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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Like "cluckings": "tsk, tsk!"

I guess we can't know for sure.

JL

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "chucking" = "noisy vocalization by humans", 1692
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> '[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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