LUIF, LOOF n the palm of the hand

This loanword from Old Norse first makes an apprearance in Older Scots in the late fifteenth century in Henryson’s Fable of The Fox, the Wolf, and the Cadger. The Cadger, or itinerant fishmonger, threatens to use the fox’s pelt to “mak mittenis to my lufis”. James Lumsden in Edinburgh and Country Croonings (1905) describes wealth as “Loofu’s o’ siller, and gowpens o’ gowd”. The creeshin o luifs is the Scots equivalent of greasing palms for which John Galt provides an apt quotation in The Provost (1822): “The predecessors of Mr M’Lucre got their loofs creeshed with something that might be called a grassum, or rather, a gratis gift”. An honest deal is made in the nursery song collection Whistle-Binkie (1832) “Yet, heart to heart, and loof to loof, A bargain we shall mak it”. If you speak aff yer luif, you extemporise. To have yer lug in yer luif is to be severely scolded and tae tak yer luif aff anither's lug is to give them a resounding slap. The ootside o yer luif expresses contempt. That is the intention in this example from Charles Mackay’s Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (1888): “ ‘If ye’ll no join the Free Kirk’, said a wealthy widow to her cousin (to whom she had often conveyed the hint that he might expect a handsome legacy at her death), ‘ye’ll hae the outside o’ my loof, and never see the inside o’t again’”. Something as ‘easy as kiss my luif’ is a skoosh. We find luif occasional applied to animals. So a cat might wash its face with its luif. I was, however, a little surprised to find this usage in Dougal Graham’s Collected Writings (1779: “A wae be to you for a ’orse ... setting your muckle iron lufe on my bairn’s wee fittie”.

 Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.

This week's Word is spoken by Dauvit Horsbroch.