List of English words of Scots origin

Last updated

List of English words of Scots origin is a list of English language words of Scots origin. See also "List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin", which contains many words which were borrowed via Highland Scots.

Blackmail
A form of extortion carried out by the Border Reivers, borrowed into English with less violent connotations.
blatant
Bonspiel
caddie or caddy
canny
Also Northern English. From English can in older sense of "to know how."
clan
Borrowed from Gaelic clann (family, stock, off-spring).
convene
Borrowed from French convenir, from Latin convenire.
cosy
firth
Derived from Old Icelandic fjǫrdic (see fjord)
glamour
Meaning magic, enchantment, spell. From English grammar and Scottish gramarye (occult learning or scholarship).
gloaming
Middle English (Scots) gloming, from Old English glomung "twilight", from OE glom
golf
glengarry
(or Glengarry bonnet) A brimless Scottish cap with a crease running down the crown, often with ribbons at the back. Named after the title of the clan chief Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry (1771–1828), who invented it.
gumption
Common sense or shrewdness.
halloween
haver or haiver
To talk nonsense. [1] Scottish and North English dialect.
laddie
A boy.
lassie
A girl.
links
Sandy, rolling ground, from Old English hlinc (ridge).
pernickety
From pernicky.
minging
literally "stinking", from Scots "to ming".
plaid
From Gaelic plaide or simply a development of ply, to fold, giving plied then plaid after the Scots pronunciation.
pony
Borrowed from obsolete French poulenet (little foal) from Latin pullāmen.
raid
scone
Probably from Dutch schoon.
shinny
Pond or street hockey in Canada. From an alternative name for the Scots sport shinty.
skulduggery
From Scots sculduddery [2] [3]
tweed
Cloth being woven in a twilled rather than a plain pattern. from tweel
wee
Small, tiny, minute.
wow
Exclamation [4] [5] [6]
wraith

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hogmanay</span> Scottish celebration of New Year

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loch</span> Scottish Gaelic word for a lake or sea inlet

Loch is a word meaning "lake" or "sea inlet" in Scottish and Irish, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yogh</span> Letter of the Latin alphabet

The letter yogh (ȝogh) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular form of the letter g, Ᵹᵹ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scots language</span> West Germanic language

Scots is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, Northern Isles, and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English. Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1100–1300).

Scottish English is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools". IETF language tag for "Scottish Standard English" is en-scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farl</span> Scottish and Irish three-cornered flatbreads and cakes

A farl is any of various quadrant-shaped flatbreads and cakes, traditionally made by cutting a round into four pieces. In Ulster, the term generally refers to soda bread and, less commonly, potato bread, which are also ingredients of an Ulster fry.

Craic or crack is a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland. It is often used with the definite article – the craic – as in the expression "What's the craic?". The word has an unusual history; the Scots and English crack was borrowed into Irish as craic in the mid-20th century and the Irish spelling was then reborrowed into English. Under either spelling, the term has attracted popularity and significance in Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulster English</span> Variety of English spoken in Northern Ireland

Ulster English, also called Northern Hiberno-English or Northern Irish English, is the variety of English spoken in most of the Irish province of Ulster and throughout Northern Ireland. The dialect has been influenced by the Ulster Irish and Scots languages, the latter of which was brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster and subsequent settlements throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

In Scotland, a wirry-cow is a bugbear, goblin, ghost, ghoul or other frightful object. Sometimes the term is used for the Devil or a scarecrow.

Draggled sae 'mang muck and stanes, They looked like wirry-cows

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early Scots</span> West Germanic language

Early Scots was the emerging literary language of the Early Middle English-speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English. During this period, speakers referred to the language as "English".

The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) is an online Scots–English dictionary, now run by Dictionaries of the Scots Language, formerly known as Scottish Language Dictionaries, a registered SCIO charity. Freely available via the Internet, the work comprises the two major dictionaries of the Scots language:

The 'apologetic' or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophes in some Modern Scots spelling. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate, as in a' (all), gi'e (give) and wi' (with).

Central Scots is a group of dialects of Scots.

The Scottish National Dictionary Association (SNDA) was founded in 1929 to foster and encourage the Scots language, in particular by producing a standard dictionary of modern Scots. This primary aim was fulfilled in 1976 with the completion of the 10-volume Scottish National Dictionary (SND), covering the language from 1700 to 1976. Material for SND is drawn from a wide variety of written and oral sources of Lowland Scots from Shetland to Ulster. SND was produced under the editorial direction of William Grant, and of David Murison.

A Scotticism is a phrase or word, used in English, which is characteristic of Scots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish Canadians</span> Canadians of Scottish descent or heritage

Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish descent or heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a large impact on Canadian culture since colonial times. According to the 2016 Census of Canada, the number of Canadians claiming full or partial Scottish descent is 4,799,010, or 13.93% of the nation's total population. Prince Edward Island has the highest population of Scottish descendants at 41%.

These lists of English words of Celtic origin include English words derived from Celtic origins. These are, for example, Common Brittonic, Gaulish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, or other languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern Scots</span> Varieties of Scots spoken since 1700

Modern Scots comprises the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, from 1700.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maud (plaid)</span>

A maud is a woollen blanket or plaid woven in a pattern of small black and white checks known as Border tartan, Shepherd's check, Shepherd's plaid or Galashiels grey. It was in common use as an item of clothing in the southern counties of Scotland and the northern counties of England until the early twentieth century.

References

  1. Mairi Robinson, ed. (1985). Concise Scots Dictionary (1987 ed.). Aberdeen University Press. p. 260.
  2. "skulduggery - definition of skulduggery in English from the Oxford dictionary". oxforddictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  3. "Dictionary of the Scots Language :: SND :: Sculduddery n." dsl.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  4. "wow - Definition of wow in English by Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries - English. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  5. "Americanize!: Why the Americanisation of English Is a Good Thing, Seriously... - BBC Radio 4". BBC. 26 May 2017. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2020-01-07.
  6. "Dictionary of the Scots Language :: SND :: Wow interj". www.dsl.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-03-20. Retrieved 2020-01-07.