craythur

craythur

English

Alternative forms

• cratur

Etymology

From Irish créatúr (“creature”).

Noun

craythur (uncountable)

1. Whiskey.
   • 1850 (approx.), Anonymous, Finnegan's Wake:

     Now Tim had a sort o' the tipplin' way

     With a love of the liquor poor Tim was born

     And to help him on with his work each day

     He'd a drop of the craythur ev'ry morn.

2. (Ireland) Alternative form of creature.
   • 1857, Anna Maria Hall, A woman's story, page 215:

     [...] why, at home, if a craythur hasn't a hat to pull, he'll pull the hair off his head, sooner than not make a bow.

     Shut ye'r mouth, do, and go on, ye little ill-reared winkle; [...]

   • 1901, Water-Kelpies, in Country Life, page 471:

     Then he answered thickly, "Och, sure, and it's far enough from well it is, yer honour, and it's far enough from well yer honour would be if he'd seen the soights that Pathrick Moriarty, as harmless a craythur as ever was born, has seen thi noight."