This word is generally held to come from Old Norse ‘var', although there are a few Older Scots spellings such as ‘ver' and ‘vere' which suggest influence from identical spellings in Old French. Most writers, like Gavin Douglas in his Eneados (1513), welcome “Fresche veir to burgioun herbys and sweit flowris”. 

Even before we had to change the the clocks, Stewart in his Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland (1535) could refer to “ver, quhen that the da grew lang”. In one of his Poems on Various Subjects (1820) John Johnstone aspires to be “as blythe as birds in wair”. 

But this is Scotland, and it does not do to be optimistic. James Kelly in A Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs Explained and Made Intelligible to the English Reader (1721) might have bemused readers south of the border with “The Ware Evening is long and tough, The Harvest Evening runs soon o'er the Heugh” but this spring has provided ample supporting evidence. 

Indeed, we might agree with gloomy Andrew Symson who, in A Large Description of Galloway (1684), maintains “Winter never comes till ware comes”. Well might James Shaw in A Country Schoolmaster (1899) use the expression “as cold as a day in ware”. 

The Scottish National Dictionary even defines ware as “Spring, ... specif. cold bleak weather during the season of spring”. It goes on to define its derivative, wairie, as used of weather which is “cold, hard, bleak, unproductive”. 

This lack of productivity is seen in John MacTaggart's The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824): “Many a farmer leaves pieces of work in spring and the summer to be done in the backen; but when that period arrives, they are still left undone, perhaps to the next waurtime”. J. Mathewson sums it all up in Vale of Urr Verses (c1880): “The ware time is sair time”.
Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.