plain - plan; a level or flat surface (ideal or material)
cirque - any circular space, esp. for games or the like; a circle or ring, of any sort (poetic.)
waggery - mischievous merriment
nay - no
Whiggism - principles and polices associated with Whigs + [whig]issimus (l) - whiggest, most whig, superlatively whig.
incarnadine - to dye flesh colored, pink or red, redden + William Shakespeare: Macbeth II.2.61: 'incarnadine'.
bully - a ruffian hired for purposes of violence or intimidation (arch.)
hibernate - to remain in a torpid or inactive state
massa - master
demi - half + (notebook 1923): 'semidetached life'.
barmecidal - imaginarily satisfying or sumptuous; unreal, illusory + Barmecide's feast (phrase) - not eating (after The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol. I, 343: The Barber's Tale of his Sixth Brother, a story about make-belief food).
savour - flavouring, spice (obs.) + from soup to savoury - from the beginning to the end of a meal [(notebook 1924): 'from soup to savoury'].
rainbow trout - a large stout bodied trout [Joyce's note: 'rainbow trout'] + (notebook 1923): 'eat his own length in mackerel' → Daily News 28 Jul 1923, 5/1: 'Sands Hermits': 'After living for 10 years... on the beach... Huggett, aged 76, and his wife... received notice to quit... Huggett boasts that he makes a breakfast of 12 eggs and can eat his own length in mackerel'.
Joyce's note: 'taert, young salmon,'
atta - wheaten flour or meal + ait tigh (at'ti) (gael) - house site; anglic. -atta- in place-names.
tarn - the sea bird
William Shakespeare: Macbeth IV.1.80: 'for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth' + (notebook 1924): 'Adam not born of W' ('not' not clear).
great crested grebe - the name for the largest European species of diving birds of the genus Podiceps or family Podicipedidæ, characterized by a short body, flattened and lobed feet set far behind, and the almost entire absence of tail.
threescore - 60 + Psalms 90:10: 'The days of our years are threescore years and ten'.
roach - a small freshwater fish of the Carp family, common in the rivers of northern Europe.
life day - a day or some period of man's life
minnow - a small cyprinoid freshwater fish, Leuciscus phoxinus or Phoxinus lævis, common in the streams, lakes, and ponds of Europe. Often loosely applied to any small fish.
gibbet - originally synonymous with gallows, but in later use signifying an upright post with projecting arm from which the bodies of criminals were hung in chains or irons after execution.
Joyce's note: 'salmon ladder'+ Joyce's note: 'Salmon Leap' + Note: Salmon Ladder. See OED. A series of steps to enable salmon to ascend a fall or dam by a succession of leaps. MS 47472-133, ILA: Earwicker ^+, who previous to that semidetached life had been known to eat his own length in rainbow trout,+^ was ^+, like the salmon of his ladderleap,+^ secretly feeding on his own misplaced fat | JJA 46:023 | Dec 1923 |
totality - sum, whole; absolute or indiscriminate oppression
misplaced - put in a wrong place + Joyce's note: 'misplaced fat'
ironed - fitted, furnished, covered, armed, or strengthened with iron + Irish Times (newspaper).
Joyce's note: '*C* calls city after eldest' ('*C*' written over a 'C' (for Cain)) → Lamy: Commentarium in Librum Geneseos I.257: 'Not until two hundred or three hundred years after the birth of Enoch did Cain found a city, to which he gave the name in honour of his eldest son' (Genesis 4:17).
Dana-dun (donedun) (gael) - Fort of Dana (Ana) [goddess of dead] + Danair-Dun (danirdun) (gael) - Danes' Fort.
frond - large compound leaf, e.g. of the palm, banana, etc.; friend + Joyce's note: 'a ship was a ship indeed'.
earwig - An insect, Forficula auricularia, so called from the notion that it penetrates into the head through the ear.
deed - that which is done, acted, or performed by an intelligent or responsible agent; an act.
soil - ordure, excrement; the dung of animals used as a compost; manure.
earthball - subterranean fruiting body of fungi
decline - said of the day (evening, etc.), also fig. of one's life: To draw towards its close + Thomas Moore: The Legacy (song): 'When in death I shall calmly recline' [air: unknown].
legacy - anything handed down by an ancestor or predecessor, what one bequeaths.
Venus - Mythol. The ancient Roman goddess of beauty and love (esp. sensual love); a beautiful and charming woman.
giggle - to laugh continuously in a manner not uproarious, but suggestive either of foolish levity or uncontrollable amusement.
tentatrix (l) - [female] assailant, attempter, tempter; (eccl. l) temptress.
guffaw - to laugh loudly or boisterously; to laugh coarsely or harshly.
Forficula - Latin "small shears or scissors," pincers (of an earwig), diminutive of forfex, the typical genus of the earwig family.
fickle - changeable, changeful, inconstant, uncertain, unreliable; Of places: Treacherous, dangerous.
inghean (inyen) (gael) - daughter, young woman
efter - after
godkin - a
lokal deity + William Shakespeare:
Hamlet III.1.76: 'bare bodkin' (For who would bear the whips and scorns of
time, / The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, / The pangs of
despised love, the law's delay, / The insolence of office and the spurns / That
patient merit of the unworthy takes, /
When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin?)
hem (Archaic) - them
Lugh (lu) (gael) - god of sun and genius
dubh (du) (gael) - black
prettily - to the point; expressively, aptly, neatly; nicely; gently, softly.
em - them
tapette - a passive male homosexual; an effeminate man + tapette (French Slang) - tongue; homosexual (avoir une fière tapette (French Slang) - to be a chatterbox).
song: I Know Where I'm Going: '...the dear knows who I'll marry'
arbour - a garden of herbs or flowers; a flower-garden; orchard + a, b, c, d + nursery rhyme Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief.
wheelbarrow - a barrow or shallow open box mounted between two shafts that receive the axle of a wheel at the front ends, the rear ends being shaped into handles and having legs on which it rests.
dung cart - a cart used to convey manure
Strong, Kate - Chart says: "The most odious of Dublin tax collectors... a woman, Kate Strong. The people erected an effigy of her, armed with a toll-dish of utterly unfair proportions." Fitzpatrick says: "Katherine Strong, a widow, inherited from her deceased husband the post of city scavenger, and a grant of tolls for performing the duties of that office. The lady... seems to have been much more active in collecting her dues than in removing the abundant filth of the city, notwithstanding the oath the city scavengers were bound to take."
lane - lone, lonesome; a narrow passageway between fences + Lane, Sir Hugh (1875-1915) - nephew of Lady Gregory's who offered some good paintings to Dublin, but when Dublin dragged its feet, he gave them to the Tate. When he went down on the Lusitania, he left a will, again giving the paintings to Dublin, but a legal flaw let the Tate keep them. A celebrated controversy followed.
diorama - a mode of scenic representation in which a picture, some portions of which are translucent, is viewed through an aperture, the sides of which are continued towards the picture; the light, which is thrown upon the picture from the roof, may be diminished or increased at pleasure, so as to represent the change from sunshine to cloudy weather, etc.
vidual - of or belonging to, befitting, a widow or widowhood + visual
nose - to smell out, to pry or search, to discover by the smell
homelike - having the qualities of family living, simple and wholesome
cottage - a dwelling-house of small size and humble character, such as is occupied by farm-labourers, villagers, miners, etc.
elvan - the name given in Cornwall to intrusive rocks of igneous origin, so hard as to resist the pick, as quartz-porphyry, whinstone, etc.
dropping - dung of animals (Now only pl.)
biddy - domestic fowl, a young chicken; woman
stinkend (German, Dutch) - stinking
moggy - cow, calf; slut, prostitute + moggies (Slang) - cats.
fester - to putrefy, rot; to become pestiferous or loathsome by corruption
rubbage = rubbish
beggars' bullets (Slang) - stones
omnifarious - Of all kinds or forms: exceedingly various + salmo (l) - salmon + Salmo Fario - species of trout (salmon-trout).
germ - In early use, vaguely, the 'seed' of a disease. In mod. use, a micro-organism or microbe; often, one of the microbes which are believed to cause disease.
gleefully - in a gleeful manner, with glee
smithereen - to smash or blow up into tiny fragments
pane - one of the compartments of a window, etc. consisting of one sheet or square of glass held in place by a frame of lead, wood, etc.; the piece of glass itself, or of horn, paper, or the like substituted for it.
"The weakest goes to the wall" - the weakest are the first to be sacrificed (the wall with a hole in it is, in part, the pierced dyke of the Dutch story; Earwicker's plugging it is obscene (Hart, Clive / Structure and motif in Finnegans wake)).
scavenge - to remove dirt or waste + FDV: Kate Strong, a widow, did all the scavenging in from good King Charles' days but she cleaned sparingly and her statement was that, there being no macadamised sidewalks barring footpaths which left off where the man was struck, at the time in those R J C days she left, as scavangers will, a filth dump near the dogpond in the park on which fossil boot bootmarks, elbowdints, breechbowls, kneecaves, & fingerprints were all successively found of a very involved description. There It was on that resurfaced spot evidently the attacker, though under medium, with truly native pluck tackled him whom he took to be, saying he wd have his life & lay him out & [made use of sacriligeous language &] catching hold of a long bar he had & with which he usually broke furniture.
king Hamlet (name derived from Danish prince Olaf)
gulden - a gold coin (obs.); the name was subsequently transferred to a silver coin + gulden (Dutch) - golden.
dayne - to think it worthy of oneself (to do something); disdain + days + song The Vicar of Bray: 'In good King Charles's golden days'.
lean - wanting in flesh, not plump or fat, thin
besom - an implement for sweeping, a broom + bosom
to make a clean breast - to make a full disclosure or confession