Spaug; a big clumsy foot:--'You put your ugly spaug down on my handkerchief.' Irish _spág_, same sound and sense. { 332}
Spink; a sharp rock, a precipice. (Tyrone.) _Splink_ in Donegal. Irish _spinnc_ and _splinnc_, same sounds and meaning.
Spit; the soil dug up and turned over, forming a long trench as deep as the spade will go. 'He dug down three spits before he came to the gravel.'
Spoileen; a coarse kind of soap made out of scraps of inferior grease and meat: often sold cheap at fairs and markets. (Derry and Tyrone.) Irish _spóilín_, a small bit of meat.
Spoocher; a sort of large wooden shovel chiefly used for lifting small fish out of a boat. (Ulster.)
Spreece; red-hot embers, chiefly ashes. (South.) Irish _sprís_, same sound and meaning. Same as _greesagh_.
Sprissaun; an insignificant contemptible little chap. Irish _spriosán_ [same sound], the original meaning of which is a twig or spray from a bush. (South.)
'To the devil I pitch ye ye set of sprissauns.'
(Old Folk Song, for which see my 'Ancient Irish Music,' p. 85.)
Sprong: a four-pronged manure fork. (MacCall: South-east counties.)
Spruggil, spruggilla; the craw of a fowl. (Morris: South Monaghan.) Irish _sprogal_ [spruggal], with that meaning and several others.
Sprunge [sprunj], any animal miserable and small for its age. (Ulster.)
Spunk; tinder, now usually made by steeping { 333} brown paper in a solution of nitre; lately gone out of use from the prevalence of matches. Often applied in Ulster and Scotland to a spark of fire: 'See is there a spunk of fire in the hearth.' Spunk also denotes spirit, courage, and dash. 'Hasn't Dick great spunk to face that big fellow, twice his size?'
'I'm sure if you had not been drunk With whiskey, rum, or brandy--O, You would not have the gallant spunk To be half so bold or manly--O.'
Spy farleys; to pry into secrets: to visit a house, in order to spy about what's going on. (Ulster.)
Spy-Wednesday; the Wednesday before Easter. According to the religious legend it got the name because on the Wednesday before the Crucifixion Judas was spying about how best he could deliver up our Lord. (General.)
Squireen; an Irish gentleman in a small way who apes the manners, the authoritative tone, and the aristocratic bearing of the large landed proprietors. Sometimes you can hardly distinguish a squireen from a _half-sir_ or from a _shoneen_. Sometimes the squireen was the son of the old squire: a worthless young fellow, who loafed about doing nothing, instead of earning an honest livelihood: but he was too grand for that. The word is a diminutive of _squire_, applied here in contempt, like many other diminutives. The class of squireen is nearly extinct: 'Joy be with them.'