We Scots are often reluctant to blow our own trumpet, fearing a put-down from someone who ‘kent yer faither'. Many of our words for proud are quite reductive and imply that someone has got a bit above themselves, like bigsie, or windy, or pauchtie. Vauntie can be used that way but it can also have positive connotations and so it appears in William Jamie's Muse of the Mearns (1844) “Indeed, Gudewife, ye're dear to me, Of you I am right vaunty”. James Lumsden in Sheep-Head and Trotters (1892) uses it in the sense of pleased rather than vain: “We've got a judge and referee (Cried I, right vauntie!)”. This also seems the intended emotion in Robert Muir's Mystery of Muncraig (1900): “A window that my neighbour the grocer was very vaunty about”. In Burns' Tam o Shanter, the young witch is not being criticised for her pride in her sark: “In longitude tho' sorely scanty, It was her best, she was vauntie”. Occasionally it is used of the clothes themselves, rather than the wearer. In this case, the garments may be ostentatious or just jaunty or smart. So this description in Modern Scottish Poets (1860) is intended to be complimentary: “Wi' bonnet sae vaunty, an' owerlay [necktie, cravat] sae clean”. Vauntie is a word that has come up in the world and risen above the more pejorative flavour of its origins. With the addition of its adjective-forming suffix, it comes from the noun ‘vaunt', which, in Older Scots, denotes all the sinfulness of pride. In Adam Abell's The Roit or Quheill of Tyme (a1538), we find it paired with vainglory, and William Dunbar (a1508) censures “Sic vant of wostouris [boasters] with hairtis in sinfull staturis”. By contrast, vauntie is a useful word for someone who might have a guid conceit o thirsel but stops well short of the deadly sin.

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