welter

Pronounced: WELL-tuhr, noun/verb

Notes: I was thinking of “welt” (and that was incorrect)

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Yesterday’s word

The word bumbershoot means “umbrella” (as you may know)

First usage

Our word came into English in the very late 1800s

Background / Comments

When I saw this word, the UK came to mind; possibly because they have several nicknames for umbrellas, possibly because it rains a lot there. But I also thought of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I didn’t know why. After some additional thought, it came to me that perhaps our word was used in the song “Me Ol’ Bamboo”. I looked up the song, and our word is indeed used: …you can have me hat or me bumbershoot, but ye better never bother with me ol’ bamboo! Getting back to nicknames, there is “brolly” (which I knew), and “gamp” (which I didn’t know; it comes from the Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit, in which the character Sarah Gamp carried an oversized umbrella), and there is our word, which I was pretty sure was another nickname for umbrella. I included it because I enjoyed the background of our word: it is thought to be a combination of bumber- (thought to be a humorous corruption of the first part of umbrella [umber]) combined with -shoot (altered from “chute” – the umbrella looks like a tiny parachute).