A Kildare woman, Anne Dempsey, wrote to inquire about the origin of the word frump, a word common among older women, she says. I don't know which frump the lady means, so let's have a look at the ones I have heard in my time.
On the first goin' down, as they say in parts of Waterford (firstly, Irish, ar an gcead dul sios), there is the frump which means a bad-tempered old woman. This word is found in Wexford and Waterford; it is also found in the dialects of Scotland, northern and midland England, as well as in Somerset and Hampshire.
Dickens has it in Our Mutual Friend: "Don't fancy me a frum py old married woman." I've read that what Dickens meant here by frumpy was the common Irish meaning of slovenly in dress and habits; I don't think so.
At any rate, the origin of both these frumps is probably the verb frumple, to wrinkle, itself from the Dutch verrompelen, of the same meaning. Frumple's first appearance in literature is in 1398 translation by John de Tre visa of a Latin medical tract.
John tells us that "the flesshe in the buttockes is fromplyd and knotty". So now you know.
The only other frump that has come to my notice is the one found in south-east Wexford. It is a verb which means to jeer, make fun of. It is common in Scotland, northern and midland English, and the southern dialects of Dev on, Dorset, Pembrokeshire and Cornwall. Possibly connected with frumple, some say.
Beaumont and Fletcher have it as a noun in The Scornful Lady, first performed in the year of Shakespeare's death, 1616: "Sweet widow, leave your frumps and be edified."
I like the verb croodle, sent to me by Anne Gallagher from the braes of Cresslough, she says, and now living in Dublin. "Croodle in there together, and I'll tell you a story," Anne's mother used to say when she was a child. Croodle is also found in Antrim; W.H. Patterson has it in his invaluable glossary of 1880. The word is also found in the south.
In deepest Carlow, in a hostelry not far from the lordly Barrow's banks, I heard an ould lad frumping a teenage boy: "I suppose you're goin' up now to croo dle with the young wan," he said. Origin? Teutonic. Compare the Middle English crodle, pronounced with a long `o'; the Old Eng lish verb cruden and the middle Dutch crudan, to press, crowd.