Last week I learnt a lovely new word – huffkin – which is apparently a traditional type of bread roll from Kent in the southeast of England (see photo).

According to A Dictionary of the Kentish Dialect and Provincialisms, a huffkin, or hufkin, is “A kind of bun or light cake, which is cut open, buttered, and so eaten.” Such rolls were traditionally served at a hopkin, a supper for hop pickers.

Kent is an area of the UK I know quite well, as some of my relatives live there, and my dad grew there. However, I didn’t know anything about the local dialect, until now.

I couldn’t find any etymology for huffkin, but guess that the -kin part is a diminutive. It comes from the Middle Dutch -ken, and is used in words like catkin, bodkin, manikin, munchkin, pumpkin and napkin, and can also used with names – Jenkin(s), Simkin(s), Hopkin(s), Watkin(s) [source].

Other interesting Kentish dialect words I found include:

– joskin = a farm labourer (particularly a driver of horses, or carter’s mate), engaged to work the whole year round for one master
– galligaskins = trousers
– strooch = to drag the feet along the ground in wallking
– hopkin = supper for the work-people, after the hop-picking is over
– huffle = a merry meeting; a feast

Few people speak Kentish dialect anymore. You can hear a sample on the Survey of English Dialects, and on the video below:

The name Kent comes from the Old English Cent, from the Latin Cantium, from the Brythonic *Cantio. In Welsh it is Caint.