This term is used in many ways to describe something excellent, from people to the written word. The Dictionary of the Scots Language www.dsl.ac.uk has as its first instance an example from George Macdonald Fraser’s 1970 work The General Danced at Dawn: ““Darkie’s [the commanding officer] got a rare hatchet on”, meaning that Darkie was in a bad temper, “yon Heinie’s a wee bramar”, which was the highest sort of compliment...”. The late actor Gerard Kelly in an 1989 episode of the BBC comedy City Lights describes his literary effort as: “a wee brammer o a story”. Of course, in Scotland the term is used in connection with football: “As for Henrik’s display on the day, well, it’s so typical of the man that, just as I was saying ‘what a diddy, look at all the sitters he has missed today’’ he bags two brammers.” 

To get ‘brammed up’ is to get dressed up for a special occasion as exemplified by this quote from Glasgow’s Evening Times of 28 October 2005: “To me, it’s the Glaswegian strutting his stuff like a peacock on a Saturday afternoon on Buchanan Street. We do our very best to get brammed up”. The Scottish edition of The Sun also records an elderly gentleman going to visit a friend in a care home: “He gets all brammed up and goes to see her every day.” DSL also records it as a term for a good-looking woman: “Yon lassie next door’s a right wee brammer” from C’mon Geeze Yer Patter by Peter Mason (1987).

The etymology is unclear. A reader of the of the Aberdeen Press and Journal of 2nd November 2009 suggests that it may come from a London locksmith called Bramah who made very reliable locks. Other suggestions include that it comes from the Hindu god Brama. But any sound evidence for this is lacking. 

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