A dialectal or specialized plural term, possibly related to certain regional items or concepts, though specific usage is largely obscure in modern English.
Likely a plural form derived from a regional or specialized term beginning with 'gay-,' but historical documentation is sparse.
Words like this remind us that English regional dialects contained countless terms we've nearly completely lost—dialect dictionaries from the 1800s are full of these mysterious plurals that don't fit standard English categories.
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