Dictionaries of the Scots Language

22/08/2026

BARFIT: ‘Barefooted’. (https://dsl.ac.uk/scots-word-of-the-week/barfit/).

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) have a rather interesting entry for this word, which means, “barefooted”.

An August 1940 example from the Aberdeen Weekly Journal reminds us that it was once common for children to go barefoot: “And speaking of barfit why do our children nowadays all go shod in summer? We never see a barfit loon now except at the seaside”. An even earlier recollection was noted in the Aberdeen Evening Express in June 1990: “By the late 20s the sending of a bairn to the skeel barfit was dying out even though no welfare office would arrive to investigate what today would be regarded as a gross piece of child neglect”.

DSL tells us that the word was also used figuratively to mean ‘meatless’ in terms like, barfit broth and barefoot-kail. These both mean, “broth made with a little butter, without any meat having been boiled in it”. A related example appeared in the Sunday Herald in January 2005: “And last year the G1 Group - the corporate chain of Glasgow style bars and restaurants - opened their new venture The Bothy, with a menu full of basic, classic native dishes such as Scotch broth and barefit stovies”.

One editor at DSL also learned an additional, yet-to-be-documented meaning from a Traveller friend. When asked if she would like a cup of tea, the friend replied, “Oh aye, but nane o yer barfit tea”. This meant that she wanted a biscuit or cake to eat with it.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/barefit

15/08/2026

HAMPDEN ROAR: ‘The cheer of the crowd at Hampden Park football stadium in Glasgow’. (https://dsl.ac.uk/scots-word-of-the-week/hampden-roar/).

What’s the Hampden roar? This term is first recorded in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as, “the cheer of the crowd at Hampden Park football stadium in Glasgow”.

The current earliest example in DSL comes from the Independent in March 1994: “Before the war, when such niceties concerned only the well-to-do few, those who created the Hampden Roar needed no cover in order to raise the roof”. However, research has unearthed much earlier instances, one being from the Sunday Post in March 1935: “The famous Hampden Roar will have a new note on April 6—International day. It will be supplied by the treble voices of 1600 schoolboys in the east enclosure”.

A memorable recent example comes from STV News, who reported in November 2025 that, "the Hampden Roar was so powerful it literally shook the earth and triggered earthquake monitors" when Scotland beat Denmark to qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

The term is also used as, “rhyming slang for score”, as in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting (1993): “It’s aw oor poppy [money]! Lenny snapped.—Granty kens the ... Hampden roar”.

This use often still relates to football, as we see in the Evening Times (May 2020): “What did Kenny Dalglish then dae? Well, Kenny Dalglish looked the owners in the eye and asked them straight, ‘Am a keeping the job, give me an aye or a naw, no a ‘maybes aye’ or a ‘maybes naw’ ... just gie us it wan way or another, what’s the Hampden roar here’”.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/snd00090457

08/08/2026

TICKET: ‘A person dressed in a dishevelled or incongruous manner’. (https://dsl.ac.uk/scots-word-of-the-week/ticket/).

Being called a ticket is not a compliment. This term is defined in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as, “a person dressed in a slovenly, ta**ry, dishevelled or incongruous manner … a sartorial oddity”.

DSL’s earliest citation comes from Neil Munro’s Daft Days (1907): “I cannot go to speak to anybody, for I'm such a ticket”. We then find the following in Isabel Cameron’s Fascinating Hat (1940): “‘I'm a regular ticket’, she thought, ‘I must change my dress.’”.

We see the same concern for appearances in this example from the Huntly Express in March 1970: “Ye widna like tae see yer father gyan hame a ticket like fat I am”.

DSL also records several spoken examples from the 1990s. These range from an observation from an Angus correspondent, “you look a right ticket”, to an instance of brotherly love from Edinburgh, “Ma wee brother is always dressed like a ticket”.

The term is still with us, as this example from the Herald in March 2017 shows: “Shaping a daughter is a big responsibility. You're their first female role model and it doesn't matter what age you are; you always seek your mother's approval. Even when they are no longer alive, you hear their voice in your head telling you, “You look a right ticket!”.

Interestingly, the word ticket has always had a Scottish connection, as its widespread use in 16th century Scots predates its use in English. Unfortunately, it’s currently unclear why this particular 20th century meaning has developed.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/ticket

01/08/2026

GO: ‘To like or want’. (https://dsl.ac.uk/scots-word-of-the-week/go/).

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) record a specific Scots use of go to mean “to like [or] want” something. The current first citation comes from Bill McGhee’s Cut and Run (1962): “Could you go a jag?”. Here a jag means a small drink rather than an injection.

In 1991, one correspondent in Edinburgh told DSL they could, “fair go a cup o tea”, whilst another in Glasgow said of someone on the radio, “I canna go his voice at aa”.

The term still has a tendency to be associated with food or drink, as in the following from the Sunday Mail in January 2020: “It's January in Scotland, I don't want shaved fennel or marinated fish. I could go a plate of puy lentil, cumin and coriander soup but the menu tells us that this food is to be ‘eaten shared, family style’”. Back in January 2003, the same paper recorded a lament from a new-year dieter: “Am exhausted. I could go a giant Toblerone but have a bath and read my Weight Watchers manual instead”.

Research has uncovered a much earlier example from the Daily Record in March 1941: “Two men were discovered alive in the wreckage of a Partick tenement after almost eight days. John Cormack … was found lying in a bed, and he astonished rescue workers by feebly waving his hand at them through the wreckage. ‘Could you go a cup of tea?’, Dr. Ian Mackay asked. ‘Aye, ah could fine,’ he responded”.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/gae_v_adj

25/07/2026

NACKET: ‘A small person; a tricky or precocious child.’ (https://dsl.ac.uk/scots-word-of-the-week/nacket/).

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) outline several meanings for nacket, including: “a small, neat person; a pert, tricky or precocious child”. The diminutive form, nackaty or nackatie, can also be used for extra emphasis.

The term is recorded in DSL from the sixteenth century onwards, having been borrowed into Older Scots from French with the original meaning “a boy who serves or stops the ball at tennis”.

Two centuries later, Lord Hailes noted in Ancient Scottish Poems (1770) that nacket was used for “an insignificant person”. This idea of smallness has been crucial to the meaning ever since, as the following example from Marshall Bell’s Pickles and Ploys (1932) really stresses: “Fancy a wee bit knackit like yon belittlin’ honest, hard-workin' smiths!”.

A helpful account of how the term seems to have developed appeared in the Forfar Dispatch in June 1937: “A nacquet in French was a lad who marked at tennis, and hence a nacket denoted someone of small size and came to be used for a diminutive or insignificant person, as indeed it is still used locally in the familiar ‘little nacket’”.

The term is still used. In February 2018, a piece in the Dundee Courier demonstrated there are still creative ways to introduce someone's small stature: “‘There’s a wee shilpit nacket at the back door’, the housekeeper, Mrs Goudie, said from behind Bunty, making her jump. ‘A what, Mrs Goudie? Translate, please,’ she requested. ‘A wee fella, astray in his claes. Wearin’ a bunnet like a little parasol’”.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/nacket_n1

18/07/2026

TATTIE BOGLE: ‘A scarecrow; a ragged, unkempt or poorly-dressed person.’ (https://dsl.ac.uk/our-publications/scots-word-of-the-week/tattie-bogle/).

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) tell us that tattie bogle is a term for a “scarecrow set up in a potato field”. This is well-illustrated in Thomas Smellie’s Mrs Goudie’s Tea-Pairty (1934): “A crood o sparras that’s been frichtet awa by some tawtie-bogle".

However, the term can also be applied to “a ragged, unkempt or poorly-dressed person”. This extended use is well-established and highly popular – the examples in DSL date back to the nineteenth century. In Wilson’s Tales of the Borders (1838) we find: “Ye look mair like a tauty bogle than a Christian man”. Then, in J. Smith’s Canty Jock (1882) we are told that, “Jamie Macsnuffle was naething but a tatty bogle”.

J. Fergus provided a rather evocative example in The Sodger (1915): “He was like a tattie-bogle, his claes flapp’d on his back”. Then, George MacDonald Fraser deployed the term to great effect when describing the appearance of McAuslan ‘the Dirtiest Soldier in the World’ in The General Danced at Dawn (1970): “While the charge was read out I studied McAuslan; he was his usually dove grey colour as to the skin, and his battle dress would have disgraced a tattie bogle”.

In the twenty-first century, a piece from November 2019 in the Times informs us that tattie bogle has been adopted as the name for a vodka made from potatoes: “Arbikie Highland Estate ... started in 2014 with the launch of the first Scottish potato vodka — Tattie Bogle Vodka — and has been innovating since”.

Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language and is illustrated by Bob Dewar. Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/tattie

11/07/2026

SPEAK: ‘The subject of topical conversation, especially current gossip or rumour’ (https://dsl.ac.uk/our-publications/scots-word-of-the-week/speak/).

Fergus Mackenzie observed the following in Cruisie Sketches (1894): “Tut, man, haivers! You'll be the speak o' the parish”. Scandalous behaviour was a surefire way to end up in this undesirable position, as O. Douglas’s Penny Plain (1920) demonstrated: “Pamela’s engagement had made ‘a great speak’ in Priorsford”. According to the Banffshire Journal in January 1970, untidy habits were also a risk: “It was the ‘speak’ o’ the village that Maisie was afa’ dirty, and the house wasna’ much better”.

Nan Shepherd’s The Quarry Wood (1928) has filled an early twentieth-century citation gap in DSL: “For nine brief days she had been the speak of the place. She had left home at the age of thirty, with neither wealth nor looks to commend her”.

There are also numerous twenty-first century examples, including one from Alison Thirkell’s translation of Ibsen’s Pillars of Society (2000): “And when the waster, Mrs Beaumont's half-brother ran awa naturally he was the speak o the haill neighbourhood”.

In January 2001, the Herald applied the term to the world of farming: “And now he’s really torn it. While Mossie's yellow barley is the speak of the county. ...His barley is an absolute show”.

Finally, we are told in Robin Jenkins’ Lady Magadalen (2003) that, “the betrothal of the dominie, Mr Blair, to a maidservant, Cissie Baxter, [was] now speak of the parish”.

Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language and is illustrated by Bob Dewar. Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/speak

06/07/2026

A braw new film from Scots Hoose Yaldi! 🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Joyce Falconer as La Corbie performs the captivating prologue from Liz Lochhead's play Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkCppj9XAOA

For more brilliant resources, visit https://www.scotshooseyaldi.com/.

Joyce Falconer as La Corbie. Joyce performs the prologue from Liz L...

04/07/2026

SCOOTIE ALLAN: ‘The Arctic Skua’ (https://dsl.ac.uk/our-publications/scots-word-of-the-week/scootie-allan/).

According to the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL), this is the name given in Shetland and Orkney to the Arctic Skua. The term has many variant spellings.

The earliest example in DSL comes from John Brand’s A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, etc. (1701): “[There is] a Fowl there called Scutiallan, of a black colour, and as big as a Wild Duck”.

Patrick Neill’s A Tour through some of the Islands of Orkney and Shetland (1806) explains the rather unpleasant origin of the bird’s name: “Scoutiallan, or Scoutiaulan. . . . They pursue and harass all the small gulls, till these last disgorge or vomit; they then dexterously catch what is dropped, ere it reach the water. The common names are derived from the vulgar opinion that the small gulls are muting [defecating], when they are only disgorging fish newly caught”. That's enough said about that.

An example from the Shetland Times in May 1899 reminds us that the protection of rare species is not just a modern phenomenon: “Egg collectors and dealers should bear in mind that the eggs of the eider duck, lark, snipe, lapwing, bonxie and scootie allan are protected and persons found in possession of them are liable to be prosecuted”.

More recently, in February 2011 the Inverness Courier charmingly depicted the presence of these birds within the Shetland landscape: “Scootie Allan, the Shetland name for Arctic skua watch haughtily from sphagnum tussocks; the song of the wind tugs persistently at your clothes, urging you on”.

Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language and is illustrated by Bob Dewar. Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.

https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/scoutiallan