A bejant is a first-year student at a Scottish university, now most commonly St Andrews.  The origin of the word is interesting; it is derived from the French ‘bejaune’ which in turn is a contraction of ‘bec jaune’ meaning yellow beak, a young bird: hence a novice or inexperienced person.

Bejant, which has been in use at least since the eighteenth century, has appeared in various forms including bejan, bajan, baijen, bejaunt, bejaune and bigent, some of which belie its French origins.  Among the examples in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) are this from Alec Forbes of Howglen by George MacDonald (1865): “Ye’ll easy fa’ in wi’ some lang-leggit bejan that’ll be prood to instruc’ ye” and this from William Tennant’s Anster Fair (1871): “Up from their mouldy books and tasks had sprung Bigent and Magistrand to try the game”.

Bejant has in turn spawned a few derivatives of its own, as illustrated by the quote from J H Burton’s The Scot Abroad (1864): “The statute of the Universitas states that a variety of predatory personages fall on the newly-arrived bejaune, demanding a bejaunica, or gratuity”.  And a female first-year student may be referred to as a bejantine or bejantina, as in this not entirely serious reference from To a Bejantina in College Echoes (1912): “She swam into my ken — the line’s by Keats — A bejantina with her hair in pleats!”

Finally, there is the baijen hole, which is explained in the following extract from Robert Chambers’ Traditions of Edinburgh (1825): “A shop which all old Edinburgh people speak of with extreme regard and affection — the Baijen Hole — situated … opposite to the Old Tolbooth. The name … seems to bear reference to the Baijens or Baijen Class, a term bestowed in former days upon the junior students in the college”.

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