north. Obs. Forms: 6 waybitte, wye byt, 6–7 wey-, 7 wea-, 7–8 wee-, (9 wai-), 7– way-bit. [First element uncertain, but prob. representing northern dialectal variants of WEE sb. and a. + BIT sb.2] A short distance.
As shown by the quotations, the source of the word was the alleged habit of Northern rustics, on being asked the distance to a place, of giving it as ‘a mile (etc.) and a way-bit,’ which the inquiring traveller found practically to mean two or three miles.
1589. Almond for Parrat, 2. If … my full points seeme as tedious to thy puritane perusers, as the Northren mans mile, and a waybitte to the weary passenger.
1600. Wisd. Dr. Dodypoll, IV. i. in Bullen, O. Pl., III. 139. How far am I from Court? Some two myles and a wye byt, sir.
1603. T. M., True Narr. Entert. H. M., C 3 b. The miles according to the Northren phrase, are a wey-bit longer then they be here in the South.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1655), IV. xxviii. 67. In the North parts where there is a wea bit to evry mile.
1651. J. C[leveland], Poems, Dial. Two Zealots, 52. A York-shire Wea-bit, longer then a mile.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Yorks. (1662), 190. Ask a Country-man here on the high-way, how far it is to such a Town, and they commonly return, So many miles and a way-bit. It is not Way-bit, though generally so pronounced, but Wee-bit is a pure Yorkshirisme, which is a small bit in the Northern Language. Ibid., 225. Generall Leslie with his Scottish ran away more then an York-shire mile, and a Wee-bit.
1775. J. Watson, Hist. Halifax, 548. Way-bit. As a mile and a way-bit. Meaning a wee, or little bit.
1834. Medwin, Angler in Wales, I. 255. You shall have his description of it, preface and all—which is like the mile and the wai bit, in Sussex, the one twice the length of the other.
fig. a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, I. (1692), 59. I have heard him prefer divers, and very seriously, before himself, who came short a Mile and a way-bit.
1692. Poems in Burlesque, 15. From Sleep to Death, there’s but a way-bit.
b. transf. of time.
1687. Settle, Refl. Dryden’s Plays, 51. In his anno ætatis, thirty and a Way-bit.
1732. Lady B. Germain, Lett. to Swift, 13 May. You will find forty years and a wee bit have done no more good to my head than it has to my face.
