from the Gaelic gabhail, pronounced gaval, a portion of land done by cattle in ploughing: - Let every man be content with his ain kevil. And they coost kevils them among Knowe, a knoll, a hillock: Upon a knowe they sat them down, Burns The Twa Dogs. Lane, the condition of being alone:— I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist. Burns. Lave, the residue, the remainder, that which is left, or, as the Americans say in commercial fashion, the "balance: " I'll get a blessing wi' the lave Why should I sit and sigh, When the wild woods bloom sae briery, The laverocks sing, the flowerets spring, And a' but me are cheery. Buchan's Songs of the North of Scotland. Leal, loyal, true, true-hearted; “the land o' the leal," i.e. heaven: A leal heart never lied. Scotch Proverb. I'm wearing awa', Jean, To the land o' the leal. Lady Nairne. Lift, the sky-that which is lifted up above the earth; whence, by a similarity of origin, heaven - that which is heaved, Kevil, a lot; to cast kevils, to draw lots; or hoven up: When lightnings fire the stormy lift. Burns: Epistle to Robert Graham. It is the moon, I ken her horn, That's blinkin' in the lift sae hie; She shines sae bright to wile us hame, But by my sooth she'll wait a wee! Burns. Lin or lins. This termination to many Scottish words supplies a shade of meaning not to be expressed in English but by a periphrasis; as westlins, including towards the west. Aiblins, perhaps; from able-lins — inclining towards able, or about to become possible. Backlins, inclining towards a retrograde movement: — The westlin wind blaws loud and shrill. Now frae the east neuk o' Fife the dawn This panion, an equal, a sweetheart. word is beautifully applied to a lover or wedded partner, as one whose mind is the exact counterpart of that of the object of his affection. It appears in early English literature, but now survives only in the poetry and daily speech of the Scottish people: One glove or shoe is marrow to another. Landsdowne MS.: quoted in Halliwell's Archaic Dictionary. And when we came to Clovenford, Wordsworth: Yarrow Unvisited. Allan Ramsay: Christ's Kirk on the Mons Meg and her marrow three volleys let Green. flee, A man's mind is a mirk mirror. Allan Ramsay's Scotch Proverbs. 'Twixt the gloaming and the mirk, when the kye come hame. The Ettrick Shepherd. Mools, from mould-earth, the grave: And Jeanie died. She had not lain i' the mools Three days ere Donald laid aside his tools home. By break of day he seeks the dowie glen, Allan Ramsay Pastoral on the death of Scrog, a stunted bush, furze; scroggy, abounding in underwood, covered with stunted bushes or furze like the Scottish mountains: The way towards the cité was stony, thorny, and scroggy.-Gesta Romanorum. Sir Walter Scott, when in his last illness in Italy, was taken to a wild scene on the mountains that border the Lago di Garda. He had long been apathetic, and almost insensible to surrounding objects; but his fading eyes flashed with unwonted fire at the sight of the furze-bushes and scrogs, that reminded him of home and Scotland, and he suddenly exclaimed, in the words of the Jacobite ballad· Up the scroggy mountain, Shaw, a small wood, a thicket, a plantation of trees. This word was once common in English literature. It still subsists in the patronymics of many families, as Shawe, Aldershaw, Hinshaw, Hackshaw, Hawkshaw (or Oakshaw), and others, and is used by the peasantry in most parts of England, and every part of Scotland: Whither ridest thou under this green shawe? In summer when the shaws be shene, It is full merry in fair forest, To hear the sweet birds' song. Sib, related; of kin by blood or marriage: I rede ye weel, take care o' skaith. Slogan, the war-cry of a clan : When the streets of high Dunedin, Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sough. The wavy swell of the soughing reeds. A minister in his Sabbath services expressed the wishes of his congregation in prayer as follows:- O Lord, we pray Thee to send us wind: no a rantin', tantin', tearin' wind; but a Snell, sharp, biting, keen, lively. —John-noughin', soughin', winnin', wind.'. Dean son, in his Dictionary, says this is an obsolete word in England, though it is commonly used to the north of the Humber. (Sir Madoc) was a handy man, and snell The winds blew snell. Allan Ramsay. And bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith snell and keen. Burns: To a Mouse. Ramsay. Spate, a flood or freshet, from the overflow of a river or lake; also metaphorically an overflow of idle talk: The water was great and mickle of spate.-Kinmont Willie. Even like a mighty river that runs down in spate to the sea.— -W. E. Aytoun: Blackwood's Magazine. The Laird of Balnamon was a truly eccentric character. He joined with his drinking propensities a great zeal for the Episcopal Church. One Sunday, having visitors, he read the ser Snool, to flatter abjectly, to cringe, to vices and prayers with great solemnity and earcrawl: Is there a whim-inspired fool, Snurl, to ruffle the surface of the waters with a wind; metaphorically applied to the temper of man or woman : — Northern blasts the ocean snurl. Sonsie, from the Gaelic sonas, good fortune good-humoured, comely, likely to be fortunate: His honest sonsie face, He's tall and sonsie, frank and free, Because my Robin lo'es me. Chambers's Scottish Songs, vol. ii. Sugh, or sough, a sigh; more particularly the mournful sigh or sound of the wind among the trees or tall sedge-grass or rushes. This beautiful and expressive word is evidently from the same root as the Greek Psyche, the soul; though Richardson in his Dictionary derives it from "suck" the sucking or drawing in of the breath, previous to the emission. Burns uses both sugh and sough:· When, lo! on either hand nestness. After dinner, he, with the true Scotch hospitality of the time, set to, to make his guests as drunk as possible. Next day, when they took their departure, one of the visitors asked another what he thought of the laird. Why, and sic a spate o' drinking, I never knew in all really," he replied, "sic a spate o' praying, the course of my life."-Dean Ramsay's Rem iniscences. 66 From the place he was stanced We would recommend any Yankee believer in England's decay to take his stance in Fleet Street or any of our great thoroughfares, and ask himself whether it would be wise to meddle with any member of that busy and strenuous crowd.-Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1869. Sturt, trouble, sorrow, vexation, strife ; to vex, disturb, annoy: And aye the less they hae to sturt 'em, I've lived a life of sturt and strife. Swirl, to turn rapidly, to eddy, to curl: : He who tholes conquers. He that has a good crop ought to thole a few thistles. Better thole a grumph than a sumph. (i.e., better endure an uncourteous man than a blockhead.) Allan Ramsay's Scots Proverbs. " Burns: Address to the Deil. Tron. -There is a Tron Church in Edinburgh and another in Glasgow; but the Scottish glossaries and Jamieson's Thrave, a bunch, a lot, a company, an Scottish Dictionary make no mention of assembly. "A thrave of corn,' says the word. It would appear from a pasBlount's Glossographia, 1681, "is two sage in Hone's" Every-day Book" that stooks of six, or rather twelve sheaves Tron " signified a public weighing-maapiece. The word comes from the British chine or scale in a market-place, where threva, twenty-four. In most counties of purchasers of commodities might without England twenty-four sheaves do now go fee satisfy themselves that the weight of to a thrave. Twelve sheaves make a stook, the purchase was correct according to the and two stooks make a thrave," . charge. Hence a "Tron Church was a church in the market-place near which the public weighing-machine was established. And after cometh a knave, He sends forth thraves of ballads. A daimen icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessing wi' the lave, And never miss't. Tryste, an appointed place of meeting, a rendezvous. This word occurs in Chaucer, and several old English MSS. of his period, but is not used by later writers. "To bide tryste," to be true to time and place of meeting: "You walk late, sir," said I. "I bide tryste," was the reply; "and so I think do |