In Archie Armstrong's Banquet of Jests (1641), there's some doggerel about a Welshman. Besides some fantastic evidence of past rhymes (e.g. steale / gaole), there's an expression I'm not sure of. I've transcribed the relevant part.
On a Welchman Arraigned.
A Welchman having broke a house to steale
Some Cheese, is caught: his Worship scornes the Gaole.
Ods-plutra-nailes wil you not take her word?
Her great Gran-father was a Prittish lord.
What does "ods-plutra-nailes" mean? Is it perhaps a euphemized "God's nails", with an infixed expletive? Or am I on the wrong track?
Best Answer
It seems the whole of ods-plutra-nailes is an oath. Here’s a breakdown . . .
Starting in the Oxford English Dictionary (login required), under nail, n., we have:
But hang on . . . following that we have:
Sense 1 for nail is fingernail. In By God’s Nails! Careful How You Curse we find:
Fingernails or crucifixion nails, let’s next look at od, n.1 and int.:
So far we have: God’s [finger]nails! will you not take her word?
I encountered nothing but dead ends for plutra though. Taking a Latin track, I speculated perhaps plu
s ultra —> plutra. But: God’s further beyond [finger]nails? Hm.Then I stumbled upon this:
Welsh, of course! That led me to Linguistic and Other Distortions in Ballads on Welsh Themes, wherein we find:
So: Ods-plutra-nailes wil you not take her word? —> God’s blood and [finger]nails! will you not take her word?