Nesh is an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....

 meaning unusually susceptible to cold weather and there is no synonym

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

 for this use. Usage has been recorded in Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, the East Midlands

East Midlands

The East Midlands is one of the regions of England, consisting of most of the eastern half of the traditional region of the Midlands. It encompasses the combined area of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and most of Lincolnshire...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

 and Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

.

The word comes from Old English

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 hnesce meaning feeble, weak, or infirm and is a cognate with the 16th century Dutch word nesch typically meaning damp or foolish. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that some etymologists have suggested a connection with Old High German nasc, meaning 'to eat dainty food or delicacies' (the origin of the word nosh), but it dismisses this connection as "unlikely".

Nesh was added, in 2011, to the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 'wordbank', a project to preserve regional dialects words and phrases.

Cultural significance

This word has been used in both literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s where other terms have not been available to convey the particular meaning. Despite being considered a dialect word, and somewhat archaic, writers have periodically turned to it. In addition to its appearance in fiction, in the 19th century it was used in official reports as a general term for susceptibility to cold.

The Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

 derivation 'neshe', was used by Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

 in his 1346 poem The Court of Love.

"It seemeth for love his herte is tender and neshe."

The earliest traceable use in modern English, in literature, was in Mary Barton, written by Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson , often referred to simply as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era...

 in 1848. Gaskell's style is notable for dignifying the use of local dialect words by putting them into the voice of her characters, and of the narrator. It was also used in Gaskell's The Manchester Marriage, written in 1858.

"Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl."

"At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day."

In 1885 nesh formed a quarter of a curious monograph

Monograph

A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 entitled Four dialect words, clem, lake, nesh, and oss, their modern dialectal range, meanings, pronunciation, etymology, and early or literary use written by Thomas Hallam.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

 used nesh in The Woodlanders

The Woodlanders

The Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It was published in 1887.-Plot summary:The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury...

, chapter 4, in 1887:

"Whenever she and her husband came to a puddle in their walks together he'd take her up like a half-penny doll and put her over without dirting her a speck. And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he'll make her as nesh as her mother was."

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...

 wrote in The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...

, in 1911:

"Do you ever catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly. She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.

"Not me," he said, grinning "I never ketched cold since I was born. I wasn't brought up nesh enough. I've chased about th' moor in all weathers same as th' rabbits does."

A frequently quoted use of nesh is in D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

's Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. The Modern Library placed it ninth on their list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century.-Plot introduction and history:...

. Written in 1913, we have this exchange:

"F-ff-f!" he went, pretending to shudder with cold.

"Goodness, man, don't be such a kid!" said Mrs. Morel. "It's NOT cold."

"Thee strip thysen stark nak'd to wesh thy flesh i' that scullery," said the miner, as he rubbed his hair; "nowt b'r a ice-'ouse!"

"And I shouldn't make that fuss," replied his wife.

"No, tha'd drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi' thy nesh sides."

D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

 also used nesh in England, My England

England, My England and Other Stories

England, My England is the title of a collection of short stories by D. H. Lawrence. Individual items were originally written between 1913 and 1921, many of them against the background of World War I. Most of these versions were placed in magazines or periodicals. Ten were later selected and...

(1922), Chapter 4 - Monkey Nuts:

From the background slowly approached a slender man with a grey moustache and large patches on his trousers.

'You've got'im back 'gain, ah see,' he said to his daughter-in-law. His wife explained how I had found Joey.

'Ah,' went on the grey man. 'It wor our Alfred scared him off, back your life. He must'a flyed ower t'valley. Tha ma' thank thy stars as 'e wor fun, Maggie. 'E'd a bin froze. They a bit nesh, you know,' he concluded to me.

'They are,' I answered. 'This isn't their country.'

The word also appears in the fourth line of Lawrence's "The Risen Lord" (1929):

The risen lord, the risen lord

has risen in the flesh,

and treads the earth to feel the soil

though his feet are still nesh.

The same usage also appears in a much less salubrious context, in the 1985 song "Now 'E's A Puff", by notorious Macclesfield band The Macc Lads

Macc Lads

The Macc Lads were a punk and hard rock band from Macclesfield, UK. Self-proclaimed "rudest, crudest, lewdest, drunkest band in Christendom", The Macc Lads used irreverent and foul-mouthed lyrics, political incorrectness, drinking, sexism and homophobia....

. Part of one line of the first verse says:

He's gone all nesh, he's makin' us sick... (warning: these lyrics contain frequent uses of strong expletives)

Usage continued to be fairly local until the word reached an international audience in the film The Full Monty

The Full Monty

The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy...

. This was shot during 1997 on location in Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

. In this film nesh was used in the context of feeling cold when others don't. .

Since the appearance of the word in the film, used for lacking courage, has occurred in the national press..

Nowadays, it is considered to be a gently derogatory comment, that can be used to a friend. An example might be 'Why are you wearing a coat? That's a bit nesh isn't it?'.

Usage

The Oxford English Dictionary list several shades of meaning, some of which are obsolete. Those still in use, include:

• Soft in texture or consistency; yielding easily to pressure or force. In later use chiefly: tender, succulent, juicy. For example "It is hoped that the report will have a wide circulation as a guideline to asking sharp and pertinent questions that strip away the nish outer flesh and get right to the bone of the problem."
• Damp, moist, wet, chilly.
• Lacking courage, spirit, or energy; timid, faint-hearted; lazy, negligent. For example: "The worst crime was the charge of being ‘nesh’... It was..nesh to..wait for the bus to stop before jumping into the road [etc.]."
• Delicate, weak, sickly, feeble; unable to endure fatigue, etc.; susceptible (to cold, etc.). For example: "A delicate, easily affected child, who therefore needs more than ordinary care, is said by old people to be nash."
• Fastidious, squeamish, dainty.

The definition in the Microsoft Encarta Dictionary is:

1. sensitive to cold: very sensitive to cold temperatures

2. timid: lacking courage or self-confidence

However, the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines as:

'soft - in consistency, mind, or morals'

Webster's Online Dictionary 1913 defines nesh, in its earlier usage, as:

'Soft, tender, delicate'