pucksy

Meanings

1. An area of miry or swampy ground; a place (in a road, field, etc) where a spring rises, or where rain pools, and keeps the ground miry.

1. A puck (mischievous or hostile spirit) or pixie.

Etymology

Unclear. The English Dialect Dictionary and Dictionary of the Scots Language mention a northeastern Scottish (Banff) dialectal word pouk "hole in the ground, usually waterlogged or marshy" which could be related (compare also pughole); the DSL considers that pouk to be the same word as the verb pouk (“to poke, to thrust”), and notes that in Banff pouk also means "dig or excavate in a careless, clumsy way, damage by excavation or holing". Alternatively, compare pock (“pit”). (In the 1800s, Halliwell-Phillipps speculated that the mires might be named in reference to the folk belief that pucksies/pucks (“mischievous or hostile spirits”) led travelers astray, potentially into bogs.