CANTIE adj lively, cheerful, pleasant

So many Scots words are dour and depressing that it makes a pleasant change to celebrate a well-known cheerful word. Even with this one, though, we find the occasional less attractive usage: cantie-smatchet is a term for a louse, apparently from the liveliness of its motion. A very odd simile, also involving an obnoxious creature, is provided by Alexander Ross in Helenore (1768): “Now Lindy is as canty as a midge”. Presumably, this too refers more to the midge’s liveliness than to its emotional state. Food, drink and convivial company are frequently associated with cantiness. S. R. Crockett makes noses twitch and tastebuds tingle in The Raiders (1894) with “the canty smell of the oatmeal fried among it [bacon]”. Allan Ramsay in a Poems of 1721 is equally content with hamely fare: “Of Lang-kail I can make a Feast, And cantily had up my Crest, And laugh at Dishes rare”. A. Pennecuik in Streams from Helicon (1720) adds the effects of alcohol: “where they sauld Brandy and Ale, And the King was turn’d kanty with the other Gill”. For Violet Jacob, though, in Songs of Angus (1915), company will suffice:  “And, nicht by nicht, we will a’ convene And we’ll be a cantie three”. The companionship of marriage is often described as cantie. Burns’ Duncan Gray and the reluctant Meg end up “crouse and cantie baith” and an Aberdeenshire speaker told a dictionary researcher in 1938 that “She got a gey canty doonsit”  means “she made a fortunate marriage”. It is interesting to note that Charles Dickens uses this word in Pickwick Papers (1837): “Three or four ... canty old Scotch fellows”. There is an Older Scots word ‘cant’ meaning brisk or lively.  The origins of both words are obscure but ‘kant’ and ‘kanty’ in Low German have similar meanings and ancient trade connections may have brought these words to Scotland.

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