Ods-plutra-nailes

expressions

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

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:

II. 5. a. A nail used in the crucifixion of Jesus. Frequently as a symbol of the Passion, esp. in devotion or meditation. Frequently in plural.
This is one of the most common senses of the word in Old English and early Middle English texts.
OE—1990

But hang on . . . following that we have:

II. 5. b. In oaths, etc.: (by) (God’s) nails and variants. Cf. GOD n. and int. Phrases 3b(a). Now archaic and rare.
In these expressions, nail may sometimes have been taken in sense 1.
c1390—1954
...
[usage example] 1600   T. DEKKER Shomakers Holiday sig. H2v   Gods nailes doe you thinke I am so base to gull you?
...

Sense 1 for nail is fingernail. In By God’s Nails! Careful How You Curse we find:

The real medieval obscenities were religious oaths. A phrase such as “by God’s nails” was one of the most shocking and indeed most dangerous things a person could say in this era. Oaths by God’s body parts, such as “by God’s arms” or “by the blood of Christ,” were thought to be able to injure Christ’s physical body as he sat at the right hand of God in heaven.

Fingernails or crucifixion nails, let’s next look at od, n.1 and int.:

A euphemistic substitute for God in asseverative or exclamatory formulae. Now archaic and regional.

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 plus ultra —> plutra. But: God’s further beyond [finger]nails? Hm.

Then I stumbled upon this:

As is characteristic in the written representation of historical dialect, what we find in the mock Welsh pamphlets is the foregrounded use of certain stereotypical expressions associated with WE. These comprise the exclamation “by Cods plutter a Nailes”, or variations of this expression, such as, “By Gods plutra nayles”.

Welsh, of course! That led me to Linguistic and Other Distortions in Ballads on Welsh Themes, wherein we find:

The oath God’s blood and nails is rendered as Cots plutter-a-nails.

So: Ods-plutra-nailes wil you not take her word? —> God’s blood and [finger]nails! will you not take her word?