Lexie Conyngham's Blog: writing, history and gardening.

Wednesday, 23 October 2013

Scots Words in Fellowship with Demons

The final instalment of these for now:



Advocate: Scots law’s equivalent of a barrister
Assoilzie: (pronounced assoll-yee) to acquit
Aught: anything
Bailie: councillor
Barnage: childhood
Behouchie: behind, backside
Chopin: a Scots half-pint (about 0.85 litres in new money)
Claik: gossip
Craw-step: crow-stepped gables, gables with a stepped edge.
Cundy: a covered drain or the entrance to a drain
Doocot: dovecot
Dwamie: dreamy
Feardy: cowardly, fearful
Flotter: in a state of excitement
Forwanderit: amazed
Glour: sticky muck
Greeshach: shivery, shuddery
Gyte: mad, crazy
Haar: sea mist
Hirple: limp (verb)
Jook: glance, poke your head quickly round a corner
Ken: know (if you’ve read all these lists you’ll ken that one by now)
Laldy, to give: to put effort in, particularly in a fight or row
Lep: leap
Luckenbooth: a folding stall in the street
Meschant: coward
Midden: rubbish pit, dung heap
Pannel: in Scots law, the defendant
Pollis: police
Provost: the Lord Provost is the equivalent of a Lord Mayor
Rammy: fight, squabble, punch-up
Receipt: recipe
Recryand: villain
Reiver: border raider, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries
Risp: twisted metal bar, against which a ring was rattled to alert people to answer the door – a type of doorbell, really.
Sakeless: harmless, simple
Scurryvaig: wander
Skelet: skeleton
Snippy: mean
Stavell: wander
Tron: weighing scales, weighing point for a market
Wald: yellow
Water-caddies: people who carried water in barrels from the street fountains to customers’ flats
Whaup: curlew
Whin: gorse
 

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