List of English words of Scots origin

List of English words of Scots origin is a list of English language words of Scots origin. See also "List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin", which contains many words which were borrowed via Highland Scots.

Blackmail

A form of extortion carried out by the Border Reivers, borrowed into English with less violent connotations.

blatant

Bonspiel

caddie or caddy

canny

Also Northern English. From English can in older sense of "to know how."

clan

Borrowed from Gaelic clann (family, stock, off-spring).

cosy

firth

Derived from Old Icelandic fjǫrdic (see fjord)

glamour

Meaning magic, enchantment, spell. From English grammar and Scottish gramarye (occult learning or scholarship).

gloaming

Middle English (Scots) gloming, from Old English glomung "twilight", from OE glom

golf

glengarry

(or Glengarry bonnet) A brimless Scottish cap with a crease running down the crown, often with ribbons at the back. Named after the title of the clan chief Alexander Ranaldson MacDonell of Glengarry (1771–1828), who invented it.

gumption

Common sense or shrewdness.

halloween

haver or haiver

To talk nonsense.^[1] Scottish and North English dialect.

laddie

A boy.

lassie

A girl.

links

Sandy, rolling ground, from Old English hlinc (ridge).

pernickety

From pernicky.

minging

literally "stinking", from Scots "to ming".

plaid

From Gaelic plaide or simply a development of ply, to fold, giving plied then plaid after the Scots pronunciation.

pony

Borrowed from obsolete French poulenet (little foal) from Latin pullāmen.

raid

scone

Probably from Dutch schoon.

shinny

Pond or street hockey in Canada. From an alternative name for the Scots sport shinty.

skulduggery

From Scots sculduddery^[2][3]

tweed

Cloth being woven in a twilled rather than a plain pattern. from tweel

wee

Small, tiny, minute.

wow

Exclamation^[4][5][6]

wraith

See also

• List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin
• Lists of English words of international origin