landward

lakeward

antonym(s) of “in the direction of the land”

[…] they recommend to all ministers within the bounds, magistrates of towns, and heritors of landward parishes, to exert themselves, and use every prudent and reasonable method in getting their respective congregations to be taught properly, as occasion shall offer.

1755 October, The Scots Magazine, volume 17, page 512:

1790, John Naismith, Thoughts on Various Objects of Industry Pursued in Scotland, Edinburgh: self-published, Book III, Chapter 2, pp. 331-332,
Hence we may see the weakness and absurdity of that kind of jealousy and aversion which seems to subsist between the landward and manufacturing classes of people.

“I do not mean to offend,” said I. “I have no skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than you found it out.” ¶ “Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”

1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, Chapter:

(Scotland) Of the country as opposed to the city, rural; agricultural.


Geordie

en-noun

Geordie (countable and uncountable, plural Geordies)

(Northern England and Scotland, obsolete) A guinea.


lin

en-verb

lin (third-person singular simple present lins, present participle linning, simple past linned or lan, past participle linned or lun)

lins (present singular third-person)
linning (participle present)
linned (past)
lan (past)
linned (participle past)
lun (participle past)

From Middle English linnen, from Old English linnan (“to cease from, desist, lose, yield up”), from Proto-West Germanic *linnan, from Proto-Germanic *linnaną (“to turn, move aside, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ley- (“to elude, avoid, shrink from”). Cognate with Danish linne (“to stop, rest”), dialectal Swedish linna (“to pause, rest”), Icelandic linna (“to stop, rest”).

der

Halfe furious vnto his foe he came, / Resolv'd in minde all suddenly to win, / Or soone to lose, before he once would lin [...].

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Till all war deaun I knaw thou wad not lin.

1684, Meriton, Praise Ale, 1.46 (quoted in the EDD)

He never linned till he had taen away every chicken that the wife had.

1822, The Three Perils of Man, James Hogg, I. 238:

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) To desist, to stop to cease.


lin

From Middle English lin, from Old English līn (“flax, linen, cloth”). For more information, see the entry linen, lint.

a lin apron, lin-break, lin-brake, a lin cap, lin-clout, lin-garn/lin-yarn, lin-man, lin-weaver/lin-webster, lin-wheel

[…] to Sowerby-bridge, about twenty-four measured miles, wheel carriages would go in one day; and on that account they concluded that the manufacture of that place, Warrington, &c. would be much readier and cheaper supplied with lin-yarn, flax, &c. from the east, […]
1641.—14 yards of femble cloth, 12s. ; 8 yards of linen, 6s. 8d. ; 20 yards of harden, 10s. ; 5 linen sheets, 1l. ; 7 linen pillow bears, 8s. ; 2 femble sheets and a line hard sheet, 10s. ; 3 linen towels, 4s. ; 6 lin curtains and a vallance, 12s. ; […]

1775, John Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax, page 16:

A yerd a gooid lin check.

Paddeys wi' their feyne lin' ware.

Hoo wur stonnin' i' th' front of a weshin'-mug, wi' a lin brat afore her.

1874 (ed. of 1879), Waugh, Chim. Corner, 27

(Scotland, Ireland, Northern England, especially in compounds) Alternative form of line (“flax, linen”).


Law

en-proper noun

Law (countable and uncountable, plural Laws)

From Old English hlaw (“a hill or burial mound”).


sike

sikes (plural)
syke (alternative)
syke (alternative)

From Northern Middle English sike, from Old English sīċ (see sitch), possibly also from or related to Old Norse sík; both from Proto-Germanic *sīką (“slow flowing water; trickle”). Cognate with Norwegian sik. Compare Scots sheuch.

inh

The swankies lap thro' mire and syke, Wow as their heads did birr!

1809, John Skinner, Amusements of Leisure Hours, or Poetical Pieces, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, page 41:

[...] a great gathering o' their folk at the Miry-sikes, […]

1820, Walter Scott, Tales of My Landlord: 2nd Series, Collectd and Arranged by Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseud.], page 6:

It neither grew in syke nor ditch, Nor yet in ony sheugh;[…]

1859, William Lonsdale Watkinson, William Theophilus Davison, The London Quarterly Review, page 278:

The wind made wave the red weed on the dike. Bedoven in dankès deep was every sike;[…]

1876, Rosaline Orme Masson, Three Centuries of English Poetry: Being Selections from Chaucer to Herrick, A Scotch Winter Evening in 1512, page 160:

[…] hills and mountains, moss or mure, bank or syke, sea or shore,[…]

1937, Scottish History Society, Publications of the Scottish History Society:

The march of that herding is to come from the Rispie syke to the point at Blood syke Bottom to the stone syke-head.

1952 [1776], Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, Transactions and Journal of Proceedings:

(Scotland, Northumbria) A gutter or ditch; a small stream that frequently dries up in the summer; the marshy ground or ditch through which such a stream flows.


skirl

en-verb

skirl (third-person singular simple present skirls, present participle skirling, simple past and past participle skirled)

skirls (present singular third-person)
skirling (participle present)
skirled (participle past)
skirled (past)

Originally from Scots and Northern English dialects (as a verb), probably of Old Norse origin; ultimately imitative.

Come here, or stay where ye are, and skirl as loud ye can — it's a' ye're gude for — l say, ye auld deevil, skirl — skirl — louder — louder, woman — gar the gentles hear ye in the ha' — I have heard ye as far off as the Bass for a less matter.

1819, Walter Scott, “The Bride of Lammermoor”, in Collection of Ancient and Modern British Authors, Volume 14, published 1839, page 91:

1829, James Hogg (as the Ettrick Shepherd), The p and the q, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 26, page 693,
He gloom'd and he skirl'd, and, when in hard case, / He whiles gae his mother a yerk on the face;

Drums began to thump in a variety of rhythms. The flautists were not sure what to play. The shawm began to skirl.

1985, Anthony Burgess, The Kingdom of the Wicked:

(Scotland, Northern England) To make a shrill sound, as of bagpipes.


skirl

To a resounding wail headed by the King-Kong skirl, all gangs joined in hauling in the net.

1977, Raja Proctor, The Illicit Immigrant, page 92:

'Have we found a son only to lose him?' she cried, 'And what for? For the skirl of the pipes, is it?[…]'

2003, Michael Morpurgo, The Last Wolf, page 26:

2006 [Bantam], Nick Drake, Nefertiti: The Book of the Dead, 2011, Black Swan, page 191,
The last servants and late officials hurried into their places, the guards took their positions, and then, with a beating of the drums and a skirl of reed pipes, the whole group made its way back across the courtyard and up the stairs to the Window of Appearances between the palace and the Great Temple.

They were greeted with applause, medals and the skirl of bagpipes from our lone piper - a sound some told us encouraged tired legs for the last half-mile as the pipes could be heard on the mountain.

2024 August 7, Paul Bigland, “'3 Peaks by Rail': ain't no mountain high enough”, in RAIL, number 1015, page 51:

(Scotland, Northern England) A shrill sound, as of bagpipes.


sleekit

en-adj

sleekit (comparative more sleekit, superlative most sleekit)

more sleekit (comparative)
most sleekit (superlative)

From Scots sleekit, Scottish form of sleeked. Compare slick, sleek.

‘Damn your impudence, Duror,’ he said. ‘You're a sleekit one all right.’

1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 19:

They were not sleakit and did not knife ye, that was one thing. They were not fly men cheaters.

2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 390:

(Scotland) Specious, flattering; cunning.


rost

(Scotland) Alternative form of roust (a strong tide or current)


thole

en-verb

thole (third-person singular simple present tholes, present participle tholing, simple past and past participle tholed)

tholes (present singular third-person)
tholing (participle present)
tholed (participle past)
tholed (past)

From Middle English thōle, from tholen, tholien, from Old English þolian, from Proto-West Germanic *þolēn, from Proto-Germanic *þulāną (“to suffer”), from Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (“to bear, suffer; to support”), compare Norwegian Bokmål tåle.

der

Nor was long Poſſeſſion in molendino regio, of receiving Multures for all Corns of a Barony promiſcuouſly without exception of Teind, found to bring the Teind under a Thirlage, Except ſuch as tholed Fire and Water there.

1705, William Forbes, “Concerning the Burdens that Tiends are Liable to”, in A Treatise of Church-lands & Tithes, Edinburgh: Printed by the heirs and successors of Andrew Anderson [i.e., James Anderson], printer to the Queens Most Excellent Majesty; and to be sold at John Vallange's shop, on the north-side of the street, a little above the cross, →OCLC, page 345:

Before long Ailie was silent and white, while her mother rimed on about men and their ways. And then she could thole it no longer, but must go out and walk by the burn to cool her hot brow and calm her thoughts, while the witch indoors laughed to herself at her devices.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

But then they heard an awful scream that made them leap to their feet, it was as though mother were being torn and torn in the teeth of beasts and couldn't thole it longer; […]

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Ploughing”, in Sunset Song: A Novel (A Scots Quair; 1), London: Jarrolds, →OCLC; republished as Tom Crawford, editor, Sunset Song (Canongate Classics; 12), Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: Canongate Books, 2008, →ISBN, page 34:

While they were enjoying their meal and placidly tholing the cacophony from the wireless set, they saw the first of the Ardmore workers arrive in the café.

1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-gatherers, London: Macdonald, →OCLC; republished as The Cone-gatherers: A Haunting Story of Violence and Love, Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2007, →ISBN, pages 86–87:

(transitive, now Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) To endure, to put up with, to tolerate.


geal

en-verb

geal (third-person singular simple present geals, present participle gealing, simple past and past participle gealed)

geals (present singular third-person)
gealing (participle present)
gealed (participle past)
gealed (past)

From Middle English gelen, from Old French geler, from Latin gelāre, from gelu. See gelid. Scots jeel, geal.


rit

rits (plural)
ritt (alternative)
ret (alternative)

From Middle English ritten (“to cut, score, slit, tear”), from Old English *rittan (“to cut, score, slit, tear,”) (compare Old High German rizzen), from Proto-West Germanic *rittjan, from Proto-Germanic *ritjaną (“to cut, scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *wrid-néh₂-; see *hrītaną.
Cognate with Middle Low German ritten (“to scratch”), German ritzen (“to scratch”). Compare with Proto-Slavic *rězati (“to cut, carve, engrave”)). See also rat.

cog

(Northern England, Scotland) A scratch, a score or a groove.


rit

en-verb

rit (third-person singular simple present rits, present participle ritting, simple past and past participle ritted)

rits (present singular third-person)
ritting (participle present)
ritted (participle past)
ritted (past)
ritt (alternative)
ret (alternative)

(Northern England, Scotland) To scratch or score.

(Northern England, Scotland) To tear, rip, rend.


usquebaugh

en-noun

usquebaugh (countable and uncountable, plural usquebaughs)

usquebaughs (plural)
uskebeaghe (alternative obsolete)
usquebath (alternative obsolete)
usquabae (alternative Scotland obsolete)
usquebae (alternative Scotland obsolete)
whiskybae (alternative Scotland obsolete)

[Alt: A glass with a round bottom which tappers to the lip, served with usquebaugh.]
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *wed-
Proto-Indo-European *-r̥
Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥der.
Proto-Celtic *udenskyos
Old Irish uisce
Irish uisce
Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃-
Proto-Indo-European *-wós
Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós
Proto-Celtic *biwos
Proto-Celtic *-tūts
Proto-Celtic *biwotūts
Old Irish bethu
Irish beatha
Medieval Latin aqua vītaecalq.
Irish uisce beathabor.
Old Irish uisce
Scottish Gaelic uisge
Old Irish bethu
Scottish Gaelic beatha
Medieval Latin aqua vītaecalq.
Scottish Gaelic uisge-beathabor.
English usquebaugh
Borrowed from Irish uisce beatha and Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha (“whiskey or whisky”, literally “water of life”) (a calque of Medieval Latin aqua vītae (“distilled alcohol, liquor”, literally “water of life”)), from Irish uisce, Scottish Gaelic uisge (“water”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“water”)) + Irish beatha, Scottish Gaelic beatha (“life”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”)), Doublet of whiskey and whisky.

der

[R]emember the Lo[rd] Admyrall [Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham] and the Lord Threasurer [Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset] with a couple of Pugges or some vscough baugh or some such toyes, it would shew that you do not neglect them, whoe, I protest, are to you wonderfull kynde.

1600 October 4 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Robert Cecil, “[Letter] X”, in John MacLean, editor, Letters from Sir Robert Cecil to Sir George Carew (Camden Series; 88), [London]: […] [John Bowyer Nichols and Sons] for the Camden Society, published 1864, →OCLC, page 33:

[I]f you ſcape vvith life, and take a fagot boat, and a bottle of Vſquebaugh, come home poore men, like a type of Theames Street ſtinking of pitch and poore Iohn.

c. 1613–1616 (date written), Fra[ncis] Beaumont, Jo[hn] Fletcher, The Scornful Ladie. A Comedie. […], London: […] [John Beale] for Myles Partrich, […], published 1616, →OCLC, Act II, signature E, recto:

The Iriſh prepare a diſtilled Oenomeli made vvith Honey, VVine and ſome herbs, vvhich they cal Vſquebach, not unfit for a nation that feeds on fleſh ravv, or but half ſod.

1658, Tho. Mouffet [i.e., Thomas Muffet, et al.], “The Theater of Insects: Or, Lesser Living Creatures. […]. Chapter V. Of the Name, Difference and Use of Honey.”, in J[ohn] R[owland], transl., The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents: […], revised edition, London: […] E. Cotes, for G[eorge] Sawbridge […], T. Williams […], and T. Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 913:

But as to uſquebagh; ah long life to the liquor—it is an exhilirator of the bovvels, and a ſtomatic to the head; I ſay, Mr. Preſident, it invigorates, it ſtimulates, it—in ſhort it is the onlieſt liquor of life, and no man alive vvill die vvhilſt he drinks it.

1762, [Samuel] Foote, The Orators. […], Dublin: […] Thomas Richey, […], →OCLC, Act III, page 54:

VVhat dangers thou canſt make us ſcorn! / VVi' tippeny, vve fear nae evil; / VVi' uſquabae, vve'll face the devil!— […]

1790 (date written; published 1791), Robert Burns, “Tam o’ Shanter. A Tale.”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 2nd edition, volume II, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, page 201:

He [Robert Burns] might have traced his habit of ale-house tippling to the last long precious draught of his favourite usquebaugh, which he took in the prospect of bidding farewel for ever to his native land; […]

1818, William Hazlitt, “Lecture VII. On Burns, and the Old English Ballads.”, in Lectures on the English Poets. […], London: […] [T. Miller] for Taylor and Hessey, →OCLC, page 260:

[A]re the Gael to-day of softer flesh or whiter blood than their fathers were? Knock the head out of a cask of usquebae, let that be their night gear— […]

1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VI, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume III (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 269:

[W]hat does my noble captain drink—is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh? Is it soaked gunpowder, or blazing oil? Give it a name, heart of oak, and we'd get it for you, if it was wine from a bishop's cellar, or melted gold from King George's mint.

1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 8.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 278:

["]But, oh, I hope the dear old lady will get well very quickly." / "If usquebaugh can mend her, no doubt the recovery will be rapid," answered the Major, laughing.

1882, [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “Cupid and Psyche”, in Mount Royal […], volume I, London: John and Robert Maxwell […], →OCLC, page 214:

You’re darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan Deasy's ducats.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 190:

The drowned man was naked from the waist down and wrapped in a sodden cape. / "Get some blankets round him, Shem. And hand me the usquebaugh." / "The usquebaugh? That's as like to kill him off as bring him round." / It was a home brew, potent as fire.

1981, T[homas] Coraghessan Boyle, “The Niger [You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down]”, in Water Music […] (An Atlantic Monthly Press Book), Boston, Mass.; Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 70:

Kit coughed over a noggin of usquebaugh.

1993, Anthony Burgess, “Part 2”, in A Dead Man in Deptford, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 183:

(chiefly Ireland, Scotland, dated or archaic) Whiskey or whisky.


muir

[…] Mr. Cuming brought a declarator of common property in, and division of, the muirs in question. Pleaded for the Pursuer.—The pursuer's special infestment in the muirs as parts of the barony of Coxtoun excluded the defender, […]

1851, George Ross, Leading Cases in the Law of Scotland, page 446:

[…] and Coquet's streams are glittrin, as they rin frae muir to main […]

1852, Thomas Doubleday, The Coquet-Dale Fishing Songs, page 96:

Tho' four lang miles was he fra heayme, / Besides a muir to cross, / By haunted cairns an boggle steaynes, […]

1896, Anthony Whitehead, Legends of Westmorland and Other Poems: With Notes, page 24:

(especially Scotland, Northern England) A moor.


toom

en-adj

toom (comparative more toom, superlative most toom)

more toom (comparative)
most toom (superlative)

From Middle English toom, tom, from Old English tōm (“empty”), from Proto-West Germanic *tōm(ī), from Proto-Germanic *tōm(ij)az (“free, available, empty”), from Proto-Indo-European *doma- (“to tame”), *dema- (“to build”). Cognate with Danish and Swedish tom (“empty, vacant”), Icelandic tómur (“empty”).

inh

Gin she was toom afore, she's toomer now,
Her heart was like to loup out at her mou'.

1778, Alexander Ross, Fortunate Shepherdess, page 62:

Then hie to the Custom House, add to your pleasures, Now you're well cover'd, so toom the new measures: It ne'er will be finish'd, I'll wager a groat, Till they've cut a canal te admit five-men boats!

Every time Gavin's cup went to his lips Nanny calculated (correctly) how much he had drunk, and yet, when the right moment arrived, she asked in the English voice that is fashionable at ceremonies, "if his cup was toom."

1895, James Matthew Barrie, The Little Minister, page 135:

"You saw it was toom. The lamp had gone out itself, or else — what's that?"

It seemed to him that his soul had gone from him, and he was as toom as a hazel shell.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

Bare is much better. 'When she got there, the cupboard was bare' does call up the distress of those with naked larders. 'The cupboard was empty' would not be poignant at all. But 'the cupboard was toom' would utter the voice of real despair.

1951, Ivor John Carnegie Brown, I break my word, page 120:

His tabard was 'toom' — bare or empty — and Balliol, the unmade king, became 'Toom Tabard'.

1974, Ranald Nicholson, Scotland: the later Middle Ages, page 50:

(rare or dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Empty; bare.


recompensation

en-noun

recompensation (countable and uncountable, plural recompensations)

From recompense + -ation. Equivalent to re- + compensation.

(Scotland law, obsolete) A plea in cases of debt collection whereby a plaintiff counters a defendant's claim of compensation as a reason for absolving the alleged debt.


ghyll

From Middle English gille, gylle, from Old Norse gil, from Proto-Germanic *gilją.


clachan

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-clachan.wav

‘Now, Penpunt, you may tell me all that passed between you and the wives of the clachan.’

1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner:

But if you looked south in the dusty forenoon or at hot midday, you saw the far-off glimmer of a white road, the roofs of the ugly little clachan of Kilmaclavers, and the rigging of the fine new kirk of Threepdaidle.

1918, John Buchan, “The Rime of True Thomas: The Tale of the Respectable Whaup and the Great Godly Man”, in The Watcher by the Threshold, US edition, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, page 239:

Of the miserable Highland clachan, to which Sir Walter Scott brought Bailie Nicol Jarvie and Frank Osbaldistone for their meeting with the redoubtable Rob Roy, little or nothing remains, and Aberfoyle is now a bright and clean holiday resort, standing on historic ground, where the Highlands and Lowlands meet.

1951 September, M. D. Greville, “From Glasgow to Aberfoyle”, in Railway Magazine, page 580:

(Scotland) A small village or hamlet, especially in the Highlands or Western Scotland.


eme

emes (plural)
eam (alternative)
eem (alternative)
eame (alternative)
neam (alternative)
neame (alternative)
neme (alternative)

→ Manx: naim

From Middle English éam, eom, em, eme (“uncle”), from Old English ēam (“uncle”). See eam.

Soo this yonge syre Trystram rode vnto his eme kynge Marke of Cornewayle / ¶ And whanne he came there / he herd say that ther wold no knyghte fyghte with syre Marhaus / Thenne yede sir Tristram vnto his eme and sayd / syre yf ye wylle gyue me thordre of knyghthode / I wille doo bataille with syr Marhaus

1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “quintum”, in Le Morte Darthur, book VIII:

So this young knight, Tristan, rode unto his uncle, king Mark of Cornwall / ¶ And when he came thither / he heard say that no knight there would fight Sir Marhaus / Then went Sir Tristan unto his uncle and said / Sire, if ye give me the order of knighthood / I shall battle Sir Marhaus

Whilst they were young, Cassibalane their Eme / Was by the people chosen in their sted […]

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Whilst they were young, Cassibalain, their uncle, / was chosen by the people in their stead […]


reif

From Middle English ref, reaf, reif, from Old English rēaf (“plunder, spoil, booty, raiment, garment, robe, vestment, armor”), from Proto-West Germanic *raub, from Proto-Germanic *raubą, *raubaz (“rape, robbery”), from Proto-Indo-European *Hrewp- (“to rip, tear”).
Cognate with Scots reif, rief (“robbery, depredation, spoliation”), Saterland Frisian roowje (“loot, rob”), Dutch roof (“spoil, booty, robbery”), German Raub (“robbery, spoils, plunder”). See also reave, robe.

cog

The opposition, which, as we shall see, was headed by Archbishop Beaton, protested against the "daily slaughters, murders, reifs, thefts, depredations, and heavy attemptates, that are daily and hourly committed within this realm in fault of justice."

c. 1524, a letter, recorded in The History of Scotland (John Hill Burton, 1873), volume 3, page 109

[…] meaning to live by reif of other mennes goodes, wherein they have no manner of propertie.

c. 1577-1587, Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles:

[…] the lawless thieves, limmers, and broken men of the Highlands, had been in fellowship together by reason of their surnames for the committing of divers thefts, reifs, and herships.

In the year 1567, in the first Parliament of James VI., an important Act was passed, entitled "Anent Theft and Receipt of Theft, Taking of Prisoners by Thieves, or Bands for Ransoms, and Punishment of the same." It relates especially to the […] "other inhabitants of the remanent Shires of the Realm," bearing that it is not unknown of the continual theft, reif, and oppression committed within the bounds of the said Sheriffdoms, by […] thieves and "broken men" [who] commit daily "thefts, reifs, herschips, murders, and fire raisings" upon the peaceable subjects of the country.

1898, Robert Borland, Border Raids and Reivers, page 42:


sist

en-verb

sist (third-person singular simple present sists, present participle sisting, simple past and past participle sisted)

sists (present singular third-person)
sisting (participle present)
sisted (participle past)
sisted (past)

Latin sistō (“I bring to a stand, stop”).

der

(law, Scotland) To stay (e.g. judicial proceedings); to delay or suspend; to stop

Some, however, have preposterously sisted nature as the first or generative principle.

1852, William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform:

(law, Scotland) to cause to take a place, as at the bar of a court; hence, to cite; to summon; to bring into court


sist

Fourteen Days are only allowed for Sists of Execution, from the Date the Bill was signed, for the Clerks inquiring in the Condition of the Cautioner […]

1693, James Dalrymple Stair, The institutions of the law of Scotland, page 755:

(law, Scotland) a stay or suspension of proceedings


rudas

But what can ail them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night time?

"And wherefore, sir? Are your discourses only for wrinkled carls and old rudas wives? Is there no place in your kirk for a girl?"

(Scotland, obsolete) bold; masculine; coarse


Pape

If it was just Papes, if they were going to fight ye, ye would just fight them back.

2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 54:

(chiefly Scotland, Ireland, derogatory) A Roman Catholic; a Papist.


but and ben

Whether the old lady had caught cold the time she moved, or whether her ailing frame had been simply worn out, she never seemed to thrive after leaving the little but and ben she had so long lived in.

1898, Elizabeth Grant, Memoirs of a Highland Lady, Canongate, published 1995, page 339:

It was no more than a butt and a ben, with a rickle of sheds behind it where old Pooty kept his cow and a bit donkey that was nearly as old as himself […]

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 30:

(Scotland) A two-roomed cottage; a small house or shack


loof

Inherited from Middle English love, lufe, lofe, luf (“palm of the hand”), from Old Norse lōfi, from Proto-Germanic *lōfô (“palm of the hand; paw; oar blade, paddle”).

(anatomy, now chiefly dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) The palm of the hand.

(anatomy, now chiefly dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) The hand, especially, the hand outspread and upturned.


adjudication

en-noun

adjudication (countable and uncountable, plural adjudications)

Borrowed from Latin adiudicatio, adiudicationem.

(law, Scotland) A process by which land is attached as security or in satisfaction of a debt.


munter

munters (plural)
monter (alternative)
mounter (alternative)
muntour (alternative)
montour (alternative)
mountour (alternative)
muntoure (alternative)
muntor (alternative)
muntar (alternative)

without the foot-strut split, without approximant /r/

[…] asked the other what a clocke it was in his mounter; to whom he replyed, About the howre just that yee should give watter to your mare.

1831, Archaeologia Scotica: Or Transactions of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland, page 80:

[…] clocks, watches, and munters, boots and shooes, shal be given up by the merchant-sellers there-of, under declaration to the commissioners, "&c. Acts Cha. I. Ed. 1814, VI. 152. […]

1841, John Jamieson, Scottish Dictionary and Supplement: In Four Volumes. Suppl. Kab-Zic, page 141:

(obsolete, Scotland, pre-1700) A watch (portable timepiece).


tind

From Middle English tind, tynd, from Old English tind (“tine, prong, tooth”), from Proto-West Germanic *tind, from Proto-Germanic *tindaz (“prong, pinnacle”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃dénts (“tooth, projection”). Cognate with Dutch tinne (“battlement”), German Zinne (“pinnacle, battlement”), Danish tinde (“pinnacle, battlement”), Dutch tinne (“tooth of a rake”), Icelandic tindur (“spike, tooth of a rake or harrow, pinnacle, peak, battlement”). Cf. the related tine. Also more distantly related to Dutch tand (“tooth, tine”), English tooth.

cog

(UK dialectal, Scotland) A branch of a deer's antler; the horn of a unicorn; a tooth of a harrow; a spike.


dree one's weird

en-verb

dree one's weird (third-person singular simple present drees one's weird, present participle dreeing one's weird, simple past and past participle dreed one's weird)

drees one's weird (present singular third-person)
dreeing one's weird (participle present)
dreed one's weird (participle past)
dreed one's weird (past)

he must dree his weird;
Renounce all blessings for that imprecation,
Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation,

1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, section V:

Where she waits, there must I go, surrendering all else, forgetting all else, to dree my weird and hers.

1898, G Firth Scott, The Last Lemurian, Ayer, published 1978, page 81:

Her eyes were dry and bright as she replied: ‘I must dree my weird, as we say in the north.’

1925, L. Adams Beck, Glorious Apollo, Dodd, Mead & Co, page 299:

(UK dialectal, Scotland, Northern England) To submit to one's fate.


dree

Probably partly:
* derived from the verb (see etymology 1); and
* borrowed from Scots dree, or derived from its etymon Middle English dri, drie, dregh, dreghe (“annoyance, trouble; grief; period of time”), possibly from Middle English dregh, dri, drie (“burdensome; depressing, dismal; large, tall; lasting, long; long-suffering, patient; tedious; of blows: hard, heavy; of the face: unchanging, unmoved; of a person: strong, valorous”), from Old English *drēog, *drēoȝ, dreoh (“earnest; fit; sober”), and then probably partly:
** shortened from Old English gedrēog (“calm, quiet; sober; fit, suitable”, adjective); and
** influenced by Old Norse drjúgr (“sufficient; excessive, very; great; strong”), from Proto-Germanic *dreugaz (see above).
Doublet of dreich.

der

Life is blood, shed and offered. / The eagle’s eye can face this dree. / To beasts of chase the lie is proffered: / Timor Mortis Conturbat Me.

1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter VIII, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):

(chiefly Northumbria, Scotland, archaic) Grief; suffering; trouble.


dree

en-adv

dree (comparative more dree, superlative most dree)

more dree (comparative)
most dree (superlative)

(Lancashire, Scotland) Slowly, tediously.


stog

en-verb

stog (third-person singular simple present stog, present participle stogging, simple past and past participle stogged)

stog (present singular third-person)
stogging (participle present)
stogged (participle past)
stogged (past)

Early 19th century, perhaps of expressive origin and influenced by stick and bog. Compare stodge.

sound-symbolic

expressive

He studied the cold gray rips in the current and dismounted and loosed the girthstraps and undressed and stogged his boots in the legs of his trousers as he'd done before in that long ago […]

1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, →ISBN, page 293:

(dialect, Scotland) To stab; to probe; to thrust


skol

Borrowed from Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish skål.

Again they notice he has impressed her and again he grows more cheerful, clinking his glass against hers and saying ‘Skol!’

1990, Alasdair Gray, “A Free Man with a Pipe”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 490:

(originally and chiefly in Scotland) A drinking-toast; cheers.


clatty

en-adj

clatty (comparative clattier, superlative clattiest)

clattier (comparative)
clattiest (superlative)

(Ireland, Scotland) shabby, dirty, greasy.


clatty

(Ireland, Scotland) A shabby, slovenly person.


fas

From Middle English fas, from Old English fæs.

(Scotland, obsolete) A border or fringe.

Not worth a fas

(Scotland, obsolete) A thing represented as being worthless.


Laphroaig

From Goidelic/Scottish Gaelic; possibly from lag (“hollow”) + Old Norse breidd (“breadth”) + Old Norse vík (“bay”).

(Scotland) A whisky distillery, noted for its strong peaty taste, on Islay in Scotland.


roughness

en-noun

roughness (countable and uncountable, plural roughnesses)

From Middle English roughnes, roughnesse, equivalent to rough + -ness. Compare Old English hrēohnes (“roughtness”).

(Scotland) Abundance, especially of food.


mortification

mortification (countable and uncountable, plural mortifications)

honor

antonym(s) of “a sensation of extreme shame”

/ˌmɔːtɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/

From Middle French mortification, from Old French, from Latin mortificatio.

(law, Scotland) A bequest to a charitable institution.


and all

an all (alternative informal regional)
n'all (alternative informal regional)
anaw (alternative informal regional)

He starts yelling and we come running to help, but a fat load of thanks we get and all!

(Northern England, Scotland) Used to add emphasis.


wurly

en-adj

wurly (comparative wurlier or more wurly, superlative wurliest or most wurly)

wurlier (comparative)
more wurly (comparative)
wurliest (superlative)
most wurly (superlative)
wirly (alternative)
wurlie (alternative)

Wurlie, 1. Contemptibly puny, or small in size; as "a wurlie bodie," an ill-grown person, Fife, Loth.

[1825, John Jamieson, “Wurlie”, in Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volume II (K–Z) (in Scots), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] & C[harles] Tait, […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 700, column 2:

Thy wee roun' pate sae black and curly, / Thy twa bare feet, sae stoure an' burly, / The biting frost, though snell an' surly / An' sair to bide, / Is scouted by thee, thou hardy wurly, / Wi' sturdy pride.

1856, James Ballantine, “The Wee Raggit Laddie”, in [John D. Carrick, Alexander Rodger, and David Robertson], editors, Whistle-binkie or The Piper of the Party: Being a Collection of Songs for the Social Circle, new edition, Glasgow: David Robertson & Co., published 1873, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 158:

Wurly [wur·li], adj. A very small portion of anything is of a wurly size; gen. 'What a wurly bit o' bread, and nought on 't!'[…], i.e. no butter, or anything on. The r is often strongly trilled in this word.

[1876, C. Clough Robinson, “Wurly”, in A Glossary of Words Pertaining to the Dialect of Mid-Yorkshire; wth Others Peculiar to Lower Nidderdale. To which is Prefixed an Outline Grammar of the Mid-Yorkshire Dialect (Series C (Original Glossaries, and Glossaries with Fresh Additions); V), London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., 57 & 59, Ludgate Hill, →OCLC, page 158, column 2:

WIRL, sb. Sc. Yks. […] A small and harsh-featured person; an ill-grown child; a stunted animal. […] Hence (1) Wirly, adj. puny, small; (2) Wirly-bit, sb. a short time; a little way; a small portion. (1) Sc. There's nae a pilchard in my creel, Nor wurlie sprat … They're firm and fat (Jam.).

[1905, “WIRL, sb.”, in Joseph Wright, editor, The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume VI (T–Z, Supplement, Bibliography and Grammar), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 515, column 1:

(Northern England (Yorkshire), Scotland) Of an object: derisorily small, tiny; of a person: puny, stunted.

Wurlie, […] 2. Rough, knotted; as, "a wurlie rung," a knotted stick, S. It is applied to a stick that is distorted, Lanarks. As this sense, however, is considerably remote from the other, the term may have had a different origin. 3. Wrinkled, applied to a person; as, a wurly body, Lanarks.

[1825, John Jamieson, “Wurlie”, in Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volume II (K–Z), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] & C[harles] Tait, […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 700, column 2:

(Scotland) gnarled, knotted; wizened, wrinkled.


cream puff

cream puffs (plural)
creampuff (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cream puff.wav

to be in the cream puff

'You still in the cream puff, or what?' I shook my head. No, I wasn't in the huff.

1992, Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing!, London: Secker & Warburg, →ISBN, page 338:

(slang, Scotland) A state of mild annoyance or irritation.


hummock

Unknown, but probably a diminutive of hump, equivalent to hump + -ock (diminutive suffix). Compare hillock.


keek

en-verb

keek (third-person singular simple present keeks, present participle keeking, simple past and past participle keeked)

keeks (present singular third-person)
keeking (participle present)
keeked (participle past)
keeked (past)

From Middle English kyken, kiken, keken (“to look, peep”), probably from Middle Dutch kiken, kieken or Middle Low German kîken (“to look, peep”), from Old Saxon *kīkan (“to look”), from Proto-West Germanic *kīkan, from Proto-Germanic *kīkaną (“to look”).
Cognate with Dutch kijken (“to look”), German Low German kieken (“to look”), Estonian kiikama (“to look, to peek”), German kucken, gucken (“to look”), Danish kigge, kikke (“to look, peep”), Swedish kika (“to peep, peek, keek, pry”), Icelandic kíkja (“to look, check”). Perhaps related to kick.
The words peek, keek and peep were used more or less synonymously in the 14th and 15th centuries.

cog

She was laid in my arms. Not able to sit up, I just keeked at her beautiful facie.

2019 May 10, Moreen Simpson, “New arrivals proved big challenge in early days”, in Evening Express:


keek

"And now let's take another keek at the red-coats," says Alan, and he led me to the north-eastern fringe of the wood.

1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XVIIII, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC:

(Scotland) A look, especially a quick one; a peek.


obligated

en-adj

obligated (comparative more obligated, superlative most obligated)

more obligated (comparative)
most obligated (superlative)

Under a provision of a larger piece of legislation, popularly known as the Customs Bill, that has been approved by the House and is expected to soon pass the Senate, American officials will be obligated to treat the settlements as part of Israel in future trade negotiations.

2016 January 26, “When ‘Made In Israel’ Is a Human Rights Abuse”, in The New York Times, retrieved 2016-01-26:

(Canada, US, Scotland) having an obligation; obliged


just now

I'll be coming just now.

(Scotland, South Africa, Caribbean) In a little while.


waulk

en-verb

waulk (third-person singular simple present waulks, present participle waulking, simple past and past participle waulked)

waulks (present singular third-person)
waulking (participle present)
waulked (participle past)
waulked (past)

From Middle English walken, from Old English wealcian (“to roll up; muffle up”), from Proto-West Germanic *walkōn, from Proto-Germanic *walkōną (“to roll about; full (cloth)”).
Cognate with Scots waulk (“to full”), Dutch walken (“to full”), German walken (“to full”), Danish valke (“to full”), Swedish valka (“to full”). Doublet of walk.

inh

The frame on which the cloth is waulked is a board some twelve to twenty-four feet long and about two feet broad, grooved lengthwise along its surface.

1900, Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, volume 1, page 310:

1992, Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Random House Group (Arrow Books), page 590,
I hid a smile at the mention of wool waulking. Alone among the Highland farms, I was sure, the women of Lailybroch waulked their wool not only to the old traditional chants but also to the rhythms of Moliére and Piron.

Here, we compare waulking songs and shanties to see how they operated in bringing women and men, respectively, into a sense of close alignment.

2013, Marek Korczynski, Michael Pickering, Emma Robertson, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain, Cambridge University Press, page 97:

(transitive, obsolete outside Northern England and Scotland) to make cloth (especially tweed in Scotland) denser and more felt-like by soaking and beating.

full

make denser and more like felt by soaking and beating


tollbooth

tollbooths (plural)
tolbooth (alternative)

(Scotland) (In this sense usually spelt tolbooth) The traditional municipal building of a Scottish town or burgh, usually including a meeting-hall, court, prison and (eponymically) a place for the receipt of taxes, duties and fines.


of that ilk

Johnstone of that ilk = Johnstone from Johnstone

(Scotland) Having a name that is the same as the place where one lives.

von und zu

having the same name as the place where one lives


relevancy

en-noun

relevancy (countable and uncountable, plural relevancies)

(law, Scotland) Sufficiency (of a statement, claim etc.) to carry weight in law; legal pertinence.


alow

From Middle English alowe, equivalent to a- + low.

Sometimes aloft he layd, sometimes alow, / Now here, now there, and oft him neare he mist […].

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:


roup

en-verb

roup (third-person singular simple present roups, present participle rouping, simple past and past participle rouped)

roups (present singular third-person)
rouping (participle present)
rouped (participle past)
rouped (past)

During the space of his tack he had plentiful crops of corn upon it, and when his tacks were run ont, the town took it into their own hands, and rouped it annually

1791, William Orem, A Description of the Chanonry in Old Aberdeen:


chipper

'Yes, and CCTV on the drink link and at Fabio's chipper.'

(Ireland, North East Scotland, slang) A fish and chip shop, or more generally a cheap fast food outlet, typically selling chips and other deep-fried foods.


scathe

scathe (third-person singular simple present scathes, present participle scathing, simple past and past participle scathed)

scathes (present singular third-person)
scathing (participle present)
scathed (participle past)
scathed (past)
scathe (infinitive)
scathe (first-person present singular)
scathed (first-person past singular)
scathe (present second-person singular)
scathest (archaic present second-person singular)
scathed (past second-person singular)
scathedst (archaic past second-person singular)
scathes (present singular third-person)
scatheth (archaic present singular third-person)
scathed (past singular third-person)
scathe (plural present)
scathed (past plural)
scathe (present subjunctive)
scathed (past subjunctive)
scathe (imperative present)
scathing (participle present)
scathed (participle past)

From Middle English scathen, skathen (“to harm; to cause loss; to assail, attack; to make war on; to defeat”) [and other forms], from Old Norse skaða (“to damage, harm; to hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþōną (“to damage, harm; to injure”) (whence Old English sceaþian, scaþian (“to harm, hurt, injure, scathe”)), from *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun); see further at etymology 1.
Sense 2 (“to harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source”) appears to derive from Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674), perhaps influenced by scorch: see the 1667 quotation.
Cognates
* Albanian shkathët (“adept, clever, skilful”)
* Danish skade (“to hurt, injure”)
* Dutch schaden (“to injure”)
* Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (skaþjan, “to harm, injure; to do wrong”)
* Ancient Greek ἀσκηθής (askēthḗs, “unhurt”)
* Old Frisian skathia (“to injure”)
* Old High German skadôn (Middle High German schaden, German schaden (“to damage, harm, hurt; to be harmful”))
* Old Norse skeðja (“to hurt”)
* Old Saxon scaðon (“to slander”)
* Swedish skada (“to hurt, injure”)

nb...

scaith, scaithe, scath, scathe, sckathe, skaithe, skathe; (chiefly Scotland) skayth, skaythe

skade

to harm or injure (someone or something) physically

This trick may chance to ſcath you I knovv vvhat, / You muſt contrarie me, […]

c. 1591–1595 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] Romeo and Iuliet. […] (Second Quarto), London: […] Thomas Creede, for Cuthbert Burby, […], published 1599, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

Thir Glory witherd. As when Heavens Fire / Hath ſcath'd the Forreſt Oaks, or Mountain Pines, / With ſinged top their ſtately growth though bare / Stands on the blaſted Heath.

1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 612–615:

Think, wicked Sinner, wha ye're ſkaithing: / It's juſt the Blue-gown badge an' claithing, / O' Saunts; tak that, ye lea'e them naething, / To ken them by, / Frae ony unregenerate Heathen, / Like you or I.

[1786, Robert Burns, “Epistle to J. R******, Enclosing Some Poems”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume I, Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, 1867, →OCLC, page 219:

[T]wice Matilda came between / The carabine and Redmond's breast, / Just ere the spring his finger pressed. / […] / "It ne'er," he muttered, "shall be said, / That thus I scathed thee, haughty maid!"

1813, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in Rokeby; a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or John Ballantyne and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza XXVI, page 192:

Seek not the giddy crag to climb, / To view the turret scathed by time; / It is a task of doubt and fear / To aught but goat or mountain-deer.

1815, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in The Lord of the Isles, a Poem, Edinburgh: […] [F]or Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; by James Ballantyne and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza VIII, page 137:

Leechdoms regarding […] how the congressus sexuum is not holesome for a dry body, and how it scatheth not a hot nor a wet one: […]

1865, “Leech Book. Book II.”, in Oswald Cockayne, editor, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England. Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in this Country before the Norman Conquest. […] (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Ævi Scriptores, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages; 35), volume II, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, →OCLC, page 163:

(archaic or Scotland) To harm or injure (someone or something) physically.

VVell goe too vvild oates, ſpend thrift, prodigall, / Ile croſſe thy name quite from my reckoning booke: / For theſe accounts, faith it ſhall skathe thee ſomevvhat, / I vvill not ſay vvhat ſomevvhat it ſhall be.

1602, [Thomas Heywood], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, wherein is Shewed How a Man may Chuse a Good Wife from a Bad. […], London: […] [Thomas Creede] for Mathew Lawe, […], →OCLC; reprinted as How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (Old English Drama Students Facsimile; 50), [London: s.n.], 1912, →OCLC, signature C, recto:

(specifically, obsolete) To cause monetary loss to (someone).


strang

en-adj

strang (comparative stranger, superlative strangest)

stranger (comparative)
strangest (superlative)

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Alternative form of strong.


swither

en-verb

swither (third-person singular simple present swithers, present participle swithering, simple past and past participle swithered)

swithers (present singular third-person)
swithering (participle present)
swithered (participle past)
swithered (past)

First attested in 1501; of unknown origin.

(Scotland, Northern England) To be indecisive or in a state of confusion; to dither.


swither

Bradly came bristling to the lagoon the following afternoon, in a swither of alarm and expectation.

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 49:

(chiefly Scotland, Northern England) A state of indecision or confusion; a panicked state; a flap, fluster, or dither.


retour

(law, Scotland) An extract from chancery of the service of an heir to his ancestor.


ching

I'll leave the message, but Simon's very much a free spirit, I state to the receiver as I use a fifty-pound note to hoover up some ching.

2002, Irvine Welsh, Porno, Random House, published 2002, →ISBN:

Then back again to merely scoring some ching and getting fucking wasted.

2006, Niall Griffiths, Wreckage, Graywolf Press, published 2006, →ISBN, page 70:

She said: "We were all drinking and snorting ching (cocaine). […]

2011 June 30, David Taylor, “Revealed: Sick prison boasts of woman who stabbed young mum to death in revenge attack”, in Daily Record, Scotland:


hot pint

(Scotland) a drink made from boiling beer to which is added nutmeg, eggs, sugar and whiskey; drunk during first footing.


sculd

sculd (third-person singular simple present sculds, present participle sculding, simple past and past participle sculded)

sculds (present singular third-person)
sculding (participle present)
sculded (participle past)
sculded (past)
scould (alternative)
skuld (alternative)
skuild (alternative)

From back-formation of sculding. Related to Norwegian skulding (“accusation”).

(transitive, UK dialectal, Scotland) To accuse (someone) of wrongdoing, especially under the procedure known as sculding.


huckle

huckle (third-person singular simple present huckles, present participle huckling, simple past and past participle huckled)

huckles (present singular third-person)
huckling (participle present)
huckled (participle past)
huckled (past)

From huck (from Middle English hoke (“hook”), hokebone, probably so called because of its round shape) + -le. See also hook.

He was awakened by a couple of burly police officers and huckled out to a waiting van.

2013, Michael Munro, The Crack: The Best of Glasgow Humour:

Then one day when I was at school, police with motorbike helmets came to the door with a big red battering ram and dragged Dad out of his bed while he was sleeping off a massive booze binge and huckled him downtown to read him his rights, throw the damn book at him and charge him for 'aggravated armed robbery'.

2014, Brian Conaghan, When Mr Dog Bites:

I could huckle your right now for what you've got in that top drawer.

2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 282:


dwang

Borrowed from Dutch dwang, from Middle Dutch dwanc.

(carpentry, Scotland, New Zealand) A horizontal timber (or steel) section used in the construction of a building.


radge

en-adj

radge (comparative more radge, superlative most radge)

more radge (comparative)
most radge (superlative)

We met for the first time at the airport and ended up in Turkey – I’ve done a lot of radged things in my time but nothing like this.

2016 July 16, Joanna Morris, quoting Phil Stephenson, “Tinder date lands Darlington man in Turkey amid military coup”, in The Northern Echo, Darlington, UK:

That fight last night was radge

(Geordie, Scotland, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Birmingham) Violent or crazy.


radge

He hoyed a propa radge when a telt him.

He threw a real tantrum when I told him.

(Geordie, Scotland, Yorkshire) A fit of rage.

Thir's a desperate, pleading edge tae her voice. What a fuckin radge.

1994 [1993], Irvine Welsh, “Bang to Rites”, in Trainspotting, London: Minerva, →ISBN, page 220:

(derogatory, Scotland) An angry or violent person.


scran

en-verb

scran (third-person singular simple present scrans, present participle scranning, simple past and past participle scranned)

scrans (present singular third-person)
scranning (participle present)
scranned (participle past)
scranned (past)
skran (alternative)

Probably of North Germanic origin, from or cognate with Old Norse skran (“rubbish; marine stores”). Compare Icelandic skran (“junk”), Danish skrammel (“junk, lumber”). Doublet of scrawn.

der

(slang, Liverpool, Manchester, Scotland) To eat.

Liverpool; Manchester; Liverpool; Manchester


gadgie

gadgies (plural)
gadgy (alternative)
gadgee (alternative)
gadge (alternative)
gage (alternative)

Borrowed from Romani gaʒe, plural of gaʒo (“a non-Roma”).

They also said (many times) “Fuck” and “Some gadgie's just knacked me 'ouse.”

2008, Ian Black, “An earthquake hits Newcastle”, in Geordies vs Mackems & Mackems vs Geordies, Black & White Publishing, →ISBN, page 97:

"He's in a wheelchair." Cobb took a large gulp from the bottle, showed his teeth. "How dangerous can a gadgie in a wheelchair be, eh?"

2013, Ray Banks, Wolf Tickets, Blasted Heath Ltd, →ISBN, page 49:

(Scotland, Geordie, Mackem, Teesside) A man.

(Scotland, especially Dundee, derogatory) A person who is poorly educated and engages in hooliganism, petty criminality or loutish behaviour. This usage sometimes carries the connotation of youth.


broon

en-noun

broon (countable and uncountable, plural broons)

Conserved from Middle English broun, from Old English brūn as opposed to the Standard English pronunciation.


broon

en-adj

broon (comparative more broon, superlative most broon)

more broon (comparative)
most broon (superlative)

(Geordie, Scotland) Of the colour brown.


selkie

Phoca vitulina
Phoca vitulina#Translingual

Halichoerus grypus
Halichoerus grypus#Translingual

(Scotland, Shetland) A common, harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), or grey seal (Halichoerus grypus).


headsman

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-headsman.wav

From Middle English heddysman, equivalent to head + -s- + -man. Cognate with Scots hedisman, heidisman (“head man; chief; commander”). Compare also Danish høvedsmand (“captain”), Swedish hövitsman (“captain”), Icelandic höfuðsmaður (“captain”), German Hauptmann (“captain”).

(obsolete or Scotland) A chief person; a head man


first footing

From Scots tae first-fit (“to be the first to visit at the new year”, literally “to first-foot”).

der

(Scotland) The practice, during Hogmanay, of visiting friends and family, especially to be the first person to cross a home's threshold after midnight on New Year's Eve bearing a small gift.


locken

en-adj

locken (comparative more locken, superlative most locken)

more locken (comparative)
most locken (superlative)
lucken (alternative)

locken fingers

(Scotland, Northern England) Webbed (of hands or toes).

The locken hands do not give much.

(Scotland, Northern England) Stingy, tight-fisted.

She stood there stock-still, her brows locken.

A leering eye and locken brows, / And large Mongolian mouth and nose.

1852, Alex Harper, Fruits of Solitary Hours:

(Scotland, Northern England) Knit (of brows), also close-set, contracted.


wooley back

wooley backs (plural)
woolyback (alternative)

(Scotland, derogatory) A term of abuse directed at Highlanders or rural folk in general.


neer

neers (plural)
near (alternative)
neir (alternative)

From Middle English neere, nere, from Old English *nēora, from Proto-Germanic *neurô, from Proto-Indo-European *negʷʰrós.
Cognate with Dutch nier (“kidney”), Low German nere (“kidney”), German Niere (“kidney”), Swedish njure (“kidney”), Icelandic nýru (“kidney”), Latin nefrones, nefrendes, nebrundines (“testicles”), Ancient Greek νεφρός (nephrós, “kidney, testicle”).

cog

(Now chiefly dialectal, Scotland) (anatomy) Kidney.


glaikit

en-adj

glaikit (comparative more glaikit, superlative most glaikit)

more glaikit (comparative)
most glaikit (superlative)

All the same, he thought, Duror had the appearance of a drunk man, unshaven, slack-mouthed, mumbling, rather glaikit.

1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 86:

(Scotland, Northern England) Senseless; silly, foolish.


shan

shan (comparative more shan, superlative most shan)

more shan (comparative)
most shan (superlative)
shand (alternative)

Origin obscure. Perhaps from shand (“worthless”). Alternatively, perhaps of Romani origin.

unk

obscure

(Scotland, Hartlepool) poor, low-quality


plunk

en-verb

plunk (third-person singular simple present plunks, present participle plunking, simple past and past participle plunked)

plunks (present singular third-person)
plunking (participle present)
plunked (participle past)
plunked (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-plunk.wav

(ambitransitive, Scotland) To be a truant from (school).


lochan

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic lochan, diminutive of loch (“lake”).

The moor is a bare and ancient landscape; the dank mosses studded with a mosaic of tiny lochans, stumps of vanished trees, largely devoid of sustenance for man and beast, an almost mythical emptiness where dragons, outlaws and elves might easily be imagined!

2009, John Sadler, Glencoe, Amberley, published 2009, page 23:

The Cairngorms national park has some of Britain’s harshest weather and the heaviest snowfall in Scotland, creating snowfields that stretch to the horizon. Lochs, lochans and waterfalls can be frozen solid.

2017 February 18, Kari Herbert, The Guardian:


carline

carlines (plural)
carlin (alternative)
carling (alternative)

From Old Norse karling, feminine of karl (“carl”).

While honest men slept in their beds, the auld rudas carlines took their pleasure.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

(chiefly Scotland) A woman; a hag or witch.


cushat

From Middle English cowshott, cowschote, quyshte, from Old English cūsċeote (literally “cow shoot”), although it is difficult to understand why such a name would be given to these birds. Doublet of quist.

inh

[A]nd no sound falls on my ears, except the distant roar of a passing train, the song of linnets, and croodle of turtle-dove and cushat.

1888, Gordon Stables, In Touch with Nature: Tales and Sketches from the Life, page 46:

(Geordie, Scotland or literary) A pigeon, wood pigeon or ring dove.

гривяк

informal: pigeon; wood pigeon; ring dove


swedge

en-noun

swedge (countable and uncountable, plural swedges)

Variant of English swage (“a groove, moulding; moulding tool”).

(Scotland, slang, uncountable) The drug MDMA.


auld

en-adj

auld (comparative aulder, superlative auldest)

aulder (comparative)
auldest (superlative)
aud (alternative)
aul (alternative)
oul (alternative)
oul' (alternative)
ould (alternative)

From Scots auld or from Northern Middle English auld, aulde, awld, awlde, ald, alde, from Northumbrian Old English ald, variant of Old English eald (“old, mature, venerable; antique, ancient, primeval”), from Proto-West Germanic *ald, from Proto-Germanic *aldaz (“grown up; old”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eltós (“grown, nourished, matured”). Compare cognate Latin altus (“nourished, raised, grown; tall”). Doublet of old.

cog

(archaic, Northern England, Liverpool, Scotland, Ireland) Old.


pan-loafy

en-adj

pan-loafy (comparative more pan-loafy, superlative most pan-loafy)

more pan-loafy (comparative)
most pan-loafy (superlative)
pan loafy (alternative)
panloafy (alternative)

From pan-loaf + -y, of Scottish origin. A pan-loaf was more expensive than ordinary bread.

Perhaps it is a class thing. Pan loafy people can also be very stuffy and toffee nosed and hence arrogant.

1993, K Stephen, “Proud to be British?”, in soc.culture.british (Usenet):

The Central belt is becoming more weedjie. Edinburgh is still pretty pan-loafy. Fifer is bools-in-the-mooth.

1999: Muttley, Life's not worth it in uk.people.support.depression http://groups.google.com/group/uk.people.support.depression/browse_thread/thread/12380b7bb065f05a/bbc538e49e23ca53?lnk=st&q=pan-loafy&rnum=9#bbc538e49e23ca53

>What is a scots lol?
I think it could be a panloafy way of saying loyal, instead of leal.?

2005, Eve McLaughlin, “Re GROS a brilliant service”, in soc.genealogy.britain (Usenet):

(colloquial, chiefly Scotland) Posh, pretentious or stuck-up


fouet

(Scotland) Alternative form of fouat (“houseleek”).


coof

"Georgie Gleg is odious to me. He always has been. For all his good heart he's a coof and a simp."

1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 212:


gavel

(Scotland, archaic, architecture) A gable.


multure

en-noun

multure (countable and uncountable, plural multures)

From Middle English multūr, from Old French molture (modern French mouture), from Medieval Latin molitura, from the past participle stem of molere ‘grind’. Compare mill.

MULTURE, n. [L. molitura.] 1. In Scottish law, the toll or emolument given to the proprietor of a mill for grinding corn. 2. A grist or grinding.

1830, Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language: Exhibiting the Origin, Orthography, Pronunciation, and Definitions of Words, Sherman Converse, page 546:

[…] quantity reserved for seed and stock. Sometimes an agreement was in operation known as dry multure, by which tenants conceded a part of their grain for the privilege of going to the market with the rest. A third species was known as the thirlage of invecta et illata, existing in most of the burghs of Scotland, by which corn, wherever grown, if brought for consumption within the […]

1963, James Edmund Handley, The Agricultural Revolution in Scotland, Burns, page 155:

(Scotland, historical) A toll paid to a miller, mill-owner etc., generally in kind, for grinding corn or pulverizing ore.


multure

en-verb

multure (third-person singular simple present multures, present participle multuring, simple past and past participle multured)

multures (present singular third-person)
multuring (participle present)
multured (participle past)
multured (past)

(Scotland, historical, transitive) To charge a multure on.


ident

en-adj

ident (comparative more ident, superlative most ident)

more ident (comparative)
most ident (superlative)
eident (alternative)

From a later form of ithand, itself an alteration (due to assimilation to suffix -and) of Middle English ithen, from Old Norse iðinn (“assiduous, diligent”), from iðja, iðna (“to do, perform”), from ið (“a restless motion”), equivalent to ithe + -and and/or ithe + -en. Cognate with Icelandic iðinn (“diligent”), Norwegian idig (“busy”), Danish id (“pursuit, calling, business”). More at ithand.

cog

(Now chiefly dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Diligent; persistent.


haugh

From Northern English dialectal and Scots haugh, from Northern Middle English *halgh, from Old English healh (“corner, nook”), from Proto-West Germanic *halh. Doublet of hale.

The sheriff of the county of Lanark was holding the wappen-schaw of a wild district, called the Upper Ward of Clydesdale, on a haugh, or level plain, near to a royal borough, […]

1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter II, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume I (The Black Dwarf), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, pages 35–36:

The position of the playfield is here identified as lying north of this open space between it and the burn, and occupying the haugh which extended west […]

1884, Alexander Maxwell, The History of Old Dundee:

The cattle had […] loved their life in the haughs of Echt, south there across the uncouthy hills was a world cold and unchancy.

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 46:

It was sung from the top of the oldest house in the burgh every June at the Common riding, which served both for a perambulation of the bounds of the common pastures or Haughs and to commemorate the young men of Harwick[.]

1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 27:

(Scotland, Northern England, Ireland) A low-lying meadow by the side of a river.


tatty scone

(Scotland) Alternative spelling of tattie scone.


congest

For quotations using this term, see Citations:congest.

(Ireland, Scotland, agriculture, history) A farmer whose lands do not support him adequately.


flitting

Uncle Billy came home for the weekend to help with the flitting.

2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 87:

(Northern England, Scotland) The act of moving from one residence to another; moving house.


lum

Uncertain; perhaps related to Old Norse lundr (“clump of trees, grove; (rare) tree”) (compare Danish lund (“grove”), Norwegian Bokmål lund, Norwegian Nynorsk lund (“grove”), Swedish lund (“grove”)).

(Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) A grove or wood; also, a woody valley.


lum

Unknown. The Dictionary of the Scots Language (in their entry on Scots lum (“downpour”)) mentions a dialectal Middle English word lum(b) (“water hole in a mire; deep pool”) and suggests it might ultimately be related to lum (“chimney”).

The Kettle Wells are two lums, situated in Bonson's Wood, near Stanmore, which are not surpassed for Elysian beauty. The fall of the water into the first well is inconsiderable; but that continually empties itself into the lum below, over a smooth precipice of thirty feet.

1830 September 4, W. H. H., “The ‘Lums’ of Westmoreland”, in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, volume XVI, number 449, London: […] J[ohn] Limbird, […], →OCLC, page 188, column 2:

(Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) A deep pool, especially one in a riverbed.


noo

From Old English nū, Middle English nou, in dialects without the shift /uː/ → /aʊ/.


corbie

From Middle French corbeau, from Old French corb (from Latin corvus (“raven”)) or Old French corbel (“crow”) (from Late Latin corbellus, from Latin corvus). See also Norman corbin.

1825, Basil Hall, journal entry quoted in 1837, Walter Scott, J. G. Lockhart (editor), Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., in The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott, Volume 7, page 417,
From parrots we got to corbies, or ravens, and he told us with infinite humour a story of a certain tame bird of this description, whose constant delight was to do mischief, and to plague all mankind and beastkind.

And with them were some lang-gowned men who kenned the stars and would come out o' nights to talk to the deer and the corbies in their ain tongue.

1899, John Buchan, The Moor-song: Grey Weather, page 133:

In the "Twa Corbies" of Child it is the knight that is slain and one corbie is to sit on his "hause-bane" and the other is to pick out his eyes. In the West Virginia variants it is the horse that is slain, whose eyes the crows are going to pluck out.

1963, John Harrington Cox, editor, 6: The Three Ravens (Child, No. 26): Folk-Songs of the South, page 31:

(Scotland) A raven or crow (typically Corvus corax).


darg

dargs (plural)
dawerk (alternative)
dawark (alternative)
daurk (alternative)
daark (alternative)
dark (alternative)
darrak (alternative)
darroch (alternative)
dargue (alternative)
daurg (alternative)

First attested in late Middle English; a syncopic form of daywork, developed through the series of forms: daywork → daywerk → daywark → dawark → *da’ark → dark → darg.

(in Scotland and northern English dialects) A day's work.

(in Scotland and northern English dialects) A defined quantity or amount of work, or of the product of work, done in a certain time or at a certain rate of payment; a task.


guddle

en-verb

guddle (third-person singular simple present guddles, present participle guddling, simple past and past participle guddled)

guddles (present singular third-person)
guddling (participle present)
guddled (participle past)
guddled (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-guddle.wav

From Scots guddle, imitative of the splashing of water, and modelled after words like muddle and puddle, perhaps influenced by Scots gutter (“to spatter with mud”).

(ambitransitive, Scotland, fishing) To catch (fish) with the hands, especially by groping at the bank of a stream or under stones.


begrutten

en-adj

begrutten (comparative more begrutten, superlative most begrutten)

more begrutten (comparative)
most begrutten (superlative)

From Scots begrutten, past participle of begrete (“to beweep”), equivalent be- + greet (“to weep”).

(dialectal, Scotland) Showing the effects of much weeping; marred or swollen in the face through continued weeping.


mair

From Middle English mair, mare, from Old English māra (“more”), from Proto-Germanic *maizô. More at more.

mar (alternative)
mare (alternative)
mer (alternative)
meer (alternative)
mere (alternative)
major (alternative)


mair

mairs (plural)
mar (alternative)
mare (alternative)
mer (alternative)
meer (alternative)
mere (alternative)
major (alternative)

(Scotland, historical) One of various former royal officials in the Kingdom of Scotland.


dooker

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dooker.wav

And that reminds me... I got new dookers a couple of weeks ago and I haven't tried it on yet.

2002 March 12, Bagpuss, “Choosing a new bathing suit”, in uk.people.silversurfers (Usenet):

You'll be packing in boozing next because of the alcohol that's in it. (Ethyl-Alcohol being toxic, of course...) - and swimmingน^([sic]), for fear of taking in a gobful of chlorinated water (you should see how my dookers have faded since using Penrith swimming pool; what's it doing to my innards?)

2004 August 18, Russell W. Barnes, “Fluoride”, in uk.local.cumbria (Usenet):

'Oh, if youre gonna stand there like a stookie.' Wee Malkie threw Jamie his shirt and watched him brazenly as he came out of the water holding it in front of him. 'So do they not wear dookers then? In Africa?'

2010, Ken Howard, The Young Chieftan, London: Tamarind Books, →ISBN, pages 110–111:

(Scotland, in the plural) Swimming trunks.

'It was fantastic being a 'Dooker' welcoming the new year. It's terrific how much energy and excitement the Loony Dook generates and the fantastic fancy dress costumes people make and the money generated for charity. We'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

2019 January 1, Joe Middleton, quoting Charlie Wood and Ed Bartlam, “Carnival in the capital! Thousands turn out for London’s colourful New Year’s Day parade with dancers, stunt riders and a marching band among 8,000 performers from 20 countries”, in Daily Mail, London: DMG Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-12-06:

This classic New Year's Day dip in the River Forth sees people in fancy dress jump into the water in the shadow of the Forth bridges. Spectators can cheer on the "dookers" at the beach or along the route of the parade towards South Queensferry.

2019 December 30, Soo Kim, “Hogmanay 2019: What is it and where are the best New Year’s Eve celebrations in Edinburgh, Glasgow and across Scotland?”, in Chris Evans, editor, The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-04:

The swim started out as a challenge between friends in the town's former Moorings pub. Only five hardy souls dived in 33 years ago. A few from the early years still take part but some of the first dookers believe that it has been tarnished by commercialism.

2020 January 6, George Mair, “Original loony dookers disgusted by £12 ticket”, in The Times, London: News UK, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-11-21:

Nairn, as with Lossiemouth and some other Moray coast towns and villages, had good bathing beaches. At the more fashionable resorts the facilities for bathing included a number of bathing machines. For less hardy dookers, indoor salt-water baths were seen as essential amenities.

1992, Eric Simpson, Discovering Banff, Moray & Nairn, Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd, →ISBN, page 152:


stot

Likely derived from Middle Dutch stoten (“to push”) or Middle Low German stôten, from Old Saxon stōtan, from Proto-West Germanic *stautan, from Proto-Germanic *stautaną (“to push, jolt, bump”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewd-, from *(s)tew- (“to push, hit”).
Also compare Middle English steten (“to thrust, strike, push, knock down”), Old Norse stauta and steyta (whence Danish støde), Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (stautan), Old Saxon stotan.

cog

Instead of dropping the golden cones safely into his bag he let them dribble out of his hands so that, in the expectancy before the violence of the storm, the tiny stots from one transfigured branch to another could be clearly heard.

1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 148:

(Scotland, Northern England) A bounce or rebound.


stot

en-verb

stot (third-person singular simple present stots, present participle stotting or stottin, simple past and past participle stotted)

stots (present singular third-person)
stotting (participle present)
stottin (participle present)
stotted (participle past)
stotted (past)
stott (alternative)

‘I've plenty of money in my bank – and I have my cheque book here – could one of you cash a cheque for five pounds? – I promise it won't stot.’

1996, Alasdair Gray, “Lack of Money”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 285:

(intransitive, Scotland and Northern England) To bounce, rebound or ricochet.

(transitive, Scotland and Northern England) To make bounce, rebound or ricochet.

(transitive, Scotland and Northern England) To stumble.


thrapple

thrapples (plural)
thropple (alternative)

The noun is derived from Late Middle English thropul, þropul (“trachea, windpipe”); further etymology uncertain, but possibly a variant of throte-bolle (“laryngeal prominence, Adam’s apple; larynx; epiglottis; animal’s esophagus or neck; flesh covering throat of a deer”) [and other forms] (whence English throat-boll (obsolete)), from Old English þrotbolla [and other forms], from þrote (“throat”) + bolla (“bowl”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to blow; to swell up”)).
The verb is derived from the noun.

nb...

throtbel, throt-bell (possibly transmission errors), throtebol, throtebole, throte-bole, throte-boll, throtpul, (Early Middle English) þrot-bolle, þrote-boll, þrotebolla, þrote-bolle

(Late Old English) þrote-bolla, (Old English) þrot-bolla, ðrot-bolla, (Early Old English) throt-bolla

der

A greater quantitie of victuall is carried from Zeila, [...] and beastes also, as namely sheepe, [...] as also certaine other all white with tayles a fathome long, and writhen like a vine branche, hauing thropples vnder their throtes like bulles.

[1600, Al-Hassan ibn-Mohammed al-Wezaz al-Fasi [i.e., Leo Africanus], “A Briefe Relation Concerning the Dominions, Reuenues, Forces, and Maner of Gouernment of Sundry the Greatest Princes either Inhabiting within the Bounds of Africa, or at least Possessing Some Parts thereof, Translated, for the Most Part, out of Italian”, in John Pory, transl., edited by Robert Brown, The History and Description of Africa and of the Notable Things therein Contained, […] (Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society; no. XCIV), volume III, London: […] Hakluyt Society, […], published 1896, →OCLC, page 982:

A broad piece of leather is then to be put round his neck; and the ends made faſt, by platting it, or ſome other way, at the withers, or before the wind-pipe, about two handfuls below the thrapple, betwixt the leather and his neck; [...]

1759, Thomas Wallis, “COLT”, in The Farrier’s and Horseman’s Complete Dictionary: […], London: […] W. Owen, […]; and E. Baker, […], →OCLC, column 1:

I hif a gude mind to ſwallow you, gin I kent your back widna ſtick in my thrapple.

1781, [Helenus Scott], “The Little Woman in Great-Queen Street”, in The Adventures of a Rupee. […], London: […] J[ohn] Murray, […], published 1782, page 254:

Sara sent twice for the measure of George's Neck—he wondered, Sara should be such a fool, she might have measured William's or Coleridge's, as all poets' Thropples were of one Size.

1800 December, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Kathleen Coburn, The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, volumes I (1794–1804: Text), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2002, →ISBN, page 873:

Luok, leyke mad bulls they bang about, / Wi' shouts their thropples rivan, / Wheyle whup for smack the rabble rout, / Are yen owr tother drivan; [...]

[1807, John Stagg, “Rosley Fair”, in Miscellaneous Poems, Some of which are in the Cumberland and Scottish Dialects, Wigton, Cumberland: […] R. Hetherton, →OCLC, page 141:

Do you, Maister Francis, opine that ye will re-establish your father's credit by cutting your kinsman's thrapple, or getting your ain sneckit instead thereof in the College-yards of Glasgow?

1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 254:

The morse [i.e., walrus] is said to roar or bellow loudly, but the animal we slew made no outcry, [...] Nevertheless, the immense size of its larynx or thropple, which William dissected out and brought with him to England, seems to indicate vast powers of voice in his animal; [...]

1829, [Robert Pearse Gillies], “The Voyage. (Continued.)”, in Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. […] (Second Series), volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 66:

In the sentiment of the following lines on "A pipe of Tobacco" by John Usher, all lovers of the plant will heartily join: "Let the toper regale in his tankard of ale, / Or with alcohol moisten his thropple, / Only give me I pray, a good pipe of soft clay, / Nicely tapered, and thin in the stopple; / And I shall puff, puff, let who will say enough, / No luxury else I'm in lack o', / No malice I hoard, 'gainst Queen, Prince, Duke or Lord, / While I pull at my pipe of Tobacco. [..."]

1875, E. R. Billings, “Pipes and Smokers. (Continued.)”, in Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce, […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 178:

The Master—the deil's in their thrapples that should call him sae! it's Mr. Henry should be master now!

1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Summary of Events (’’continued’’)”, in The Master of Ballantrae. […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC, page 22:

"God, my lads," he cried, "if I had just my fingers on your thrapples, I'd thraw them fine and send your gutsy sauls to the deil that begat them."

1899, John Buchan, “Crabbed Age and Youth”, in A Lost Lady of Old Years: A Romance, London, New York, N.Y.: John Lane, The Bodley Head, →OCLC, book II, page 228:

There is one type of neck which so constantly results in roaring that it is known in Yorkshire as a "roarer's neck," and sooner or later the horse which is so shaped is almost certain to fall a victim to the complaint. The neck in question is a strong thick one, with the head carried high, but there is a peculiar outward curve in front, somewhat resembling that of a fallow deer, with an unusually thick thropple, the formation of which, no doubt, sustains a constant strain on the nerve, which eventually fails in consequence.

1911, R[ichard] F[rederick] Meysey-Thompson, “Simple Ailments”, in The Horse: Its Origin and Development Combined with Stable Practice, London: Edward Arnold, →OCLC, page 289:

'He'll do nowt o' the sort,' I answered; 'and he wi' a hoast in his thropple like a badly cow. I sudn't be surprised if he were dead by Chrissamas.'

a. 1919, F[rederic] W[illiam] Moorman, “Tales of a Grandmother: I. The Tree of Knowledge”, in More Tales of the Ridings, London: Elkin Mathews, […], published 1920, →OCLC; republished as More Tales of the Ridings (EBook #18260), [United States]: Project Gutenberg, 2006 May 4, archived from the original on 2016-11-04:

And she said it, she felt like a hen with a stone in its thrapple, [...]

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon [pseudonym; James Leslie Mitchell], “Ploughing”, in Sunset Song (A Scots Quair; 1), Edinburgh: Canongate Books, published 2008, →ISBN, page 32:

[T]he old man raised the axe and split the head of John Joel Glanton to the thrapple.

1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian […] , →OCLC:

When the bishop came out, the women shouted 'get the thrapple out of him' or cut his windpipe; he barely escaped with his life.

2014, Peter Ackroyd, “Sudden Flashings”, in The History of England: Volume III: Civil War, London: Pan Books, published 2015, →ISBN, page 173:

(chiefly Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) The throat, especially the gullet or windpipe.


thrapple

en-verb

thrapple (third-person singular simple present thrapples, present participle thrappling, simple past and past participle thrappled)

thrapples (present singular third-person)
thrappling (participle present)
thrappled (participle past)
thrappled (past)
thropple (alternative)

Then Mr. Weft began his tale, how he had been collared and well nigh thrappled in his ain shop; [...]

1827 September, “The Monkey. [From Blackwood’s Magazine.]”, in Oliver Oldschool [pseudonym; John Elihu Hall], editor, The Port Folio, volume II (volume XXII overall), number 293, Philadelphia, Pa.: […] Harrison Hall, →OCLC, page 239:

A Scotch writer of the time [Sir James Balfour, 1st Baronet, of Denmilne and Kinnaird] has handed down, for the admiration of successive ages, "the renowned Christian valyancie of those godly women," regretting only that the bishop of Edinburgh escaped being "sticked" or "thrappled‡," by their pious hands, which unfortunately "were not as active as their minds were willing." [Footnote ‡: Strangled.]

1835, “Chapter V. 1637.”, in Dionysius Lardner, editor, The Cabinet Cyclopædia. … History. England. […], volume V, London: […] Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, […]; and John Taylor, […], →OCLC, page 177:

We'll now have plinty o' time for the throopers, though I swore like a Trojan through thick an' thin (an' nearly got myself thrappled (throttled) for my pains be that powerful villain Fergus), that the fun ud be spilet, af the attack wasn't to-night.

1862, M[atthew] Archdeacon, chapter XVI, in The Priest Hunter: An Irish Tale of the Penal Times, Dublin, London: James Duffy, […], →OCLC, page 168:

Forbye thrappling her, he had bit until the jugular; and she had lost sae meikle bluid, that you hae eaten her the noo roasted, instead o' her made intil soup.

1862, “Literary and Domestic Life. 1832–37.”, in [Mary Wilson] Gordon, compiler, ‘Christopher North’: A Memoir of John Wilson […], volume II, Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, →OCLC, page 225:

"They throppled t' ane t' other;" took each other by the throat.

1868, J[ohn] C[hristopher] Atkinson, “Thropple”, in A Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect: Explanatory, Derivative, and Critical, London: John Russell Smith, […], →OCLC, page 531:

Wad ye believe't, I had the greatest ado ance to keep him frae thrappling a puir cat?

1872, William Freeland, “A Visit”, in Love and Treason. […], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 23:

And oft we fratched and fret about, and throppled udder sair, / Upon the whol' the fell hes meade mischief for ivver mair, [...]

1875 December 9, Miss Powley, “Art. XXXI.—Past and Present among the Northern Fells. No. II.”, in Richard S[aul] Ferguson, editor, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian & Archæological Society, volume II, Kendal, Westmorland: […] T. Wilson, published 1876, →OCLC, page 370:

(transitive, chiefly Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, dated) To strangle, to throttle.


hawked

en-adj

hawked (comparative more hawked, superlative most hawked)

more hawked (comparative)
most hawked (superlative)


sarkit

Borrowed from Scots sarkit, past participle of sark (“to clothe in or provide with a shirt”).

While here, half mad, half fed, half sarkit, / Is a' th' amount.


skirling

When the skirling of the pipes cleft the air his cold eyes softened.

1885, Juliana Horatia Ewing, The Story of a Short Life:

(Northern England and Scotland) A shrill cry or sound; a crying shrilly; a skirl.


fairing

→ Irish: féirín (“gift box”)

→ Welsh: fferins (“sweets, candy”)

From fair (“community gathering, market”). In the sense of food, because cakes and sweets were sold at fairs.

(Scotland, Ireland, now rare) Something that is deserved; one's deserts.


skite

en-verb

skite (third-person singular simple present skites, present participle skiting, simple past and past participle skited)

skites (present singular third-person)
skiting (participle present)
skited (participle past)
skited (past)
skyte (alternative)

From Middle English skyt, skytte, skytt, from Old Norse skítr (“dung, faeces”), from Proto-Germanic *skītaz, *skitiz. Cognate with Old English sċite (“dung”). Doublet of shit and shite.

(Scotland, slang) To slip, such as on ice.

(Scotland, slang) To drink a large amount of alcohol.


buttery

From Middle English buttry, equivalent to butter + -y. Piecewise doublet of butyric, butter ultimately being from Latin būtȳrum and -y being a doublet of -ic.

"We used to make 50 tins of butteries just for our Saturday trade, now it's about 20 tins, se we've seen a real shift which we've put down to an increased focus on health."

2024 May 24, The Press and Journal, Inverness, page 28, column 2:


spae

spae (third-person singular simple present spaes, present participle spaeing, simple past and past participle spaed)

spaes (present singular third-person)
spaeing (participle present)
spaed (participle past)
spaed (past)
spay (alternative)
spey (alternative)

A mermaid from the water rose,
And spaed Sir Sinclair ill.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 242:

(Scotland, archaic) To divine; foretell.


cowan

First attested in 1722; perhaps from the Scottish Gaelic cobhan (“coffer”, “box”, “ark”).

der

(Scotland, obsolete, rare) A fishing-boat.


mullered

en-adj

mullered (comparative more mullered, superlative most mullered)

more mullered (comparative)
most mullered (superlative)

A variant of mouldered, from moulder (“to decay, rot”) + -ed (suffix forming past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs). Moulder is derived from mould (“loose friable soil; rotting earth regarded as the substance of the human body”) + -er (suffix forming frequentative verbs), probably influenced by mould (“furry growth of fungi”); and mould is from Middle English mold, molde (“loose friable soil, dirt, earth; earth as the substance out of which God made man, and to which the human body decays into after death”), from Old English molde (“earth, soil”), from Proto-Germanic *muldō (“dirt, soil; furry growth of fungi, mould”), from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”).

inh

I have often thought in my melancholy days, these years bygone, that if it might be supposed, that the souls of our worthies were come from heaven, and the dust of their mullered bodies from their graves, and reunite again, […]

1728 (date written), P[atrick] W[alker], “Preface”, in Some Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. Alexander Peden, Late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce in Galloway. […], Pittsburgh, Pa.: […] [F]or Alexander M’Queen, by Robert Ferguson and Co., published 1815, →OCLC, page xxii:

(Scotland, obsolete) Synonym of mouldered (“turned to dust; crumbled, decayed, rotted”).


pan-loaf

(Scotland) A loaf of bread baked in a tin or pan.


dwine

en-verb

dwine (third-person singular simple present dwines, present participle dwining, simple past and past participle dwined)

dwines (present singular third-person)
dwining (participle present)
dwined (participle past)
dwined (past)

From Middle English dwynen, from Old English dwīnan, from Proto-West Germanic *dwīnan, from Proto-Germanic *dwīnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwey- (“to slip away, dwindle, die”), from *dʰew- (“to pass away, die”). Compare West Frisian ferdwine, Dutch dwijnen, verdwijnen, Low German dwienen, verdwienen, Icelandic dvína. See also English dwindle, dush.

der

(archaic outside Scotland and dialects) To wither, decline, pine away.


plack

From Middle Dutch placke (“name of a coin”). Cognate with Old High German pleh, bleh (“thin leaf of metal, plate”). Compare plaque.

‘Yes, I prayed you to grant my life, which is in your power. The saving of it would not have cost you a plack, yet you refused to do it.’

1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Oxford, published 2010, page 49:

(Scotland, Northern England, historical) A coin issued by James III of Scotland; also a 15th-16th century Scottish coin worth four Scots pennies.


doup

on the eve of Ellison's wedding they took him as he was going into his house and took off his breeks and tarred his dowp and the soles of his feet and stuck feathers on them and then they threw him into the water-trough, as was the custom.

1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 16:

(Scotland) The bottom end of something; the human buttocks.

They were getting stuff, empty bottles and doups to smoke, getting matches off men to light them.

2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 53:


tirl

en-verb

tirl (third-person singular simple present tirls, present participle tirling, simple past and past participle tirled)

tirls (present singular third-person)
tirling (participle present)
tirled (participle past)
tirled (past)

From archaic trill (“spin, twiddle”), probably related to Old English þweran (“to twirl, stir”). Compare twirl, thirl.

(intransitive, UK, Scotland, dialect) To quiver; to vibrate; to veer about.

to tirl at the pin, or latch, of a door

(intransitive, UK, Scotland, dialect) To make a rattling or clattering sound by twirling or shaking.


tirl

(UK, Scotland, dialect) A substitute for a trundle wheel or lantern wheel in a mill.


birle

birle (third-person singular simple present birles, present participle birling, simple past and past participle birled)

birles (present singular third-person)
birling (participle present)
birled (participle past)
birled (past)
birl (alternative)
byrl (alternative)

From Middle English birlen, from Old English byrelian (“to give or serve a drink to”), from byrele (“cupbearer, steward, butler”), from Proto-Germanic *burilijaz (“carrier, manservant”), from *burjô (“descendant, son”), from *beraną (“to bear, carry”). Related to Old English byre (“son, offspring, youth”). More at bear.

cog

c.1882-1898, Francis James Child (collector and editor), Child's Ballads, Number 68: "Young Hunting",
She has birld in him Young Hunting / The good ale and the beer, / Till he was as fou drunken / As any wild-wood steer.

(Scotland, obsolete) To pour a drink (for).

c.1882-1898, Francis James Child (collector and editor), Child's Ballads, Number 73: "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet",
They birled, they birled at Annies wake / The white bread and the wine, / And ere the morn at that same time / At his they birled the same.

(Scotland, obsolete) To drink deeply or excessively; carouse.


lown

From Middle English lune, borrowed from Old Norse logn (“windstillness”), from Proto-Norse *lugna, meaning "place where the water is smooth", ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright”), referring to shining water. Germanic cognates include Icelandic lón, Danish lyn (“lightning”), Swedish lugn (“calm water”).


lown

en-adj

lown (comparative lowner, superlative lownest)

lowner (comparative)
lownest (superlative)

Ye may hear him, on a lown day, at every farm-house in the parish.

1826 April, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine:


jalouse

en-verb

jalouse (third-person singular simple present jalouses, present participle jalousing, simple past and past participle jaloused)

jalouses (present singular third-person)
jalousing (participle present)
jaloused (participle past)
jaloused (past)

From Scots jalouse, from Old French jalouser. The sense "to be jealous of" came about as a misunderstanding by southern writers, from the similarity to jealousy.

Now the mention of the Skerburnfoot brought back to him only the thought of Ailie, and not of the witch wife, her mother. So he jaloused no ill, for at the best he was slow in the uptake.
[…]
'Ford!' cried John, in scorn. 'There'll be nae ford for you the nicht unless it was the ford o' the river Jordan. The burns are up and bigger than man ever saw them. It'll be a Beltane's E'en that a' folk will remember. They tell me that Gled valley is like a loch, and that there's an awesome heap o' folk drouned in the hills. Gin ye were ower the Mire, what about crossin' the Caulds and the Sker?' says he, for he jaloused he was going to Gledsmuir.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:


stramash

Compare Scots stramash. Possibly related to Hindi तमाशा (tamāśā) or Italian stramazzone, although the OED rules out the latter connection (to Italian) and suggests a relationship to English smash.

This stramash was the first time that I had interposed in the family concerns of my people, for it was against my nature to make or meddle with private actions, saving only such as, in course of nature, came before the Session[…]

1821, John Galt, Annals of the Parish; or, the Chronicles of Dalmailing; during the ministry of the Rev. M. Balwhidder. […] , page 124:

Then more calling, and bawling,
And squalling, and falling,
Oh! what a fearful stramash they are all in!

1840, Richard Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends:

Last year, I […] had a noble stramash on Folly Bridge. That is the last fighting I have seen.

1861, H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, section XXXVI:

The Muscular Christians rebelled at these ideas with a stir and stramash audible to all men.

(Scotland, informal) A tumult or disturbance.


stramash

stramash (third-person singular simple present stramashes, present participle stramashing, simple past and past participle stramashed)

stramashes (present singular third-person)
stramashing (participle present)
stramashed (participle past)
stramashed (past)

(Scotland, dialect) To strike, beat, or bang; to break; to destroy.


matriculation

en-noun

matriculation (countable and uncountable, plural matriculations)

(Scotland) A registration of armorial bearings.


ettle

en-verb

ettle (third-person singular simple present ettles, present participle ettling, simple past and past participle ettled)

ettles (present singular third-person)
ettling (participle present)
ettled (participle past)
ettled (past)

From Middle English etlien, atlien, from Old Norse ætla (“to think, mean, suppose, intend, purpose”), from Proto-Germanic *ahtalōną (“to strive, think”), from Proto-Indo-European *ok- (“to think, intend, purpose”). Cognate with regional Swedish ättla (“to count, reckon”). Some Middle English forms perhaps remodelled after Old English eaht.

der

(transitive, now Scotland, Ireland, Northern England) To propose, intend.

The Siloam nosed and ettled into the grey sprawl of waves and sent up arcs of swift stinging spray.

1972, George Mackay Brown, Greenvoe, Polygon, published 2019, page 39:

(intransitive, now Scotland, Ireland, Northern England, now rare) To direct one's course, to head.

(intransitive, now Scotland, Ireland, Northern England) To direct (something) to or at someone or something; to aim at.

(intransitive, now Scotland, Ireland, Northern England) To strive, to try.


ettle

(dialectal, chiefly Scotland) Intention; intent; aim.


sitten

en-adj

sitten (comparative more sitten, superlative most sitten)

more sitten (comparative)
most sitten (superlative)
sittin (alternative)

From Middle English siten, seten, from Old English seten, ġeseten, past participle of sittan (“to sit”). Equivalent to sit + -en (past participle). Cognate with Dutch gezeten, German gesessen.

The tailȝeour was no thing weill sittin, He left the sadill.

He micht counter Will on horss, For Sym wes bettir sittin Nor Will.

(UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Seated.


hallan

Nails had been driven into the boards in every spot where a nail could possibly be inserted, and on these were hung the various articles of this curious museum. Exactly opposite the door there had been originally cut in the hallan an opening […]

1881, Chambers's Journal, volume 58, number 1, page 343:

Having successfully negotiated the threshwood, the visitor found himself in the hallan, which was about four feet wide. The hallan formed a convenient storage place for sacks of corn on the eve of market day and here, too, pigs were hung up […]

1981, William Rollinson, Life & Tradition in the Lake District, page 22:I:

(dialectal, Ireland, Scotland, Northumbria, Cumbria, Lancashire) The passage or space between the outer and inner door of a cottage; the partition between the passage and the room.


evite

en-verb

evite (third-person singular simple present evites, present participle eviting, simple past and past participle evited)

evites (present singular third-person)
eviting (participle present)
evited (participle past)
evited (past)

Borrowed from Middle French eviter, from Latin ēvītō (“to avoid”).

The way which our adversaries take to evite this testimony, is most foolish and ridiculous: […]

1678, Robert Barclay, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity:

... Balmawhapple could not, by the code of honour, evite giving satisfaction to ... Edward by such a palinode as rendered the use of the sword unnecessary, and which, being made and accepted, must necessarily sopite the whole affair.

1814, Sir Walter Scott, Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since:

She stated she must see me, and, if I refused her satisfaction there, she would compel it where I should not evite her.

1824, James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner:

"Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment," said he.

Goodey has criticised these experiments of Rostrup and is of the opinion that she did not quite evite experimental errors.

1941, Ivan Nikolaevich Filipjev, Jacobus Hermanus Schuurmans Stekhoven, A manual of agricultural helminthology:

(Early Modern, now rare, chiefly Scotland, transitive) To avoid.


pode

From Middle English pode, pod, podde (“toad”), from a merger of Middle English pade, padde (“toad”) + tode (“toad”), equivalent to a blend of pad + toad.

(Scotland) A contemptible person; a vile, venomous, or loathsome individual.


congee

en-noun

congee (countable and uncountable, plural congees)

congees (plural)
conge (alternative)
congé (alternative)

From late Middle English congie, from Old French congié, congiet (modern French congé), from Latin commeātus (“passage, permission to leave”), from commeō (“I go and come”), from con- + meō (“I go, I pass”). Figurative senses generally borrowed from developments in French congé.

der

(obsolete, Scotland) A fee paid to make another go away, (particularly) alms to a persistent beggar.