Welsh words for rain

[bunn]

I have to admit, that is not the meaning of 'pistyllio' that I learned as a kid growing up in Swansea. :-D Also I'm fairly sure that when you include things like 'spitting' 'mizzle' and 'downpour' the English must have pretty much the same number of words for rain as the Welsh. I suppose we need them...

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

My Dad uses "smir" (with a nice trilled RRRR), which is a Scottish word for a very fine drizzle, so fine as to be barely there at all. I've always thought that English needed a word for this. I also like the Scottish "drookit," for drenched. (Hmm... We seem to have a lot of English words for getting wet through to the skin - drenched, soaked, sodden etc. And they all sound of Germanic origin, too. I wonder if Anglo-Saxons were particularly prone to getting caught out in the rain or falling in bogs.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, is 'smir' not mizzle, or is it finer (and less sight-encumbering) than that..?

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I think my Dad uses "smir" for a rain that's barely there at all - the sort of weather when you're not really aware that anything's falling on you, but your hair gets damp, so you know it must be.

However, I also have vague memories of being hustled out of the house on long walks, on the grounds that it wasn't really raining, it was "just a smir," only to get drenched, so it might be an element of Scottish weather-related PR.