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RUG v, n. tug or pull

Rug, which means to tug, pull or drag, often with some force, occurs in early quotations in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) in the context of various violent situations.  For example, in John Barbour’s Legends of the Saints (1380) we read that “He hynt [seized] the prioure be the hare, & rukyt hyme of his bed …” and later, in a poem by Allan Ramsay: “To bleer and greet, to sob and mane, And rugg our Hair” (1717).

Rug could also mean to take something away without its owner’s consent, again often by force – as in this 1628 quotation from the Burgh Records of Dunfermline: “For putting violent hands on his son … and ruging fra him his cloak” and this rather macabre extract from the South Leith Records of 1665: “If he knew quhare Mr. James Sharp’s corps were laid he should rug his dead bones out of the grave”.  

Less literally, in the context of pain or hunger, rug can mean to gnaw, ache or nag, and often occurred in phrases with ‘hert’ – i.e. the stomach.  So we find “To hae hunger ruggin at the verra heart, to be hungry” in John Jamieson’s Etymological Dictionary of the Scots Language (1880), and from more recent times, “I’m scunner’t w’ a’ this modern meat [food]. My hert’s ruggin for a bowl o’ brose” (Aberdeen, 1965).  

As a noun, rug can mean a pull or tug, or the act of dragging with intermittent jerks.  Specifically, it can refer to a strong under-current in the sea; or the tug of a hooked fish on a fishing-line; or to the kind of tug that you get in your hair – a knot or tangle – as in this 2004 quote from Edinburgh: “When yer hair is lang an curly it’s aye ful o rugs”. 

 

 

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