The usual Scots word meaning ‘to jump’ is ‘lowp’, descended from Old Norse ‘hlaupa’. This does not mean that ‘leap’, which derives from Old English ‘hleapan’ is entirely ousted. Both words can happily co-exist in the same sentence such as this one from Sir George Law’s Memorialls, or, The Memorable Things that fell out whithin this island of Brittain from 1638 to 1684: “Sir George Gordon ... leeping into the boat, missed and did loup in the sea.” John Barbour uses it in the sense of ‘jump’ in Legends of the Saints (1380): “The abbot thane, to scheld the threpe (to prevent conflict), In-to the fyre but mare can lepe”. He also uses it in the sense ‘rush’ in his Bruce (1375): “Thai that neir enbuschit (lying near in ambush)war Lap out”. More modern senses include ‘To split, burst open, spring apart’ applied to sewing, a shoe, brassicas running to seed and potatoes boiled in their skins. J. White assures us in Eppie Gray (1910), “The luppin’ tatties in a heap Are unco sweet tae pree”. It can be used of a boil breaking out, but a luppen-oot face simply means a red complexion, whether through a skin eruption or, more attractively, with a blush. Sydenham’s chorea was, in the eighteenth century, called the leaping ague and a luppen-shinnen, luppen-sennet or luppen sinon was a swelling on a tendon, although The Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow (1899) describe “varicose veins being mistakenly termed luppen sinons”. Scots ‘leap’ and English ‘leap’ derive from the same source and share many senses, but you will have noticed that the Scots forms differ from modern English ‘leap, leapt, leapt’, which began to develop in the Middle English period. Scots diverged less radically from Old English ‘hleapan, hleop, hlupon’ to give ‘leap, lap, luppen’, although these forms are now being eroded under the influence of English grammar.

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

This week's Word is spoken by Michael Hance.