Show content as Scots

Words by month

Register with SLC

Subscribe to our news letter and keep up to date.

Make a donation to the SLC

and help preserve this language for future generations

DONATE NOW

Sponsored by

Scottish Arts Council Scottish Arts Council

Supporters of

Learning in Literature

ettle v. intend, plan, purpose to do; try, make an attempt at

Categorised in:
“ettle v. intend, plan, purpose to do; try, make an attempt at”

19th February 2008

Ettle is an ambitious wee word. It is no stranger to Scots literature, appearing in the works of John Buchan, Neil Munro and Sir Walter Scott, and can also be found in modern incarnations of formal written Scots. Alongside its Urdu and Polish pages, the website of the Scottish Parliament informs readers: "Gin ye are mair nor 21 … Ye can staund as an independent individual candidate or jine a political pairty an ettle tae become a candidate for them".

Ettle derives from Old Norse aetla ‘intend’ and can be found in Scottish texts dating back to the fourteenth century. It is also recorded in Middle English, but its use in England is now restricted to northern dialects. Local records from the Middle Ages report a wide variety of intentions and plans. In seventeenth-century Aberdeen, one Eduard Reid was charged with "eattling to draw ane dagger to Alexander Gray" and one Janet Rany was convicted of "draging doun among hir feit Issobell Walker be the hair, … etling to strik the said Issobell with ane brasin (brass) pan".

What people can and will attempt changes with the times. As the poet W. D. Cocker observed in 1929: "Lassies noo-a-days a’ want to dae something oot o’ the or’nar. They ettle to dae a’ things that men can dae". In his play, The Tragic Muse (1934), James Bridie cautions against "ettling tae sleep on the big drum of a jazz orchestry". Ettling can also mean ambitious, as in John Galt’s description of a local lad-o-pairts in his novel, The Provost (1822): "Geordie will be to us what James Watt is to the ettling town of Greenock".