SKScots Kist
Loch Torridon, watercolour, 1883
Scots Words

The words we have stopped using

Perfectly good words, and nobody says them any more. There is no good reason for that, so here they are.

Scotland has more words for weather, tiredness and being annoyed than anyone needs, and that probably says something about us. Most of them are still in the dictionary. Plenty of them have quietly fallen out of the way people actually talk.

So this is where they live. One at a time, usually with a guess first.

Have a go

Seven words. See how many you know before you tap.

  1. 01dreich

    Wet, dark, grey and cheerless. The word for a Sunday in February. In a 2019 poll run for Book Week Scotland it was voted the most iconic Scots word of the lot, taking 259 votes out of 1,895 and beating braw, glaikit and scunnered.

  2. 02glaikit

    Stupid, foolish, or standing there with the light on and nobody in. One of the oldest insults in the language.

  3. 03scunnered

    Thoroughly fed up with something. Not mildly annoyed. Done with it.

  4. 04wabbit

    Exhausted, done in, played out. What you are after a day in the garden.

  5. 05peely-wally

    Pale, wan and off colour, as if you are coming down with something. Rhymes with rally, not with holly.

  6. 06daunder

    To walk slowly with no particular purpose. A saunter. The correct speed for a Sunday afternoon.

  7. 07blether

    A good long chat about nothing much. Also what the writing half of this site is called.

Got one I have missed?

If there is a word your family says that nobody else does, I want to hear it. That is where the good ones come from.

Tell me about it
One a week, free

A fresh quiz in your inbox every week

Sixty questions and the answer sheet, plus the odd blether about Scotland. No spam, no selling your details, unsubscribe whenever you like.

Not connected yet · nothing is being collected