Scots Language Centre

ELDRITCH adj weird, uncanny

3 days, 8 hours ago

Possibly this word comes from Old English ‘elfrice’, literally ‘elf-kingdom’ and most of the contexts in which we find it certainly suggest other worlds. We ha...

ATTERY adj, poisonous, bitter. stormy

1 week, 3 days ago

Attery literally means poisonous or festering. The earliest example of the word in Scots makes this very clear; The Cursing of Sir Iohine Rowlis vpoun the steilaris of his fowlis (c15...

HEEZE n v lift, hoist

2 weeks, 2 days ago

There is some heavy lifting going on in the Dictionary of the Scots Language with payments “To foure warkmen that helpit to hing the bell & heissit vp the samin” recorded in the ...

SOO n female pig

3 weeks, 2 days ago

Soo, occasionally used to refer to either gender, has many figurative applications. Soo-backit is ridged or humped. A nineteenth-century woman’s cap with a ridge running from front to back...

CLABBYDHU n a large mussel

on 03rd Aug 2010

This week continues the theme of seafood with an amazingly large mussel. The suggested etymology aptly derives it from Gaelic ‘clab’ meaning an enormous mouth, and ‘dubh’...

PARTAN n a crab

on 26th Jul 2010

 

Borrowed from Gaelic and recorded in Scots texts from the 15th century, the partan has got its claws well and truly into the Scots idiom. Early usages ...

FLEG v frighten; n a fright

on 19th Jul 2010

Fleg makes its earliest appearance in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue with a quotation from James Melvill’s Autobiography and Diary (1600): "When courtlie wolffes from...

FOREBEARS

on 12th Jul 2010

The first example we have is dated 1452 and comes from the Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok, edited by Sir William Fraser: “His ald charter gevin of the eldaris and the forebearis of...