Appearing variously in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) as gilravage, galraivitch, gulravish and other permutations of these, gilravage has strong implications of excessive consumption.  When applied to eating or drinking it means to devour or overindulge, as in: “60 of the crew came owt . . . and gulravished in the public hows” from the Woodhouselee MS, A Narrative of Events in Edinburgh in 1745 (1907).  In C P Slater’s Margret Pow (1925) we read that “There was a celebrated lion died here a while ago . . . If he was still livin’ in the place . . . I ken fine he would have galravished me”.

Gilravage is also used figuratively, as in this extract from Robert Chambers’ The Picture of Scotland (1827): “The country below this point is, in fact, mill-ridden — fairly subjugated, tamed, tormented, touzled, and gulraivished by the Demon of Machinery”.  And in the following example, from John Service’s The Memorables of Robin Cummell (1913), it means to feast one’s mind: “She seemed to gulrevitch owre the parteeklars of what he said”.

From there the meaning spreads wider to apply to noisy merrymaking, or uproarious behaviour in general, as in this from the Laird of Logan (1825): “We could hear distinctly the sounds of music, dancing, and gilravitching of all kinds”, and this from the Border Magazine (1960): “Yer a bachelor, Elliot, an’ I never heard that galravagin wi’ hussies was a failin’ o’ yours”.

Moving from merely uproarious to the downright criminal, gilravage can also mean to rove about, bent on plunder or destruction; thus a gilravager was a wild or lawless person.  So in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy (1818), we read: “Ye had better stick to your auld trade o’ theft-boot, black-mail, spreaghs, and gillravaging — better stealing nowte than ruining nations”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Ann Ferguson of Scottish Language Dictionaries www.scotsdictionaries.org.uk, 25 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN (0131) 650 4149 mail@scotsdictionaries.org.uk. For £20 you can sponsor a Scots word.