DCHP-3

angishore

< Irish aindeiseoir 'an unfortunate person or thing, a wretch'
DCHP-2 (May 2016)

Spelling variants:
angashore,

n. — Newfoundland

a weak, sickly person; a person too lazy to fish.

Type: 1. Origin — This is a Newfoundland term from Irish Gaelic. The earliest entry in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (s.v. "angishore") dates from 1914. The English Dialect Dictionary includes the term angish 'poverty, poverty stricken, sickly, unhealthy', and angishore with the meaning of 'poverty-stricken creature' is used in Ireland. The Newfoundland term was adopted in the Maritime context 'person too lazy too fish' and then generalized.
See also COD-2, s.v. "angishore", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld & Maritimes)".

Quotations

1881
Yet we must go all the way to Harbor Grace (forsooth) to learn that there is no truth in the evidence of our senses, regarding facts that happened in St. John's, and that a poor angashore of an engineer must be the vicarious victim of his Sunday orders!
1915
And St. Keeran sez, "sure yez hev 'em here frum all parts ov de wurld, an nare a spiciman frum Dog Harbor. Yez mite take de pore angishore in, you may not hev sich a chanst agin. Besides, ould Nick may git hold ov him an git de bulge on yez."
1937
ANGISHORE. A weak, miserable person; an object of pity.
1945
Then his voice rose in anger and he brought his fist down smack on the counter. 'The young 'angishore! I thought he wuz a crackerjack on figgers but them sums wuz all wrong! I used to put in racket-fillin' one day an' take it out the next, when I found he had the wrong answers.'
1956
It was only last week that a local resident lost his fishing boat, his only means of supporting himself and his family. As no insurance was carried it was a severe loss, a double loss. People in referring to the incident said "Poor angishore."
1967
Thus, to illustrate again from vocabulary, we have still in common use such Anglo-Irish terms as: angishore (a weak, miserable person)[...].
1978
"Malachy, Malachy Fitzkneecap, you old angishore, who have we here, strangers?"
1985
An angishore (also angashore, angyshore, and hangashore) is a weak, sickly person, an unlucky person deserving pity; or it's a man too lazy to fish, a worthless fellow, a sluggard, a rascal; or it's an idle mischievous child or person; or finally, it's an idle mischievous child or person; or, finally, it's a migratory fisherman from Newfoundland who conducts a summer fishery from a fixed station on the Labrador coast. Source: Dictionary of Newfoundland English (1982).
1986
Among Irish descendants an ''angishore'' is a hapless fellow to be pitied. But Mr. [George Story] found that in ethnic English communities ''hangishore,'' with an ''h'' added, is used to disparage someone too lazy to fish.
1991
More than 30 years ago, he was already writing about the ancient origins, in the West Country of England, of such Newfoundland words as frapse (to tie carelessly) and dean (a narrow valley), and the way other Newfoundland expressions, like angishore (a weak, sickly person) and sleeveen (a sly, deceitful man), had crossed the Atlantic with Irish immigrants.
2002
The word "angishore" derives from the Irish aindesoir and has the same meaning, as it refers to "a wretch."

References

  • DNE
  • EDD
  • COD-2