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).
 * convene :Borrowed from French convenir, from Latin convenire.
 * 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. 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
 * tweed:Cloth being woven in a twilled rather than a plain pattern. from tweel
 * wee:Small, tiny, minute.
 * wow: Exclamation
 * wraith