Names
Uneliblika (Uneliblikas)
Large chequered skipper (lit. sleep-butterfly), Heteropterus morpheus (someone in the Tallinn Street Name Commission really likes butterflies). Part of a lepidopteran group. See also Vaksiku.
Unistuse (Unistus)
Dream, daydream. Another word borrowed from Finnish during the 19th-C language reforms.
Unna (Und)
Trimmer, ligger or bank runner, essentially a device allowing the business end of a fishing line to remain dangling in the water for extended periods (e.g. all night for pike, or while you go and cook sausages for ice-fishing). Could be a disk-shaped block of wood that floats, or one too large to pass through the hole in the ice, a spring-action system planted into the snow... Part of a fishing-tackle group, see also Vabe.
Urva (Urb)
Catkin: for want of a better word, a ‘tube-like’ cluster of flowers, usually but not always male, found on various plants: alder, birch, hazel, mulberry, oak, poplar, willow, etc.
Ussilaka (Ussilakk)
Paris, truelove, true-lover’s knot, or herb paris, Paris quadrifolia, from the Latin par:paris, ‘equal’, due to its regular leaves, not the city. Also poisonous, perhaps suggesting its Estonian name: snake’s mane. But uss also means worm; see Ussimäe. One of the Mähe flower-name group, see Aianduse.
Ussimäe (Ussimägi)
Snake Hill, name of an ancient stronghold on the northern coast of Estonia, close to Kunda (site of hunting and fishing settlements dating back to 6500 BCE, and cement works to 1870). Snakes – Estonians are a little hazy here: if it’s long and wiggly (pulease...) it’s an uss, so that includes snakes and worms. If they want to be really nice, they specify the soggier version by calling it vihmauss or rain worm. See Mäe for discussion, where the sense of secure location seems to be most apposite.
