akether

• aketha

Possibly from the phrase “ah,” quoth he. First appears in the 1867 work Jim an' Nell.

akether

1. (UK, West Country, Devon, obsolete) quoth he. [only 19th c.]
   • 1867, Rock, William Frederick, Jim and Nell: a dramatic poem in the dialect of North Devon, page 20:

     "Us wur betwitting Bob to-day,
     Vor gieing all es things away,
     Begummers, us wur cort,
     Akether, 'bin ma kit's ago,
     I can't work w'e'r I wull or no,
     I'll maunch an' drink vor nort.'

   • 1876, Brown, Oliver Madox, chapter 1, in The Dwale Bluth, volume 1, pages 57–58:

     Then she walked away, not even stopping to listen to the servant's fearless denunciation of her as "a chittering, raving, rixy, louching, haggaging moil, an nor a bent th' worserer nar hot sh' art ter be, th' wapper-eed deave-nort. Giggling akether!" shrieked the old woman, wild with resentment […]

• G. A. Cooke, The County of Devon.
• Wright, Joseph (1898) The English Dialect Dictionary‎, volume 1, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 34

• Theaker, hektare