Decades since I saw this word, until I found it again in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters. The dictionary says it...

Nice, squat, fat, short word.  A short sofa, according to Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, though the dictionary says it...

A hard wearing cotton fabric woven with stripes or checks – in Gaskell it’s used to refer to a ‘dimity...

Glorious word this, describing a dirty, untidy or slovenly person, or behaving in a lazy, indolent or clumsy way, as...

‘A long line of raked hay, corn sheaves, or peats laid out to dry in the wind.  In North American...