Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 114

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

Earth Bath

Short and simple, this is defined by the dictionary as “a grave”.

The phrase is also very much a nineteenth-century one, it fell out of usage after that. More recent usages tend to be with reference to the treatment of being buried to one’s neck in soil for medical purposes, rather to the original rather more morbid meaning.