In the Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL, www.dsl.ac.uk) the earliest quotation referring to cruives as human dwellings is from John Bellenden's translation into Scots of Livy's History of Rome (1533): “It war better to duell in small cruivis, sic as hirdis and landwart pepill vsis. … than to pas wilfullie in … exile”.  

As an enclosure for animals, it is particularly used for pig-sties, where it commonly appears in the compound swine-cruve. There are many examples of efforts to rid city streets of swine-cruves, implying that they were at one time a common sight. For example, in 1501 the Extract from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen expresses the aim “that all the tovn be devoyen of swncroffis” – a hope that was obviously not fulfilled very quickly, as shown by the following extract from the same source nearly thirty years later: “That all swyne croiffis maid apone the forgait … be destroyit” (1530).

Skene in his De Verborum Significatione (1597) explains the meaning of the Latin term ‘hara porcoum' as follows: “ane cruife, or ane swines cruif…quhilk in sum auld buikes is called ane Stye” which shows that cruive was the commonly used word and ‘stye' only appeared in ‘old books'. 

Cruive was also used of a wickerwork coop or enclosure placed in a waterway, for trapping fish. In an extract dated 1425 from the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland it was decreed: “That all crufis … quhilke distroyis the fry of all fischis be distroyit”.  

Reverting to human habitation, more recent usage refers to intermittent use; a cruive could be a “temporary shed, for various uses during the fishing season” (1905), and this 1942 reference to “a cruive ower the hill that the tinklers whiles use in the summer” (Roxburgh) shows that cruives were by then not permanently occupied.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Ann Ferguson of Scottish Language Dictionaries