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Scart v. n., scratch, scrape

Scart has a long history.  It usually refers to scratching with nails or claws, and there are various references in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) to people scarting their own faces.  For example, in the fourteenth-century Legends of the Saints (John Barbour, 1380) we read: “With hyre handis [she] skartyt hir face”, and in Poems of John Stewart of Baldynneis (c1590): “His hands outragius did his visage skart Maist horribile”.

As for scarting others, there is plenty of evidence for that too.  In George Bannatyne’s Manuscript written in Tyme of Pest (1568) there is the threat: “I sall yow skart quhill that ye bleid” [I’ll scratch you until you bleed], and in Allan Ramsay’s A Collection of Scots Proverbs (1776) the somewhat off-putting “Biting and scarting is Scots fowk’s wooing”.  We hope not.  

Scart could also be used of an animal scraping or scratching for food, as in “Jenny’s hens scartin’ up his corn seed” from J L Waugh’s Robbie Doo (1912).

Scarting features in various compounds and phrases.  A scartin post is a scratching post for cattle, and to scart a grey pow is to be old, as in: “There’s ane o’ the twasome will never scart a grey pow” from The Notandums (1890), by John Service.  To scart someone’s buttons referred to drawing one’s fingers down another’s jacket buttons, as a challenge to fight.  This is illustrated in James Hogg’s Three Perils of Woman (1823) where a character declares: “I winna sit nae langer to be mockit. I scart your buttons, sir”.

A more figurative use of scart referred to scraping things together or scrimping.  The latter is clearly illustrated in this quote from Sir William Mure’s True Crucufixe (1629): “If loue of money … Moue thee to scrape, to scart, to pinch, to spare…”

 

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