Category Archives: Scottish words

Scottish words: gallus

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Gallus or gallous is what my mother was always warning me that I must not be. Which is a shame because it seemed to me that it was the gallus people who had all the fun in life.

A gallus person is cheeky, self-confident, a wee bit of a devil and as far as my mother was concerned ‘common’. Bubble gum chewing and red nail varnish wearing, if they happened to be female, and distinctly ‘fast’.

They were described as being gallus because it is a corruption of the word gallows, which is where they were destined to be hanging from if they weren’t careful.

Scottish words: nippin’ ma heid

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Well, it’s really a Scottish phrase isn’t it and it’s what people say when they are feeling discombobulated and troubled about something or someone is ‘getting at them’.

For some reason the phrase is often used by husbands, about their wives of course.

She’s nippin’ ma heid or in English-She’s hurting my head. It means that someone or something is giving you grief, causing you severe annoyance.

It doesn’t always have to be a person that’s causing the problem. It can be a large company like British Gas or BT. The sort of company that keeps you on hold for ages when you phone them and you can never speak to an actual human being. It does your head in, it really annoys you, but I think that there’s no point in letting yourself be bothered like that. Rise above it otherwise the only thing that does go up is your blood pressure!

Scottish words: greetin’ faced nyaff

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To be more precise, the phrase that you usually hear people say is – greetin’ faced wee nyaff. Everybody knows that wee means small I suppose, but in this case it doesn’t really have anything to do with the actual size of the person, it’s just to add to the insult.

Greetin'(g) means moaning or crying.

A nyaff is a contemptible, annoying person. Nowadays they would be described in English as being a ned or a bit of a lowlife.

So, there you have it! Ya greetin’ faced wee nyaff a commonly heard insult in Scotland.

Scottish words: redd up

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Redd up is a phrase which you don’t hear much nowadays, which is a shame. It means to tidy up or clean up. It’s usually used to describe the tidying of a house or garden.

The last time I heard it being used it was a man saying that he had ‘redd up’ the noticeboard in a school. Well, notice boards are usually in need of a good redd up as they’re often crowded with out of date information.

I was surprised to read the phrase in a story by Elizabeth Gaskell the other day, although I probably shouldn’t have been. Michelle from the north of England recently informed me that the word ‘hen’ is still used there and I had thought it was only used in Scotland until then.

I’m now wondering if these words were originally Scottish but just expanded into the north of England with people moving there from Scotland for work. Or have they just continued to be used for a longer time here.

The Elizabeth Gaskell story which it was used in is The Crooked Branch and it was first published in 1859. It has been reprinted as a Penguin Classic in Gaskell’s Gothic Tales.

Scottish words: hen

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Hen is definitely a term of endearment, obviously for a female. I always think of it as a particularly west of Scotland word although it is sometimes used in the east.

An English woman of my acquaintance once told me that she would never get used to being called ‘hen’, I don’t know why she found it so strange because it isn’t really any different from being called ‘duck’ which is very common in England.

Of course in France it’s common to call someone ‘my little cabbage’, which somehow just doesn’t do it for me.

In Germany it’s ‘Sneckerlie’, which means little snail, or is that only for babies?

I think hen is beginning to die out now and people seem to use words like ‘dear’ or ‘honey’. There should be a campaign to save the Scottish hen of endearment!

My dad often called me hen. Well it saved him from getting our names mixed up, I was the third daughter after all and the fifth child. Otherwise he would go through the whole family before getting to my name, which didn’t really bother me but I did object to being called Candy, which sometimes did happen.

Well, Candy was the family dog – a totally mad border collie.

Scottish words – besom

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A besom, prononced bizam,is the Scottish word for a broom. You know, the sort of broom which is made up of twigs which are gathered together and tied around a handle. The favourite mode of transport for any self-respecting witch!

So why is the word besom used as a term of abuse? I haven’t got a clue but I do know that as the youngest child in a large family I was commonly called ‘a cheeky wee besom ‘. And I was such a good wee girl, honest!

For some reason it’s only females who are ever described as being a besom. Chamber’s Dictionary says it is: a term of reproach for a woman, implying general slatternliness, laziness and impudence.

I think that over the years the word has almost developed into a term of endearment, or is that me just being charitable? It was certainly the closest thing to a term of endearment uttered within my family anyway.

Scottish words: crabbit

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I suppose crabbit is just a Scottish version of the English word “crabbed”, but you never really here people using that word. But crabbit is a favourite descriptive word in Scotland and it just means bad tempered or grumpy.

When I was young it always seemed to be old people who were crabbit, or should I say – people of a certain age – and no I don’t think I’ve quite reached the crabbit stage yet.

“Crabbit auld bugger” is a well known phrase, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out who is the most crabbit between the describer and the described!

Scottish words: wersh

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You might have noticed in an earlier blogpost that I described some white wine as being wersh.

Wersh means – very sour and at the same time dry. So drinking something which is wersh has the opposite effect from what you would want.

It draws your mouth in and generally makes you screw your face up; not nice. It certainly does nothing for a thirst.

Apparently, some people use the word wersh to mean something which is edible but has no taste. I’ve never heard it used in that way, but it might be a regional difference.

Scottish words – drookit

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Drookit is what we were today. We visited my sister and it started to rain during the drive back home. It was absolutely torrential, just about the heaviest rain that I have ever seen. It was very windy too so I think we must have been getting the tail end of a hurricane, which happens quite often in this area.

In the 5 second dash from the car into the house we were absolutely soaked, drowned, or as we say in Scotland – drookit.