Antrin is a word still current in modern Scots and is apparently derived from anter or aunter which are variants of adventure.

Antrin first appears in the Dictionary of the Scots Language (www.dsl.ac.uk) in a poem in praise of Edinburgh by Robert Fergusson from 1775 which shows how it can mean any individual: “Antrin fock may ken how snell Auld Reikie will at morning smell”. John Jamieson in his etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language of 1808 defines antrin as follows: “Ane antrin ane, one of a kind met with singly and occasionally, or seldom.” DSL also tells us that the word is General Scots and used the length and breadth of Scotland. 

Hugh McDiarmid in his 1925 poem The Watergaw from his book Sangshaw includes the meaning ‘strange or peculiar’ in this line: “Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle I saw yon antrin thing”.  

One of the modern uses seems to be ‘odd’ or ‘occasional’ as in the following example from Sheena Blackhall’s 1998 work The Bonsai Grower: “…gaed aff tae Lunnen tae study music at a Sassenach schule, far he learned Sassenach wyes an seldom luikit ower his showder at the fowk back hame, apairt frae screivin the antrin caird at Yule or his Mither’s birthday”.

However, the most modern use seems to be poetic as in the following from The Herald of 27th March 2017 where the winner of the 2016 James McCash prize for poetry, Rab Wilson’s Ayont the Sun, was reproduced in full: “Trains its ee oan some hyne-awa shieling; Andromeda’s antrin bricht Ring Nebulae”. 

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries