An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language
Chapter 2 : TO THE GOTHIC._Ill.u.s.trated from the Moeso-Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Francic, Alemannic, Su

TO

THE GOTHIC.

_Ill.u.s.trated from the Moeso-Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Francic, Alemannic, Suio-Gothic, Islandic, &c._

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,

A DISSERTATION ON THE HISTORICAL PROOFS OF THE SCYTHIAN ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS.

? A few copies have been printed in royal 8vo, price 24s.

"Dr Jamieson, being amply provided with an accurate knowledge of the various dialects of the Gothic Languages to be compared with the Greek, has proved the existence of a connection between them, more extensive and more intimate than could easily have been imagined, without so laborious an investigation, in which he appears to have gone considerably further than his learned and ingenious predecessors Ihre and Rudbeck."

~Quarterly Review~, ~NO.~ ~XXVII~, Oct. 1815.

AN ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE SCOTTISH LANGUAGE.

A

The letter A has, in the Scottish language, four different sounds:

1. _A_ broad, as in E. _all_, _wall_. _U_ is often added, as in _cald_, cold, written also _cauld_; and sometimes _w_; both as marks of the prolongation of the sound.

2. _A_ short, in _lak_, _mak_, _tak_, S. as in _last_, _past_, E.

3. _A_ open, in _dad_, _daddie_, a father, and some other words, S. as in E. _read_ pret., _ready_ adj.

4. _A_ slender or close, in _lane_, _alane_, alone, _mane_, moan, S.

like _face_, _place_, E. The monosyllables have generally, although not always, a final _e_ quiescent.

_A_ is used in many words instead of _o_ in E.; as _ane_, _bane_, _lang_, _sang_, _stane_, for _one_, _bone_, _long_, _song_, _stone_. For the Scots preserve nearly the same orthography with the Anglo-Saxons, which the English have abandoned. Thus the words last mentioned were written in A. S. _an_, _ban_, _lang_, _sang_, _stan_. In some of the northern counties, as in Angus and Mearns, the sound of _ee_ or _ei_ prevails, instead of _ai_, in various words of this formation. _Ane_, _bane_, _stane_, &c. are p.r.o.nounced _ein_, _bein_, _stein_, after the manner of the Germans, who use each of these terms in the same sense.

When this letter is written with an apostrophe, as _a'_, it is meant to intimate that the double _l_ is cut off, according to the p.r.o.nunciation of Scotland. But this is merely of modern use.

_A_ is sometimes prefixed to words, both in S. and old E., where it makes no alteration of the sense; as _abade_, delay, which has precisely the same meaning with _bade_. This seems to have been borrowed from the A. S., in which language _abidan_ and _bidan_ are perfectly synonymous, both simply signifying, to remain, to tarry.

_A_, in composition, sometimes signifies _on_; as _agrufe_, on the _grufe_ or belly, S.; Isl. _a grufu_, cernue, p.r.o.ne. Johnson thinks that _a_, in the composition of such E. words as _aside_, _afoot_, _asleep_, is sometimes contracted from _at_. But these _terms_ are unquestionably equivalent to _on side_, _on foot_, _on sleep_; on being used, in the room of _a_, by ancient writers.

_A_ is used, by our oldest writers, in the sense of _one_. The signification is more forcible than that of the indefinite article in English; for it denotes, not merely an individual, where there may be many, or one in particular, but one exclusively of others, in the same sense in which _ae_ is vulgarly used.

ABAD, ABADE, ABAID, _s._ Delay, abiding, tarrying; the same with ~Bad~, ~Bade~.

A. S. _abid-an_, manere.

_Wallace._

ABAID, _part. pa._ Waited, expected.

A. S. _abad_, expectatus.

_Douglas._

_To_ ABAY, ABAW, _v. a._ To astonish. _Abayd_, part. pa. astonished; _abawed_, Chaucer.

Fr. _esbah-ir_, id.

_K. Hart._

_To_ ABAYS, _v. a._ To abash, to confound. _Abaysyd_, part. pa.

_Wyntown._

Fr. _aba.s.s-ir_, id.

ABAITMENT, _s._ Diversion, sport.

_Douglas._

Arm. _ebat-a_ ludere, _ebat_ ludus; O. Fr. _ebaud-ir_ recreare, _ebattement_ recreatio.

ABAK, _adv._ Back, behind; Chaucer, id.

_Douglas._

Isl. _aabak_, retrorsum, A. S. _on baec_, id.

ABANDOUN. _In abandoun_, _at abandoun_, at random.

_Barbour._

Chaucer uses _bandon_ as denoting free will, pleasure.