DCHP-3

logy

DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)

Spelling variants:
loggy

1adj. Newfoundland, obsolete

of a vessel: slow-moving.

Type: 3. Semantic Change Logy has been used in various dialects of British English to describe something that is 'slow-moving' or 'dragging' (EDD, s.v. "loggy" (2)). The term has been preserved in Newfoundland and Labrador English since emigrants from southwest England first began permanently settling on the island in the 18th and 19th centuries. Because of the province's proximity to and reliance on the ocean, it is common for words like logy to semantically narrow to a specific fishery or ocean-related meaning (Clarke 2010b: 118). With the exception of the 1989 quotation, the majority of attestations for logy in this sense appear in the late 1800s to early 1900s, which suggests that this usage has significantly declined in recent decades and has given way to meanings 2 and 3.
See DNE, s.v. "logy", and EDD, s.v. "loggy" (2), which is marked "Nfld.".

Quotations

1862
Somehow, they were all left open; consequently, when the outer shell was burst [XX], all the space between it and the inner shell filled with water, sinking the ship over five feet and rendering her apt to be loggy and unmanageable in anything like rough weather.
1896
J A Folklore ix, 23 In Newfoundland ... they will speak of a logy vessel, a slow sailer.
1899
Meanwhile the Vindobala, sinking deeper in the water, was no longer able to lift her decks to the swelling seas, and the sluggish, 'loggy' way in which she rode told too well that her end was fast approaching.
1929
He meant that the schooner was logy and far down in the water as if she were half swamped. It never occurred to him that the vessel could be back so soon with her hold full of fish.
1933
And when we get over the side to help with the whips and pelts, we shall get some inward shocks to see how deep and logy the ship has become. She is lying almost inert in the heavy ice, with all her old quicky buoyancy gone.
1989
Evening Telegram 23 May, p. 5 Three days out of [Gibraltar the vessel] was overtaken by a strong north-easter and her reaction was logy and she yawed heavily. Worse she began to leak.
2adj.

heavy, sluggish, stupid.

Logy also appears in British English dialects with the meaning 'heavy-set' and 'weighty' (EDD, s.v. "loggy" (1)). As with meaning 1, logy in this sense likely travelled to Newfoundland with British settlers. However, this meaning is much more popular with current generations, as attestations remain steady throughout the 20th century. Its use in Newfoundland has also expanded from the original British usage in that it has semantically transferred to also describe animals (see, for example, the 1928 quotation). This meaning is no longer characteristically Newfoundland, but used more generally. DARE, s.v. "logy", labels it as US "North, North Midland, West", which renders the older EDD evidence (see below) imprecise.
See DNE, s.v. "logy" (1), and EDD, s.v. "loggy" (1), which is marked "Nfld.".

Quotations

1863
MORETON 33 Loggy. Often applied in reproachful metaphor to a dull slow person.
1910
In my experience I found that even one drink of whiskey, when on the trail, would make me logy and drowsy; I tried it once or twice under severe hardships, hoping that it would stimulate me to endure them, but found it only increased the hardship, making endurance doubly hard.
1932
That night Uyarak mentioned that he had seen many ptarmigan in the neighborhood of a small lake, logy with the cold. He had even walked in among them without exciting them, knocking a number of them over with the handle of his whip.
1948
This gentle laxative wakes up your system, relieves that logy feeling caused by constipation.
1950
You wouldn't have given a nickel for Jake's chances as his seconds hollered a warning "last minute". Suddenly he became the brawling mauler of old -- not the low and logy workman he had been most of the night.
1969
The turkey was excellent and Jim is still ear to ear in bones. Max is logy. Bill is still eating. The tea turned the milk and Dizzy got a razzing. Frank is his calm self, and Dyke is full.
1979
By the time we came back he was feeling what Daddy Mick called "a bit logy". Miserable looking he was, head down, ears drooping, tail straight and limp as an empty clothes-line.
1988
The pacing is a mite logy and the comedy a bit muted, but those cavils aside, The Milagro Beanfield War is a picture-perfect succession of perfect pictures.
2005
In our province, it is the most hopeful trouting time of all; the water is still relatively cold, and the trout are still sluggish, so slow to the fly that your timing is thrown off, so logy and chilled that even worms won't interest them.
2014
I was feeling logy and getting this brutal fever that spiked and ebbed like tides in the Bay of Fundy. I was having night sweats so severe that I woke up and had to change all my clothes and drink half a gallon of water to avoid dehydration. And then I got the little blisters, and the other shoe dropped.
3adj. Newfoundland

of the weather: heavy with moisture or oppressively hot.

Type: 3. Semantic Change As a result of the term's association with weight and heaviness, logy may also describe some types of Newfoundland weather. A day heavy with moisture or almost uncomfortably warm is considered logy. Respondents of the questionnaire for the Dialect Atlas of Newfoundland and Labrador English (Clarke & Hiscock 2009) listed it as one of many words that may be used in this context (see the 2010 quotation), though logy in this sense appears far less frequently in written sources than meanings 1 or 2.
Predominantly used in spoken language.

Quotations

1863
MORETON 31 Loggy. Saturated and heavy with moisture.
1907
Logy, heavy, dull. Thus, a logy day.
1916
'Logy' meant heavy and inert; a sultry day was 'logy weather.'
2010
That an abundance of fishery and maritime terms continued to exist into the late twentieth century is evident from the results of an ongoing project the aim of which is the production of an online Dialect Atlas of Newfoundland and Labrador English (DANL). The lexical component of this project is based on a questionnaire administered under the direction of the linguist Harold Paddock in the 1980s, in representative communities throughout the island as well as in Labrador. [...] When asked what they would use to describe mild and damp weather, respondents offered some two dozen terms, including logy, mauzy, miggy, misky, mudgy, muggy, murky, sluggish, smuggy and stucky.

References

  • EDD
  • Clarke (2010b)
  • Clarke & Hiscock (2013)