Scottish glossary

 

Scots glossary

 

Agley – awry, off to one side.

 

Aye iphm – a useful and meaningless noise like ‘eh bien’ in French, or ‘Ah, well,’ in English.

 

Bairn – child

 

Bawheid – uncomplimentary term

 

Bawr – joke or humorous tale, or a tall tale.

 

Bawsack – part of the male genitalia

 

Besom – literally, broom; a less than complimentary term for a woman

 

Bothy – a small shelter with very few amenities for gamekeepers and hunters to shelter in.

 

Braw – good, fine

 

Brose – broth

 

But’n’ben – a two roomed cottage, the but, or outer, kitchen part, and ben, inside, the bedroom.

 

Clootie dumpling – a pudding boiled in a cloth

 

Corrie – a deep, ice-scoured armchair-shaped valley, usually with a deep pool found in the mountains, technical geologic term taken from the Scots, but also known as a cirque. The birthplace of a glacier.

 

Crabbit – ill-tempered

 

Crack/Craic – gossip

 

Couthie – friendly, good natured, pleasant

 

Cushie-doo – wood pigeon

 

Cutty – short.

 

Cutty sark, a short shirt, woman’s chemise.

 

Doo – dove, pigeon. Cushy doo, wood pigeon, pooter doo, pouter pi    geon

 

Drawers – men’s underpants.

 

Dreekit - wet

 

Dreich – mizzly, overcast, unpleasant, damp

 

Drookit – wet through

 

Fandan – a man whose brains are made from the products of digestion

 

Finnan Haddie – cold-smoked haddock from an unproven location mangled to ‘Finnan’ somewhere in Aberdeenshire.

 

First footer – the first person to call at a house after New Year, good luck to bear bread and a piece of coal as a gift, and a tall, dark gentleman being the best of luck.

 

Foreby – moreover,  whatever, indeed

 

Ghillie – literally, servant, more by this period gamekeeper, baillif.

 

Girnin’ – pulling horrible faces

 

Greetin’ – crying

 

Haddie brose – haddock stew

 

Haud yer whisht – be silent

 

Hogmanay – New Year

 

Kirk - church

 

Losh! – an expression of surprise

 

Lum chimney

 

Mickle – a little, an indeterminate measurement

 

Minger  - one who is disgusting, also adj. Mingin’

 

Muckle – an indeterminate measurement usually larger than a mickle

 

Och – oh

 

Partan – a crab, often used with partan-faced [not a compliment]

 

Puckle – a small and indeterminate measurement. A portion.

 

Naif – an insignificant fellow

 

Numpty – stupid or ineffectual

 

Reek – smoke. Often found with the greeting ‘lang may yer lum reek’ long may your chimney smoke, ie I wish you plenty of fuel for your fire.

 

Sassenach – Saxon [English]

 

Scrug – to pull down [a garment]

 

Scunnered – worn down, exhausted

 

Shilpit – insignificant

 

Sleekit – sly, cunning

 

Sonsie, sonsey – a fine figure of a woman, plenty to her.

 

Speirin’ – asking questions.

 

Syne – if, since

 

Wabbit – sickly looking

 

Ween – small child

 

Whisht! – hush

 

 

Note; in past tense the sound on the end of words is closer to –it not –ed. Often an ‘l’ in a word after a vowel is closer to Polish ł, a slurred sound between ‘l’ and ‘w’. ‘e’ sound in English tends to ‘ee’.  Wh is pronounced ‘hw’ and is aspirated. Some words beginning ‘h’ are barely aspirated and are treated as if beginning with a vowel, eg ‘an hotel’ where the h is not so much left off as reduced to a mere breath. R is rolled.