Waddy (Waddie)

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I'm stumped on "waddie/waddy." DARE? HDAS? Any thoughts?
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_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/waddy_waddie/_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/waddy_waddie/) 
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A “waddy” or “waddie” is a cowhand or _“cowpuncher.”_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/cowpuncher_or_cow_puncher/)   The origin of the 
term is unknown. 


_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0618083499&id=ioHbdtjIKJgC&pg=RA1-PA154&lpg=RA1-PA154&ots=VKhWXTJ7h8&dq=waddy+cowboy&ie=ISO-8859-1&si
g=WOZzjvWS4Q7DDlwQZFV7mL11sX8)  
Cowboy Lingo 
by Ramon F. Adams 
New York: Houghton  Mifflin 
2000 
1936 (original copyright) 
Pg. 22: 
The cowboy was  known, too, by such slang names as “ranahan” (which really 
referred to a top  hand), “saddle-warmer,” “saddle-slicer,” “saddle-stiff,” “
leather-pounder,”  “cow-poke,” “cow-prod,” or “waddie,” but the most 
common term used in the cattle  country was the simple title of “cow-hand” or “
hand.” 
Pg. 154: 
An early  name for the genuine rustler, one faithful to his illegal art, was 
a “waddy”;  later this term was also applied to any cowpuncher.  

(Oxford  English Dictionary) 
waddy 
U.S. slang. 
Also waddie.  [Origin uncertain.] 
A cattle rustler; a cowboy, esp. a temporary cowhand.  
1897 E. HOUGH Story of Cowboy 279 A genuine rustler was called a  ‘waddy’, a 
name difficult to trace to its origin. 1927 J. LOMAX Cowboy  Songs 374 He 
rides a fancy horse, he’s a favorite man, Can get more credit  than a common 
waddie can. 1931 W. ROGERS in S. K. Gragert Will Rogers’ Weekly  Articles (1982) 
V. 470 You town waddies know what a Combine is? 

5  August 1926, Iowa City (Iowa) Press-Citizen, “Lurid Cowboy Fiction  False,”
 pg. 14, col. 1: 
Lurid fiction tales of chaparajosed cow “waddies”  galloping recklessly 
across the prairies, or shooting the buttons from some  easterner’s spat at 70 
paces with notched “.45’s” have drawn a protest from  Charles D. Frost, a 
rancher of Bozeman, Mont. 

24 September 1927,  Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, WI), pg. 2, col. 3: 
DIALOGUE OF  COWBOYS 
GREEK TO STRANGERS 

San Angelo, Tex.—(AP)—A  dictionary would be about as worthless as a song in 
a hurricane to a New Yorker  trying to find his way around the ranch country 
of the west. 

Cowboyese,  the dialect of the ranges, is as intricate and snappy as New 
Yorkese and changes  almost as rapidly. Some of the terms used in the pioneer days 
have come down  unchanged through the years, but other influences—mainly that 
of the cavalry in  which most of the cowhands fought in the world war—are 
apparent in the dialect.  

What would a native of New York’s East Side do if confronted with a  
conversation like this: 

“The top screw mounted his cutting horse, and,  followed by a group of chuck 
eaters, started to trail a bunch of cattle. The  corral rope was on his 
saddle, next to the sougan, and as he placed a brain  tablet in his mouth, his mount 
began to swallow its head and soon turned the  pack.” 

A “top screw” is a ranch hand who has been on the ranch for years  and knows 
the business of that particular ranch from top to bottom. A “waddie”  is 
another name for the same individual. 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org