dodmen

Noun

dodman (plural dodmans or dodmen)

1. (East-Anglia, dialectal) A land-based snail.
   • Yt is as great pyte to se a woman wepe / As yt is to se a sely dodman crepe, / Or, as ye wold say, a sely goose go barefote.1538, John Bale, Kynge Johan; published as J[ohn] Payne Collier, editor, Kynge Johan. A Play in Two Parts. […], London: Printed for the Camden Society […], 1838, →OCLC, page 7
2. (East-Anglia, dialectal) A snail's shell.
   • DODMAN. A snail. Norfolk. Also, a snail-shell.[1846, James Orchard Halliwell, “DODMAN”, in A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs, and Ancient Customs, from the Fourteenth Century. […], volume I (A–I), London...
3. (East-Anglia, dialectal) Any shellfish which casts its shell, such as a lobster.
   • The Creatures that caſt their Skin are, the Snake, the Viper, the Grashopper, the Lizard, the Silk-worm, &c. Thoſe that caſt their Shell are, the Lobſter, the Crab, the Cra-fish, the Hodmandod or Dodman, the Tortoise, &c. The old Skins are found, but the old Shells never: So as it is like they...1670, Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [Francis Bacon], “Century VIII”, in Sylva Sylvarum, or, A Natural History, in Ten Centuries. […], 9th and last edition, London: Printed by J[ohn]...
4. (East-Anglia, dialectal, rare, possibly erroneous) A surveyor.
   • At Wilmington in Sussex, the Long Man, with his 240 feet length cut into the turf on the hill-side[…], the largest and perhaps the earliest representation of prehistoric man in England, carries two staves. Now the soldier carries but one spear, the shepherd one crook, the pedestrian one staff, the...[1925], Arthur Watkins, “Ley-men”, in The Old Straight Track; Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites, and Mark Stones, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished London: Head of Zeus, 2014, →ISBN

See all 5 meanings of dodman