Bake
The mouth, or by extension the face. 'Houl yer bake' (= hold your bake) is the standard Ulster instruction to be quiet. 'Shut your bake' is firmer; 'put it in yer bake' is what's said when a parent has run out of patience offering food to a fussy child.
Etymology
Likely an extension of standard English 'beak' (originally the bill of a bird, then by metaphor the protruding mouth), with the Ulster vowel and consonant softening producing 'bake'. The Dutch cognate 'bek' (= bill, mouth, beak) is suggested in some Ulster Scots sources but the English-via-Northern-dialect path is the more documented.
In a sentence
"Houl yer bake a minute - I'm trying to listen to the news."
Historical notes
Bake belongs to the Ulster Scots family of slightly rough body-words that English-elsewhere has lost or never had. Saying 'his bake' rather than 'his face' marks the register as informal and the speaker as Ulster. The fixed phrase 'houl yer bake' (= hold your tongue) is one of the most-said Ulster Scots imperatives; the 'h' is silent and the construction reads as one word in rapid speech.
Sources
- Macafee, Caroline. A Concise Ulster Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1996. · dictionary