Friend & Foe

by Shirley McKay

  Raxed strained, stretched

  Reconfort to strengthen or inspire with new courage or confidence

  Regent (1) in the ancient Scottish universities, a master who took a class of students through the full four-year course of instruction leading to the degree of Master of Arts

  (2) Someone appointed to rule during the minority of a monarch: the regent Morton

  Ribald a waster; a fornicator

  Ripples a disease of the back and loins, believed to result from sexual excess

  Rummle to rumble

  Sair injured [of body part]; severe, harsh, extreme(ly) or excessive(ly)

  Salat a salad vegetable

  Sark an undershirt or shift

  Scabbart scabbard or sheath; vagina

  Scaffery the act of obtaining benefit by fraud

  Scathless unharmed

  Scolage school or college fees

  Scudlar lowest rank of servant; drudge

  Scummer to defecate; hence ‘scummer pan’: a chamber

  pot

  Sea-maw the common gull

  Secretar a trusted scribe or servant; a confidential clerk

  Selkie a seal

  Serkinet a small jerkin or bodice

  Shairds small pieces or fragments

  Shakebuckler a nickname for a serving man who is easily antagonised

  Shotill a drawer or compartment

  Sic such

  Sin since, considering that

  Sink a sewer, cesspit or drain

  Skeich timid, shy

  Skift a small light boat

  Skite /skitter to defile with excrement

  Slaffert a slap, box on the ear

  Sledger a sledgehammer

  Slops wide, baggy breeches fashionable in the late 16th century

  Soddins scraps of boiled meat; food that has been boiled

  Sops bread soaked in milk or wine

  Speir to make inquiries

  Speke speech, way of expression

  Spinkes prickles, spines

  Squire to escort

  Steir the pot stir the pot; stir up; copulate

  Stew a stench, a blast of stinking air; a cloud of filth or dust

  Stomachat offended, resentful, put out

  Stoup a flagon or pitcher

  Stour (rb) to spray

  Stour a cloud of dust

  Strack struck

  Stummar to stumble or stammer

  Subtle ingenious or clever

  Succar candies sweets made from clarified sugar

  Succats candied fruits

  Swak to dash, hurl violently

  Swyfing copulating

  Tam Lin protagonist of the ballad by Thomas the Rhymer, who rescued his true love from the fairy queen

  Tertians students in their third year

  Thole suffer, bear patiently

  Thrang crowded

  Thrawe a throe or spasm

  Thrist (1) a pang or throe, a stabbing sensation, thrust

  (2) thirst

  Thristing jostling, pushing

  Ticket of account a bill of expenses

  Tippet a narrow strip of cloth worn across the shoulders; the pennant of an academic hood

  Traffick to do business with, negotiate

  Trance a passageway; the stone trance: the entrance to St Leonard’s College

  Trattle to prattle

  Trauchled exhausted

  Trow-shot struck by a fairy dart [Trow = troll]

  Trucour a traitour

  Tulchan Gaelic word for a straw calf, used to coax a cow into giving up its milk. Disparaging name for titular bishops after the Reformation

  Unco uncouth; strange, unfamiliar, unknown; extraordinary

  Vennel a narrow lane or thoroughfare

  Visitor an inspector or examiner; a physician appointed to establish the cause of suspicious or unnatural deaths. Giles Locke was appointed Visitor of St Andrews at the end of Fate & Fortune

  Wabbit feeble, weak

  Wallowed withered

  Wam the stomach

  Wammil to feel sick

  Ward custody, imprisonment

  Warkmen workmen

  Wattir-kaill cabbage soup made without meat

  Wha devil what devil! What the devil!

  Wrabil to wriggle

  Wrackful vindictive, harsh or cruel, vengeful, destructive

  Wynd a narrow street or alley

  Yett a gate