Welsh word from Race Across the World added to OED

A word which baffled the producers of the latest series of Race Across the World is among 10 Welsh words to be added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its latest update.

Fin Gough and Sioned Cray, from Nantgaredig in Carmarthenshire, had to explain the definition of the word poody, meaning to sulk.

Other Welsh words added in the September update of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) include nobbling, meaning freezing, and scram, similar to scratch.

A total of 500 new words or senses have been added in this update.

Poody is an example of a reborrowing or boomerang word, the OED said, meaning it had been borrowed from English into another language and then back again.

It comes from the Welsh pwdu, meaning to sulk, which itself originated with the English word pout, combined with the Welsh verb-forming suffix -u. It can also be used as a noun.

Other Welsh words in the latest update of the OED include nobbling and scram.

“If a Welsh person advises you to wrap up warm because it’s nobbling, then they are letting you know that it’s very cold outside,” said the OED.

While is an 18th and 19th-Century northern English verb meaning to scrape, rake, or pull together with the hands.

Although it is obsolete in this sense, the verb survives in Welsh English in the sense of to scratch, especially with claws or fingernails, along with the noun use, to scratch.

Additional boomering words in the latest update include diolch (thank you), nos da (good night), croeso (welcome) and shwmae (hello or hi).

Shwmae has variable pronunciation and spelling depending on whether speakers are from north and south Wales.