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Scots Language Centre Centre for the Scots Leid

plaid, plaidie n.

The origin of plaid is uncertain.  It  is perhaps formed from ‘ply' to fold or from Gaelic ‘plaide' a blanket. 


A plaid or plaidie is an oblong strip of cloth which is usually made of wool, frequently with a tartan pattern. Plaids or plaidies were originally worn in rural areas by outdoor agricultural workers such as shepherds.


The earliest example recorded in 1510 in the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue comes from Rentale Dunkeldense: being Accounts of the Bishopric, 1505–17: “[To dye 4 ells] lie plaidis [for my lord 2 s.]”.


Burns in his poem O' Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast uses plaidie figuratively to mean a shelter: “My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee.” Burns wrote this poem in 1796 from his deathbed for the young Jessie Lewars, a family friend who helped look after him in his final days. It is reported to be the last poem he wrote.


In more modern times ‘plaid' or ‘plaidie' has been used to refer to a shawl or stole: “Are you no too warm wi that plaidie roond ye?” (Oral example from Edinburgh 2009). 


Finally, plaids were not always made from wool. Sometimes more luxurious material was used as shown in this example from Anna Blair's 1990 novel The Rowan on the Ridge: “There was no sudden windfall of wealth at the farm but it prospered a little more with each year's cycle and Susannah in time had a new silk plaid and two dresses as well as her working bodices and thibbet skirts.”


Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries