Mawmsey

 

This morning, a chilly Saturday, I slept late -  all the way until 8:30, when I had the luxury of waking up without an alarm clock.  So I am not mawmsey this morning, though I like the word very much.

I was leafing through my most recent acquisition:  The Word Museum  by Jeffrey Kacirk.

It's a collection of what he calls "the most remarkable English words ever forgotten."  I like to write poems using such words, spinning images from them, playing with them. So this book is a goldmine. He lists his sources in the back of the book, and he found  mawmsey  in

Georgina Jackson's  Shropshire Word-Book  which was published in London in 1879-81.

 Mawmsey  =  Sleepy;stupid, as from want of rest or over-drinking. 

 I have certainly experienced that! To be so tired that one feels drunk without having been drinking.

I'm not ready to write a poem using mawmsey this morning, but I think I might try to use that book as a springboard for my writing a poem a day during April.

 I also very much like this painting :

 

Woman Sleeping   by Mary Ferris Kelly