hatching of a ſnails.
ref: 1674, N[athaniel] Fairfax, chapter V, in A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World. Wherein the Greatness, Littleness and Lastingness of Bodies are Freely Handled. […], London: […] Robert Boulter, […], →OCLC, pages 125–126:
text: A snail is also called Dodman in Suffolk and Norfolk.
ref: [1823, Edward Moor, “Hodmandod”, in Suffolk Words and Phrases; or, An Attempt to Collect the Lingual Localisms of that County, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Printed by J. Loder, for R. Hunter […], →OCLC, page 174:
text: "[…] I'm a reg'lar Dodman, I am," said Mr. Peggotty, by which he meant snail, and this was his allusion to being slow to go, for he had attempted to go after every sentence, and had somehow or other come back again; "but I wish you both well, and I wish you happy!"
ref: 1850 November 14, Charles Dickens, “My ‘First Half’ at Salem House”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, →OCLC; republished as The Personal History of David Copperfield. … In Three Volumes (Collection of British Authors; 175), Tauchniz edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchniz, 1850, →OCLC, page 144:
glosses: A land-based snail.
examples: text: DODMAN. A snail. Norfolk. Also, a snail-shell.
ref: [1846, James Orchard Halliwell, “DODMAN”, in A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century. […], volume I (A–I), London: John Russell Smith, […], →OCLC, page 308, column 2:
glosses: A snail's shell.
examples: text: The Creatures that caſt their Skin are, the Snake, the Viper, the Grashopper, the Lizard, the Silk-worm, &c. Thoſe that caſt their Shell are, the Lobſter, the Crab, the Cra-fish, the Hodmandod or Dodman, the Tortoise, &c. The old Skins are found, but the old Shells never: So as it is like they ſcale off, and crumble away by degrees.
ref: 1670, Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [Francis Bacon], “Century VIII”, in Sylva Sylvarum, or, A Natural History, in Ten Centuries. […], 9th and last edition, London: Printed by J[ohn] R[edmayne] for William Lee, […], →OCLC, page 154:
text: HOD′MANDOD, n., A shell-fish, otherwise called dodman.
ref: [1828, Noah Webster, “HOD′MANDOD”, in An American Dictionary of the English Language: […], volumes I (A–I), New York, N.Y.: Published by S. Converse; printed by Hezekiah Howe, New Haven, →OCLC, column 2:
glosses: Any shellfish which casts its shell, such as a lobster.
examples: text: At Wilmington in Sussex, the Long Man, with his 240 feet length cut into the turf on the hill-side[…], the largest and perhaps the earliest representation of prehistoric man in England, carries two staves. Now the soldier carries but one spear, the shepherd one crook, the pedestrian one staff, the farmer one pike. The surveyor alone carries two rods. The Long Man is the dod-man, the prehistoric surveyor.
ref: [1925], Arthur Watkins, “Ley-men”, in The Old Straight Track; Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites, and Mark Stones, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished London: Head of Zeus, 2014, →ISBN:
qualifier: possibly erroneous
glosses: A surveyor.
Related terms: hodmandod