pizer

English

Etymology

From Italian piazza (“public or market square”),[1] just like the term piazza (“front porch”) which is used in New England dialects.

Pronunciation
  • (Ocracoke Island (in the Outer Banks of North Carolina)) IPA(key): /paɪzɚ/[2]

Noun

pizer (plural pizers)

  1. (some Southern US dialectal) A (front) porch (on a house).
    • 2007, Homer Hickam, The Keeper's Son →ISBN, page 1:
      The old wicker rocker creaked as Josh pushed back and forth in it, back and forth, back and forth, his bare feet slapping against the boards of the pizer with each rock.
    • 2014, Gwyn Hyman Rubio, Love and Ordinary Creatures: A Novel →ISBN:
      Caruso thinks with a quiver. “When I saw you two, eating lunch—outside—on the pizer, you was holding hands,” Beryl says, pressing Clarissa hard with her eyes.

Usage notes
  • The term is used in North Carolina's Outer Banks (especially on Ocracoke Island)[3] and among the Lumbee in southeastern North Carolina,[4] but also in Appalachian Autauga county in Alabama.[5] The original form piazza is used in New England.

References
  1. Talkin' Tar Heel: How Our Voices Tell the Story of North Carolina (2014, →ISBN
  2. Pizer , in the Ocracoke Island Journal (2006 March 13)
  3. Walt Wolfram, Hoi Toide on the Outer Banks: The Story of the Ocracoke Brogue
  4. A Dialect Dictionary of Lumbee English
  5. From the Gulf States and Beyond (1998, →ISBN, page 152: When I asked the county agent office in Prattville to help me find informants in Autauga County, the secretaries said to be sure to ask about piazza. They were often told to just put any deliveries 'on the pizer'.

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