Groningen snorrebot

snorrebot

snorrebot — Groningen/NE-Dutch dialect word for a whirring noisemaker, from snorren ("to whirr/buzz") + bot ("bone"); used both of the swung blade and of the twirled buzzer-disc

Etymology. Dutch (Groningen/NE-Netherlands) compound of the verb snorren ('to whirr, buzz, drone', onomatopoeic) + bot ('bone' — a traditional blade material, the blade also being made of wood), i.e. 'the whirring/buzzing bone', a direct description of the humming sound the swung blade produces.

In Groningen and the wider northeast-Netherlands dialect belt the bullroarer-class noisemaker is the snorrebot — snorren, to whirr or buzz, plus bot, bone, after the older ones cut from animal bone. The same word covers two related toys: a thin blade of wood or bone swung on a cord until it whirrs, and a notched disc spun on a doubled, twisted cord and worked by drawing the hands apart accordion-fashion. A bone example of the second kind, a drilled pig's metatarsal, was dug from the Grote Markt in Groningen and recorded as a children's plaything. Hor is one of the regional synonyms for it. In the living speech of the province it has stayed a child's toy, with none of the secrecy the swung instrument carries elsewhere.

Particulars

Object

Oblong wooden blade, cord through one end, swung — the NE-Dutch folk bullroarer.