LITMIR.BIZ

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chuckie stane noun a stone or pebble of throwable size: throwing chuckies in the water

      clabber or glabber noun spoken in Southwest mud, earth, or clay: Ma trainers are still aw clabber fae T in the Park. [Gaelic clàbar meaning mud or a puddle]

      clachan (pronounced klaCH-an) noun a small village or hamlet: He was born in a wee clachan in Argyll. [Gaelic, meaning stone]

      This word was originally used only of Highland villages, but its use is now more widespread.

      clack (pronounced klak) or claick (pronounced klayk) spoken in Northeast noun gossip or chat: Never heed their daft clack. | verb to gossip or chat: How about some graftin, instead of clackin away like a pair o’ sweetiewives? [probably from one of its original meanings: the clattering sound of a mill in operation]

      claes (pronounced klayz) plural noun clothes: Hing on till Ah get some claes on. The saying back to auld claes and porridge means a return to normality after a period of jollity, celebration, or indulgence: After Hogmanay it’s back to auld claes and porridge for us.

      clanjamfrie (pronounced klan-jam-free) or clamjamfrie (pronounced klam-jam-free) noun 1 a group of people, usually used to dismiss them as a rabble: There’s naebody wi’ any sense in the hale clanjamfrie! 2 a varied assortment of things; a mixed bag: the clamjamfrie of tenements, courtyards and closes which forms Edinburgh’s Old Town

      clapshot noun a dish of boiled potatoes and turnips which have been mashed together in roughly equal quantities: Lunch is fillets of cod served with clapshot, roasted peppers, and chilli oil.

      cleg or clegg noun a horse-fly with a painful bite: Once ye’ve been but wi’ a cleg, ye’re no feart o’ midgies. [Old Norse klegge]

      clipshears or clipshear noun an earwig: There was hundreds of clipshears and slaters under the flowerpot when she lifted it. [from the resemblance of the pincers at the tip of the creature’s abdomen to shears]

      clishmaclaver (pronounced klish-ma-clay-ver) noun gossip or incessant chatter: Ye should be ashamed o’yersel, repeatin clishmaclaver like yon! [a combination of two Scots words, clish to repeat gossip, and claver to talk idly]

      cloot noun a piece of cloth or a cloth used as a duster, etc: Dicht roon the sink wi’ a cloot.

      clootie dumpling (pronounced kloo-ti) noun a rich dark fruitcake served as a dessert, like a Christmas pudding. It is boiled or steamed in a cloot or cloth: Ma grannie used tae pit a sixpenny bit in the clootie dumplin for some lucky soul tae find.

      cludgie (pronounced kluj-i) noun spoken in Central a toilet: A wee boy’s got locked in the cludgie. [perhaps a mixture of closet and ludge, a Scots form of lodge]

      clype or clipe noun a person who tells tales or informs on his or her friends, colleagues, or schoolmates: Just you keep your mouth shut, ya wee clype! | verb to tell tales or inform on: We’d have been all right if she hadnae cliped on us tae the heidie. [related to Old English cleopian to call or name]

      coggle verb to wobble, rock, or be unsteady: Tiger Woods’ ball coggled for a minute on the lip of the eighteenth hole.

      coggly adjective shaky or unsteady: Find another table; this yin’s a wee bit coggly.

      collieshangie (pronounced kol-ee-shang-gee) noun a loud and disorderly commotion or quarrel: What’s all this collieshangie out in the street? [the word used to mean a dogfight, so perhaps it comes from collie the breed of dog and shangie a chain or leash connecting two dogs]

      connach (pronounced kon-naCH) verb spoken in Northeast 1 to spoil, in various different ways: The crop was clean connached by the weather; He connacht the fairm wi his drinkin; The thunder connacht the milk; It wis his mither at aye connacht him. 2 to tire out: The wee lad wis fair connached wi the lang walk. [perhaps from the old Gaelic conach, meaning a disease of cattle]

      coorie or courie verb to nestle or snuggle: He cooried in to his mother’s side. [from the Scots coor meaning cower]

      corbie noun a crow: twa corbies sittin on a wa’ [from Old French corbin]

      The earliest Scots

      The origins of the Scottish people are complicated, and Scotland’s history involves much conquest and reconquest by various peoples. However, two particular tribes have strong claims to being in at the start of the Scottish nation: the Picts and the Scots.

      The Picts were a fairly mysterious set of people. Records of their language exist on a few beautifully carved stones in the north of Scotland but these inscriptions remain largely undeciphered. We know that places with names beginning ‘Pit-’ were probably Pictish settlements but that’s about it. We don’t even know what they called themselves; the label ‘Picts’ comes from Latin Picti, meaning painted men, suggesting that they were heavily tattooed or painted themselves with woad. They were said to be a relatively small, dark-haired people. Apparently they gave any Romans who ventured north of Hadrian’s Wall such a hard time that ‘haste ye back’ fell on deaf ears. They were converted to Christianity in the sixth century by Saint Columba and other intrepid missionaries, and their kingdom came to be known as Alba, a name which endures as the Gaelic name for Scotland.

      We know more about the Scots, the Gaelic-speaking tribes from Ireland who started raiding what is now Argyll in the fifth and sixth centuries before deciding that they liked it so much that they preferred to stay. They established the kingdom of Dalriada, which took in much of Northern Ireland, the Western Isles and the western mainland. The Scots gradually conquered the Pictish lands, absorbing or killing off the Picts themselves, until their ninth-century king Kenneth MacAlpine was able to rule as Kenneth I of Scotland. Nowadays you don’t have to be a Gael to be a Scot; you just have to arrange to be born here.

      corrie-fisted adjective left-handed: The teacher used tae gie us the belt if we were corrie-fisted. [from the Gaelic cearr left or wrong hand]

      If your surname is Kerr or Carr, it’s likely that you had a left-handed ancestor in the distant past.

      corrie-fister noun a left-handed person

      coup or cowp (pronounced kowp) noun 1 a rubbish tip: He’s away tae the coup wi’ his auld computer. 2 a dirty or untidy place: Tidy up that coup of a room of yours. | verb to turn or fall over: The wean couped her bowl onto the floor. [from the Middle English cowp to strike]

      couthy or couthie (pronounced kooth-i) adjective 1 plain, homely, or unsophisticated: His poetry unaffectedly blended the couthy with the cosmopolitan. 2 comfortable and snug: They gave us a braw, couthy wee room on the ground floor.

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