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hangashore
DCHP-2 (May 2016)
n. — Newfoundland
a weak, sickly person; a person too lazy to fish.
Type: 1. Origin — This spelling is the result of [h]-aspiration and the second sense comes from folk etymological. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English (s.v. "angishore") reports that in Newfoundland English, aspirate [h] frequently precedes vowels that begin a word. This aspiration turns the Irish loan angishore, which means 'wretch,' 'someone to be pitied,' into hangashore, which has been reinterpreted by English speakers as 'someone who hangs ashore', that is, 'someone who is too lazy to fish'.
See: angishore
Quotations
1892
During the hearing of the case, the defendant's witty counsel attempted to fasten [a very serious charge] upon the plaintiff, viz.: that of calling defendant a "nasty hangashore."
1956
While on the subject of derivations, it is interesting to note the result of my research into the origin of the word "Angishore". I gave this phonetic spelling in the booklet that was recently published by the Newfoundland Tourist Bureau. At the time somebody questioned if the word should not be spelled as "Hangashore".
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 a migratory fisherman from Newfoundland who conducts a summer fishery from a fixed station on the Labrador coast.
1999
An angishore is a weak or sickly person, deriving from the Irish Gaelic, ain dei seoir, "wretch." Through the process of folk etymology it is often rendered as "hangashore" and refers to someone who stays on shore because he is too lazy to catch fish.
2000
He played 'the hangashore,' the laziest man in Pigeon Inlet," said Mr. Cahill, who produced the series, and cast Mr. Earle after hearing some of his after-dinner speeches. "He knew all the old-fashioned terms. It was a character he understood from his background; every community had a hangashore."
References
- DNE