Robert Macfarlane loves words about nature and our interaction with it. In fact, he loves it so much that he compiled Landmarks, a collection of words used across America, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales—some of which have been long forgotten—to describe natural scenery.
In an article written for The Guardian, he explains why he felt the need to publish this compendium:
…Although we have fabulous compendia of flora, fauna and insects (Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica and Mark Cocker's Birds Britannica chief among them), we lack a Terra Britannica, as it were: a gathering of terms for the land and its weathers—terms used by crofters, fishermen, farmers, sailors, scientists, miners, climbers, soldiers, shepherds, poets, walkers and unrecorded others for whom particularised ways of describing place have been vital to everyday practice and perception.
In that same article, he further details the events that led him to collect these words:
The same summer I was on Lewis, a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary was published. A sharp-eyed reader noticed that there had been a culling of words concerning nature. Under pressure, Oxford University Press revealed a list of the entries it no longer felt to be relevant to a modern-day childhood. The deletions included acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pasture and willow. The words taking their places in the new edition included attachment, block-graph, blog, broadband, bullet-point, celebrity, chatroom, committee, cut-and-paste, MP3 player and voice-mail.
As Macfarlane's story about the Oxford Junior Dictionary shows, we live in a time when we are generally less connected to nature and to our surrounding natural world. This is especially true for children, who know more about gaming systems and iPads than they do about the sound of the wind through the trees and capturing fireflies. What does this mean for our next generation of poets and writers—writers who are losing the vernacular that was once so common among artists who explored the natural world around them?
With this in mind, here is a list of words that shouldn't be forgotten by poets and writers who are likewise nature lovers. Teach them to your children so they won't be completely lost.
Wind, rain, snow, and storms
After-drop (Poetic)
Raindrop which falls after a cloud has passed (first cited in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, c 1580)
Airie (Caithness)
Gentle breath of wind
Achram (Irish)
Very heavy rain (literally, "boisterous behavior")
Billow (East Anglia)
Snowdrift
Brim (Orkney)
Cold, drying wind that withers plants
Blacthorn Winter
(Herefordshire) Winter that turns very cold late in the season
Cith (Gaelic)
Shower of warm, drizzling rain
Domra (Shetland)
Obscuration of the sky by haze
Dribs (Leicestershire, Northamptonshire)
Rain which falls in drops from the eaves of thatched houses
Dringey (Lincolnshire)
Light rain that still manages to get you soaking wet
Feetings (Suffolk)
Footprints of creatures as they appear in the snow
Gleamy (Essex)
Showers with fitful sunshine
Goldfoil (Poetic)
Coined by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, describing a sky lit by lightning in "zigzag dints and creasings."
Heavengravel (Poetic)
Hailstones Gerard Manley Hopkins
Lattin, letty (Shropshire and Somerset, respectively)
Enough rain to make outdoor work difficult
Oogly (Cornish)
Referring to the sky, when it foretells wild weather
Payling (Northamptonshire)
Wind-driven shower
Penitent (Geography)
Spike or pinnacle of compact snow and ice left standing after differential melting of a snowfield
Petrichor (Scientific)
The pleasant, distinctive small of rain in the air, sometimes detectable before the rain has even begun to fall, and especially strong when the first rain falls after a period of warm, dry weather
Pirr (Shetlandic)
A light breath of wind, such as will make a cat's paw on the water
Puthery (Cheshire)
Intense stillness and humidity immediately before a storm breaks
Roarie bummlers (Scottish)
Fast-moving storm clouds
Snow-bones (Yorkshire)
Patches of snow seen stretching along ridges, in ruts, or in furrows after a partial thaw
Ungive (Northamptonshire and East Anglia)
To thaw
Virga (Meteorological)
Observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates before reaching the ground
Weather-mooth (Caithness)
Clear area in the sky, low on the horizon, from which the clouds appear to stream
Whewan (Orkney)
Wind that howls around corners
Whiffle (Kent)
Referring to the wind, when it comes in unpredictable gusts
Whittle (Cheshire)
A strong gust of wine, supposedly named after Captain Whittle, whose coffin was hurled to the ground from its bearers' shoulders by such a gust
Williwaw (Nautical)
Sudden, violent squall
Wolfsnow (Poetic)
Dangerously heavy and wind-driven snow (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Mountaineering
Alpenglow (Mountaineering)
Light of the setting or rising sun seen illuminating high mountains or the underside of clouds
Chockstone (Mountaineering)
A stone wedged in a vertical cleft or chimney of rock, impeding progress
Choss (Mountaineering)
Rock that is unsuitable for climbing due to its instability or friability
Creachann (Gaelic)
Grassless, stony hilltop
Moel (Welsh)
A hilltop or mountain summit that is treeless and rounded
Nick (Yorkshire)
Gap in the hills through which weather comes
Slip-rift (Geological)
Cave or chasm formed by the peeling away of one rock layer from another under the duress of gravity
Water
Aber (Welsh)
Mouth of a river (into the sea); confluence of a lesser with a larger river
Abhainn (Gaelic)
Substantial river, often running to the sea, with numerous tributaries
Acker (North Sea Coast)
Ripple on the surface of the water
Bala (Welsh)
Outflow of a river from a lake
Borbhan (Gaelic)
Purling or murmur of a stream
Caochan (Scottish)
A small stream flowing across moorland and boggy ground with its channel concealed by heather and other moor vegetation
Cymer (Welsh)
Confluence of two or more streams Moonwake (Poetic) The reflection of moonlight on a body of water
Faoi (Gaelic)
Noisy stream
Hurdifell (Shetland)
Steep, rocky hill covered in boulders
Jabble (Scottish)
Agitated movement of water; a splashing or dashing in small waves or ripples; where currents meet, the water is said to be "jabbly"
Loom (Cumbria)
Slow and silent movement of water in a deep pool
Pell (Sussex)
Hole of water, generally very deep, beneath an abrupt waterfall
Soma (Irish)
A body of water that is abounding in swans
Staran (Gaelic)
Causeway of stones built out into a lake in order to fetch water
Trunnel (English regional)
A road or path where, in summer, the leaves of trees on both sides form a canopy
Twevelet (Poetic)
Small leaf bundles snagged around river twigs after a flood
Winterbourne (Anglo-Saxon)
Intermittent or ephemeral stream, dry in the summer and running in winter
Moon, sun, and stars
Apricity (Phenological)
Sun's warmth in winter
Benighted (Mountaineering)
Overtaken by darkness while walking or climbing
Bright-borough (Poetic)
Area of the night sky thickly strewn with stars (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Buried moon (Northamptonshire)
Moon seen through a vaporous haze
Burr (East Anglia)
Mistiness over and around the moon; a moon-halo
Dark hour (East Anglia)
Interval between the time of sufficient light to work or read by and the lighting of candles—therefore, a time of social domestic conversation ("We will talk that over at the dark hour")
Dimpsy, dimsy (Devon, Somerset)
Dusk, or the darkened hour brought on by poor weather, or the short period of time between daylight and dusklight. The "cusp of duskness" (Isabel Macho)
Doomfire (Poetic)
Sunset light which has the appearance of the apocalypse (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Firesmoke (Childish)
Blending of sunrise or sunset with clouds
Green flash (Optics)
Optical phenomenon occurring just before sunset or just after sunrise, in which a green spot is briefly visible above the upper rim of the sun's disk
Grimlins (Orkney)
Night hours around midsummer when dusk blends into dawn and it is hard to say if day is ending or beginning
Hoarlight (Poetic)
"Burnished or embossed forehead of sky over the sundown, beautifully clear" (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Print-moonlight (Sussex)
Moonlight bright enough to read by
Shepherd's lamp (Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire)
First star that rises after sunset
Shivelight (Poetic)
A word created by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins for the lances of sunshine that pierce the canopy of a wood
Flora, fauna and landscape
Berhog (Shetland)
Sterile piece of ground
Deadfall (Geography)
Dead branch that falls from a tree as a result of wind or its own weight
Dreeping (Irish/poetic)
Describing landscape that is heavy with dew or rain (Patrick Kavanagh)
Ecotone (Ecological)
Transition zone between two biomes, where communities meet and integrate (for example, between field and forest or lake and land)
Frail (Banffshire)
The skeleton of a leaf
Hopliness (Childish)
Changes in color along the length of a stem of grass
Hoodoo
(Geography) Tall, thin spire of rock
Mute (Exmoor)
Stumps of trees and bushes left in the ground after felling
Pixy-hunting (Somerset)
Climbing trees in an orchard to get the last fruit after the main crop has been harvested
Plato's fire (Poetic)
Shadows dancing inside of a tree hollow on a sunny day in the woods
Sillion (Poetic)
Shining, curved face of earth recently turned by the plow
Smeuse (English)
The gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal
Smoog (Childish)
Referring to a group of children who gather, crack, stack and whack bits of fallen timber in the woods
Snicket (Yorkshire)
A narrow path between buildings or between a fence and a field
Solastalgia (Global)
Distress caused by environmental change (climate change, pollution mining) that alters a person's home landscape without them ever leaving it
Spurring (Exmoor)
Following the tracks of a wild animal
Sway (Venery)
Deviation of an animal's footprints from the median line of passage
Vallum (Northumberland)
A wide ditch
Wilsom (Scots)
A way or path leading through wild and desolate regions