Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

runkle, crumple.

Scad, gleam, reflection.

schore, a man of high rank.

scog, v. hide.

scomfisht, discomfited.

scowther, scorch.

scrog, a stunted shrub.

shavling-gabbit, shavling mouthed, a shavling being a carpenter's tool of the plane order. Having a mouth which emits sounds like those made in planing.

sicker, certain.

siver, sewer.

skail, skayl, disperse.

skelf, shelf.

skirr, scour.

sklinter, v. splinter.

skreigh, cry.

sleekit, deceitful.

slocken, slake.

smeddam, spirit.

sneck, bolt.

snell, keen.

snod, trim.

snool, subjugate by tyrannical means.

sole, sill.

sorn, to "sponge" upon;

used by Galt for to loiter.

sosherie, social intercourse.

sough, murmur.

spae, v. forecast.

spean, v. wean.

speat, flood.

speer, speir, inquire.

spunk, spark.

staincher, stanchion.

stang, a pole;

to "ride the stang" was to be subjected to a form of mob justice by which the patient was borne shoulder-high astride a pole.

steek, stitch, fasten.

stock (bed-stock), the fore-part of a bed.

stoure, dust in motion.

straemash, disturbance.

stravaig, v. stroll.

swanky, strapping young countryman (Brockett).

swatch, sample.

swee, a chimney crane for suspending a pot over the fire (Jamieson).

swither, v. to be reluctant, hesitate;

n. reluctance, hesitation, indecision.

syne, then.

Tack, lease.

taigle, hinder, delay.

tawnle, bonfire.

temming, a coarse thin woollen cloth.

tent, heed.

thacket, thatched.

thole, endure.

throng, adj. busy.

thumbikins, thumbscrews.

tirl at the pin, old-fashioned mode of intimating desire of admission to a house.

tod, tod lowrie, fox.

tolbooth, a municipal building including a jail.

toom, empty.

toop, a ram.

toupie (French), toupet.

trance, paved passage.

trintle, v. roll.

trone, a public weighing-machine standing in a market-place.

Unco, adj. extraordinary, remarkable;

n. remarkable object.

Virl, ring (as those which bind a fishing-rod);

frill.

vivers, provisions.

vogie, vain, complacent.

Wae, grieved.

waff, feeble, worn out.

warrandice, warrant.

warsle, wrestle.

wastage, a place of desolation (J.).

wastrie, waste.

waught, a large draught.

wean, child.

whin, furze.

Whigamore, sometimes derived from "whig," a word used in the West for urging on horses, and hence applied as a nickname to a political party. The expedition of the Covenanters under Eglinton to Edinburgh was known as the Whigamore Raid.

whumple, overturn, reverse.

willease, valise.

willy-wa, palaver, wheedle.

wise, v. entice, incline.

wud, wild.

wuddy, "gallows-looking";

widdy is the gallows.

wyte, blame.

Yett, gate.

yird, n. earth;

v. a. run to earth.

1

Scots expletives, signifying different varieties of nonsense.

2

Dismissed in the Dictionary of National Biography, sub voce Galt, as one of "three forgotten novels."

3

In "The Blackwood Group": Famous Scots' Series; Essay on Galt.

4

Ernest Renan in L'Avenir de la Science.