Some of the earliest  examples of lug in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) refer to the flap of a cap or bonnet, as in this 1494 extract from the Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland: “Fra Henry Cant, ij cappis wyth luggis, price xxxvj s”, and this from David Lindsay’s The Complayte of Scotland (1549): “Euyrie scheiphird hed ane horne spune in The lug of there bonet”.  However, the fact that there is a record of one ‘Michael blaklug’ in 1457, from the Aberdeen Burgh Records, suggests that it was also in use meaning an ear.

There are also examples relating variously to the cutting, severing, nailing or burning of lugs either as a legal punishment or just plain violence.  For example, one poor soul was sentenced “To be scurgeit to the gallows and thair his lug takkit to the beame” from the Edinburgh Burgh Records of 1515; in 1576 the Crail Burgh Court required that “Bayth his lowggis to be nalit to the trone”.  The ‘trone’ here refers to the post of the public weighing-machine which was used, among other things, as a pillory. 

Lugs can also refer to the handles of a cup, pitcher, tub or the like.  Thus we find “Seven kin’ o’ crocks wi’ narrow necks and lugs to them on ilka side to lift by” from John Service’s Thir Notandums (1890); “A charger, then, if ye wa’d ken, Is just a twasome bicker [beaker], Wi’ painted lugs” from Peter Forbes’ Poems (1912) .

Other uses of lug include various sorts of projecting part, such as the flap or tongue of a shoe; the wing on the back of a chair; the corner of a herring-net; a loop on the end of a fishing-line; the pectoral fin of a fish, and many others.

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