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Learning in Literature

sleekit adj. smooth in manner, plausible; sly, cunning

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“sleekit adj. smooth in manner, plausible; sly, cunning ”

11th February 2008

Sleekit is generally used nowadays to describe a crafty or untrustworthy person, though it can also be used in the literal sense ‘smooth, glossy’. The ‘wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie’ of Robert Burns’ poem, To a Mouse (1785), is both skilful and sleek. These meanings of the word can be traced back many centuries. Gavin Douglas describes ‘Montane toppis sleikit with snaw’ in his sixteenth-century translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, and in a fifteenth century tale of the Trojan War, Oetus lies ‘With sleked wordis subtelly’.

The adjective is derived from the verb sleek, which is related to modern English slick and comes from Old English. While English sleeked and Scots sleekit can both mean ‘smooth, glossy’, the English term is not recorded with the meaning ‘plausible’. This usage is largely restricted to Scotland, and is well attested in written sources. Sleekit often implies aptitude as well as cunning. A 1791 poem by John Learmont describes the Whig politician Edmund Burke as ‘Sleekit gabbit’, and in J. Rennie’s account of the life of St Patrick (1819), ‘Whan they saw that open force wad do nae good, St. Patrick advised tae come about them sleeketly’.

Modern UK newspapers quite often include the word sleekit, frequently with reference to the activities of Scottish politicians, or to Burns’ famous mouse. A wide range of projects have employed the word, from Sleekit Productions’ History of Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to a bagpipe and drum band in Idaho called the Sleekit Beasties. Look out for another kenspeckle beastie this Spring: James Robertson’s Scots translation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox will soon be hitting the shelves as The Sleekit Mr Tod.