Useful Words and Measures
Scottish Glossary
This page is intended to record some words which I have found useful. Also The Dictionary of the Scots Language is now available on line, and (less useful for Strathdon) Aberdeen University's Elphinstone Institute provides a guide to The Doric and the Scots Language Society to Lallans.
Last updated in 2002, there is a useful Scottish Glossary . This includes archaic terms, some modern Scots words and phrases useful for genealogical research and legal terms, linked to property and possessions and found in wills and testaments.
Dumfries & Galloway FHS has published 'A Scots Agricultural Glossary' by Adam Gray (1997) which is also available from the Aberdeen Family History Shop.
The Vital Preposition
Like the lairds, tenant farmers may be known by the place names of their farms. When mentioned in documents, heritable proprietors, tenants and sojourners are normally distinguished by the use of 'of', 'in' and 'at' respectively ('Sources for Scottish Genealogy and Family History', D.J.Steel, 1970).
Money
The Scottish merk or mark was worth 13s 4d ie 3 merks to £2 Scots. At the Union of 1707, Scottish pounds were officially replaced by pounds sterling, at the rate of £12 Scots to £1 sterling, but values were often expressed in pounds Scots for most of the eighteenth century. Over this period, whether money is Scots or sterling sometimes has to be detected from the values involved.
Area
A ploughgate was the area of land which could be ploughed over the year by an eight-oxen plough, usually taken as 104 Scots acres. Hence one ploughgate equals eight oxgates of land. One Scots acre (late 18c to early 19c) equals approx 1.3 acres imperial or 0.51 hectares ('The Concise Scots Dictionary', Aberdeen University Press, 1987).
A daugh, davach or davoch was generally equal to 4 ploughgates ie 416 Scots acres. But, as with ploughgates and oxgates, the actual acreage varied according to the quality of the soil and topographical features. The Assize of David I defined: 1 acre = 4 roods, 1 rood = 40 falls, 1 fall = 36 square ells or 38.44 English square yards. 1 ell = 37 inches. (R E Zupco 'The weights and measures of Scotland before the Union' Scottish Historical Review Oct 1977 vol LVI no 2 )
Capacity
Until the early 19th century, the Scots gallon was equal to just over 3 gallons imperial (and the Scots pint to just over 3 pints imperial).
From 1661 the boll defined by the Linlithgow standard was about 145 litres for wheat, beans, meal etc but about 212 litres for barley, oats and malt . Either way, 4 lippies = 1 peck, 4 pecks = 1 firlot, 4 firlots = 1 boll and 16 bolls = 1 chalder) ('The Concise Scots Dictionary' as above).
But we are not the only ones to have trouble remembering the size of a boll. In respect of meal, one of the Ministers of Strathdon carefully noted '140 lbs = 1 boll' in the Corgarff Parish Register
According to 'An Account of Weights and Measures in Aberdeenshire' a boll of lime amounted to 128 Aberdeen pints (each of 60 fluid ounces) or 6.25 English bushels.
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