"chucking" = "noisy vocalization by humans", 1692

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Dec 30 02:45:22 UTC 2010


'[They (suspected witches)] wished that they might have been cast
into the lowest dungeon, rather than be tortured with such repeated
buzzings and chuckings and unreasonable urgings as they were treated withal."

"chucking, n.1", new sense, vocalization by humans rather than
"fowls"; also interdates OED 1989, 1611 -- 1868.

1692 Oct. 8.
Thomas Brattle (treasurer of Harvard; F.R.S.), letter; addressee not given.
In _Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706_, ed. George L.
Burr (New York, 1914), p. 189.  [GB, full view]
Cited in David H. Flaherty, _Privacy in Colonial New England
(University Press of Virginia, 1967), p. 230.

Joel

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