MacBain's Dictionary

Gateway to Scotland

Online Plan for Scots Dictionary

A Scottish Genealogist’s Dictionary, by Walter Deas (see also, “Online Plans for Scots Dictionary” http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_2022000/2022999.stm)

Ablach – a dwarf; an undersized or insignificant person

Advocate – Solicitor

Affa clivir quine – awfully clever girl

Afore – before; in front

Agnates – an individual related through the father

Ague - used to define the recurring fever & chills of malaria

Ahint – behind; in back of

Aidle – putrid water

Aiker – acre

Airles – a deposit to secure a bargain/transaction

Airt – direction

Alienary – prevents a life rent being construed as a fee

Anent – concerning

Aphonia – laryngitis

Assedation – lease; an agreement

Assythment – compensation for an injury

Astrict – to bind legally

Atweel – in truth

Aumous – alms; a charitable gift

Availl – value

Averment – positive statement or affirmation

Avisandum – further consideration

Ayont – beyond; behind

Baile nam Beans – city of beans (Boston)

Baillie – municipal/public officer

Bairn – child

Bairned – pregnant, or made pregnant

Bawbee – halfpenny

Beadle – church officer

Beastial – animals, cattle

Beuk – book

Bield – shelter; a place of protection

Bigging – building

Biliousnes – jaundice or other symptom associated with liver disease

Birn – burden

Birlyman – parish arbiter

Bizzem – bad girl

Blanch-duty – duty paid in kind of money in lieu of rent

Bloodwite – a fine/penalty imposed for drawing blood

Blude/Bluid – blood

Bocht – bought/purchased

Bodach – an old man

Bodle – copper coin of the 16th century

Boll – a dry measure

Bond – money loaned on the security of land or buildings

Brieve – legal writ

Brose – porridge

Burgh – town having a municipal corporation

Burghal aikers – acres of ground belonging to a burgh

Busk – to dress

Byre – cow shed

Caddie – young person who ran errands

Cain – custom or rent paid in kind

Caird – a tinker

Camp fever – typhus

Candelmas – Scottish quarter day (February 2nd)

Canine madness – hydrophobia

Carle – an old man

Carlin – a strong old woman

Cauld – cold

Chapman – a pedlar or packman

Causey – a street paved with cobblestones

Cautioner – one who becomes security for another

Cess – land tax

Charge – money received

Chincough – whooping cough

Chiel – a youngster

Chlorosis – iron deficiency anemia

Closs – a close; an entrance to a tenement

Clachan – a small village or hamlet

Cleedin – clothing

Cognate – person related through the mother

Co-heir of provision – one of several heirs having the right by will or settlement

Compter – accountant

Confirmation – completion of the probate of a testament by the executors

Cooser – a stallion

Cordiner/cordwainer – shoemaker

Corruption - infection

Coryza – a cold

Costiveness - constipation

Cottar – tenant on a farm

Cramp colic – appendicitis

Craft – a croft or small farm

Creel – a wicker basket for fish, peat, etc.

Crounes – crown-pieces, money, wealth

Daith – death

Darg – work; a measure of work

Declinature – refusal; denial
Decreet arbbitral – award of an arbiter

Deid – dead

Depone – to testify

Dilate – to accuse

Displenish – to sell stock, implements, etc., on a farm

Dispone – to assign, make over a grant

Disposition – deed of conveyance and assignation of property

Dochter – daughter

Domicil – permanent home

Dropsey – swelling, often caused by kidney or heart disease

Dux boards – wooden boards on which the name of the best pupil in the school is painted, (see Affa…, Heidy… and Lad…) usually displayed prominently

Dyspepsia – acid indigestion

Dyvor – a bankrupt

Edict – a proclamation

Eik – used to indicate an addition to a legal document

Ell-wan – a measuring stick

Executor dative – executor appointed by the court and not the testator

Executor nominate – executor named by the testator

Extravasted blood – rupture of a blood vessel

Expede – to officially issue a document

Factor – an agent who manages land or house for a proprietor

Falling sickness – epilepsy

Fause fee – servant’s wage

Fencible – soldier called up for home defense

Ferme – rent

Feu – perpetual lease

Feuar – one who holds land in feu

Fiere – comrade; friend

Flit – to move from place to another

Flair – floor

Flus of humor – circulation

Forbye – in addition to

Forfault – to deprive of rights of property

French pox – venereal disease

Gabbin – talking

Gear – possessions

Geid – gave

Ghille – male servant

Girnal – large chest or box for holding meal

Glaives – swords

Goud/Gowd – gold

Graith – furnishings

Grandsher – great-grandfather

Great guidsire – great-grandfather

Grieve – farm overseer

Green sickness – anemia

Groat – an old coin

Ground annual – perpetual annual rent chargeable on land

Guid-brither – brother-in-law

Guid-father – father-in-law

Guidman – husband; master

Guid-mither – mother-in-law

Guidsire – grandfather

Guid-sister – sister-in-law

Guidwife – female head of a household

Gutcher – grandfather; relation

Hairst – harvest

Hale – healthy; well

Handfast – to make a contract by the symbolic joining of hands; to be betrothed

Handsel – a gift in token of something special

Happit – buried

Haughs – low-lying lands or meadows

Heidy knipe – brainy person

Heritable – capable of being inherited

Heritor – landowner liable to contribute to the upkeep of the Parish Church

Hip gout – osteomyelitis

Hoast – a cough

Holograph – document wholly in the handwriting of one person

Homologate – to ratify

Hosen – stockings

Ill-gotten – illegitimate

Indweller – inhabitant; occupant

Infeft – invest with legal possession of heritable property

Infeftment – the investing of a new owner with legal possession of land

Infield – the best land nearest the farm buildings

Ingle – the fireside

Intent – to bring an action in the courts against someone

Interdict – judicial prohibition

Intromit – to handle funds with or without legal authority

Investure – process by which a person is vested with a right to lands

Jail fever – typhus

Juist – just

Kebars – rafters, poles

Kenspeckle – well known; conspicuous

Kerne – a warring man; a fighting peasant

Kin – relation

Kincough/Kinhoast – whooping cough

Kings evil – tubercular infection of the throat glands

Kirkit – married in a church; churched

Kist – a box or chest

Knicht – a knight

Kye – cows; cattle

Lad (or lass) o’ pairts – outstanding scholar who goes on to do well in life.

Lair – burial plot

Laird – a landowner; landed proprietor

La grippe – flu

Lanwart – urban

Lave – the rest; the remainder

Leister – an implement for spearing fish

Lemans – lovers; paramours

Liferent – property held for a lifetime, which cannot be disposed of further by the holder

Loon – a young fellow

Luckle – a dame; middle-aged woman

Lues Venera – venereal disease

Lumbago – back pain

Lung fever - pneumonia

Lung sickness – tuberculosis

Mains – the chief farm on an estate

Mairrit – married

Mania – insanity

Manse – a minister’s house

Mercat – market

Merchat – marriage tax

Merk – Scottish coin

Miln – mill; grain manufactory

Mortification – infection

Muir – moor; a heath

Multure – duty, in the form of a proportion of grain, taken by the proprietor or tenant of a mill on all corn ground in it

Multure Court – Court that fixed the multure

Nether – lower

Neuk – a corner

Niffer – exchange

Nocht – nothing

Nonage – being under age

Notary Public – one who records deeds

Nott – required

Nostalia – homesickness

Octo – measure of arable land

Orraman – an odd job man, especially on a farm

Oy – grandchild

Parochial – pertaining to the Parish

Paughty – proud; haughty

Paukie/Pawky – sly; shrewd

Peel – tower or turret

Pend – arched entrance; covered entry

Pendicle – added property

Pirn – a spool or reel for thread

Plack – Scottish coin

Plenish – to furnish or stock

Poind – to seize and sell, in order to pay a debt

Poortith/Puirtith – poverty

Procurator-Fiscal – public prosecutor in a Sheriff Court

Protocol Book – book in which deeds were recorded

Pursuer – plaintiff, person suing in an action

Puckle – small quantity

Puir – poor

Putrid Fever – diphtheria

Qualify – to establish evidence

Quean/Queyn – a young woman; lass

Quhair – a sheaf of papers

Quinsy – tonsillitis

Ruakle – rash; fearless

Rede – to advise; to counsel

Reduce – to annul

Reeler – one who winds yard on a reel

Relict – surviving wife of a deceased man

Reivers – warrior cattle-stealers

Remitting Fever – malaria

Reparation – damages

Richt – right

Roup – sale by auction

Routh – plenty

Runt – an undersized little man; stalk of a cabbage

Ryal – Scottish coin

Sair – sore

Sark/Serk – a shirt; vest or a chemise

Sanguinous Crust – scab

Sasine – transference of property and land

Saul – soul

Scaith – damage; hurt

Scaur – a jutting cliff; a sharp rock

Schilltrom – a military formation

Screws – rheumatism

Scrofula – tubercular infection of the throat glands

Sennachie – recorder and reciter of family history

Servitor – servant; attendant

Sheltie – a pony

Sheriff – judicial and administrative officer

Ship’s Fever – typhus

Shire – a district that was much smaller than the modern county

Shaw – a wooded dell

Sheiling – a small cottage, quite often in a remote area

Sib – kin

Siller – silver; money in general

Silver Rent – rent paid in money and not in kind

Skail – to dispense

Sodger – a soldier

Sonsy/Sonsie – jolly; plump; a sow

Sooter/Soutar – a shoemaker

Soum – unit of grazing

Spae – fortune-teller

Spence – the best room

Spune – spoon

Steeked – locked

Stents – dues; assessments

Stewarty – land annexed or forfeited to the Crown

Stirk – a young bullock or heifer

Stoup – a measure; a drink container

Strangery – rupture

Streen – yesterday

Subtack – sub-let

Surety – bond; obligation

Summer Complaint – baby diarrhea

Tack – lease

Tacksman – one who holds a lease

Taen – taken

Taupie – a witless or slovenly young woman

Tailzie – entail

Teind – tithe

Tenement – a block of flats

Tenendry – tenants

Terce – the right of a widow to the life-rent of one third of her husband’s heritable estate, if no other provision has been made for her

Terce Land – land, the rent of which is assigned to the widow as her terce

Testament – will

Teuch – tough

Thirled – bound; tied

Thole – right of an owner to exact custom or payment for goods being taken through his land

Tocher – bride’s dowry

Tolbooth – an office or booth where tolls and other dues were paid

Tulzie/Tulyie – a squabble; a fight

Tume – empty

Umquhile – deceased

Vassal – tenant holding lands under a lord

Venesection – bleeding

Vennel – a narrow alley between houses

Vitiour intomission – unwarranted dealing with the moveable estate of a deceased person

Wabster – weaver

Wadset – a mortgage

Ward – enclosed piece of land

Weans – children

Weeda – widow

Whinger – short sword; a dirk

Wimple – to meander; to wander

Wynd – a narrow street

Yard – a garden

Yestreen – last night

Yett – a gate

Yin – one

Yow – you

Yowe – a ewe

Yule – Christmas

By Walter Deas, as it appeared in U. S. SCOTS Magazine, Summer 1999

Last Update: April 2005