Element Glossary
There are 1117 elements:
(ge)lǣt 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A leat, lade, conduit for water', a reduced form of OE wætergelǣt (n.) 'a water-course, an aqueduct', glossing Latin colimbus (Bosworth-Toller Dictionary). See too EPNE under (ge)lǣt(e), which in the plural can also mean 'junction of roads, meetings of ways' (Bosworth-Toller under ge-lǣte).
(Westmains) Moor 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
*ad(u)/*adro 1 place-name
Language: Unknown (un), Part of Speech: N
'A watercourse, a stream'. The element appears to be pre-Celtic, and both its form and its language are uncertain. See discussion under Adder.
*alauna 1 place-name
Language: Unknown (un), Part of Speech: V
'Flowing'. The element appears to be pre-Celtic, and both its form and its language are uncertain. See discussion under Ale Water.
*alt 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
Primarily, ‘a steep height or hill, a cliff’. See BLITON under alt.
*bircen 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Birchen, growing with birch-trees'. The adjective is not independently recorded until 1481 (OED, s.v. birchen), but is evidenced in English place-names from early Middle English and possibly late Old English (VEPN, s.v.).
*blajn 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Summit; source or upper reaches of a stream; head of a valley; extremity, limits, remotest region; uplands'.
*bre 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A hill, a high place'. See BLITON under bre[ɣ].
*brinn 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A hill'; discussed in BLITON under *brïnn, where it is said to be m. 'but maybe f too in Br and neoBritt’.
*brun 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A hill'; BLITON gives the early Brittonic form as *brïnn, which see for an important discussion. There the gender is given as m., adding 'but maybe f too in Br and neoBritt'.
*cair 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A fort'. See BLITON under cajr.
*cambas 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A bay, a bend in the river'. See BLITON under *cam(b) and *cambas.
*cēd 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A wood, woodland'; BLITON form *cę:d.
*Colud 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Brittonic personal name.
*dīn 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A fort', often 'a hill-fort'. James suggests that the core sense may be 'a place of refuge' (BLITON).
*dīnas 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A fort, refuge, stronghold'.
*eglēs 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N
'Church'. As in other languages, the same word could refer both to the building and to the institution, with place-name usages extending to church landholdings.
*er-/*or- 1 place-name
Language: Unknown (un), Part of Speech: V
'To cause to move, to stimulate'. The element appears to be pre-Celtic, and both its form and its language are uncertain.
*fogga 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘Aftermath, the long grass left standing during the winter’. The term is first recorded in English c.1400 (OED3, s.v. fog, n.1) and in Scots a.1500 (DOST, s.v. fog, n.). An unattested Old English ancestor is possible in some English place-names, but there are no secure instances, and the element is difficult to differentiate from a personal name (EPNE, s.v. *fogga). A Scandinavian origin has also been suggested for the later term.
*halsingas 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: P
A possible group term, meaning 'people of the neck(-shaped valley)'. See discussion under Hassington ECC.
*i(r) 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: D
The definite article 'the'; for a recent discussion of this element in place-names, see BLITON under ï[r], with references.
*idunā 1 place-name
Language: Unknown (un), Part of Speech: V
'Water'. The element appears to be pre-Celtic, and both its form and its meaning are uncertain.
*inis 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'An island; in place-names, frequently a relatively dry piece of land in a marshy or flood-prone location’ (BLITON, where the form given is ïnïs).
*lawedr 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N
'A mound, heap, pile' (Breeze 2000).
*lejth 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: Aj
'Damp, moist, wet' (modern Welsh llaith). It is found for example in the second element of Linlithgow WLO, as well as in the river-name Leith, originally the name of the Water of Leith, with Leith itself often referred to as Inverleith (Inverleth c.1166); also in Leithen (Water), at the mouth of which is Innerleithen PEB. See Watson 1926, 384, 471; and BLITON under *lejth.
*lǭwadr 2 place-names
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A washing or bathing place’; ‘a trough, basin or channel’, either natural (a firm, shallow river-bed) or artificial (BLITON).
*merscingas 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
'Marsh-dwellers; people who live in or beside a marsh'. This is a hypothetical element which may possibly occur in the place-name Mersington.
*monid 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N
‘Hill, upland, range of hills’; BLITON form *mönïδ; cognate with Welsh mynydd and Scottish Gaelic monadh.
*nesu 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
‘A headland’. This is sense 2 of the OED entry (s.v. nese, n.), and is described as ‘Scottish’, also ‘obsolete’ and ‘rare’. Sense 1 is ‘the nose’, so the topographical meaning is an instance of the LANDSCAPE IS A BODY metaphor. Although not documented until c.1175, the earliest occurrences are in copies of Old English homilies. OED also notes: ‘Early currency is apparently shown by place names in Berwickshire and Northumberland, as Nesebite (1138; now Nisbet, Edrom, Berwickshire), Nesbyt (1147; now Nisbet, Crailing, Berwickshire), Nesebyt (1255; now Nesbit, Northumberland).’ Further occurrences of Nesbit have also now been identified in Durham (PNDurham 2007, 251). The headword *nēs used in EPNE was corrected to *nesu, *neosu in Journal of the English Place-Name Society 1 (1969), 32.
*pott 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
'A deep hole or pool; a pit', possibly also 'a depression' as in English place-names such as Potlock in Derbyshire. The word is not attested in English until the 15th century, but OED (s.v. pot, n.2) notes that literary evidence is predated by place-names, the earliest being Potlock itself (Potlack 1086). In Scots, the earliest attestation is found in Barbour's The Bruce (1375), but DOST, s.v. pot(t, n.2, also provides a number of earlier occurrences in place-names. Distribution is mainly in Scotland and northern England. More detailed discussion appears in Hough 2020a.
*prēs 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Brushwood, scrub, a thicket’, developing the sense of ‘managed (coppiced) bushes’. The word was adopted in Old Gaelic as pres, G preas ‘a bush’. On the etymology, including its relationship to pert[h] and prenn, see Hamp 1982 [Hamp, Eric P., 1982, ‘Note on perth, prenn, prys’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1980-2), 85]. On the vowel quantity, see Jackson, LHEB §35, 340-4: Anglicised forms generally show a lengthened vowel, though Middle English/ Scots shortening has affected some names.
This word is found in two of the awdlau attributed to Taliesin: BT61(VII) kat ym prysc. kat leu: J. T. Koch (SNSBI Conference, Bearsden 1997) identifies the latter as Catlow YOW (PNYWR6 p. 201).
BT63(XII) ystadyl tir penprys: Gruffyd (1994), p. 71, citing T. O. Clancy, identifies this as Dumfries, while Breeze 2002 [Breeze, Andrew, 2002, 'The kingdom and name of Elmet', Northern History 39, pp. 157-71], 171, favours Press Castle BWK. All the above adapted from BLITON.
*ros 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N
'Promontory, headland'. See BLITON under *rōs for a full discussion.
*Sympr 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
The form and etymology of this archaic personal name are unknown. It appears to have been the name of a leader whose followers were known by the folk name transferred for use as the place-name Simprim. For further discussion, see Hough (2020b), which can be accessed online via the home page of this resource.
*tonnen 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
Compare Welsh tonnen (f) ‘skin, peel; (earth’s) surface; turf, sod, sward; bog, swamp, quagmire’ < ton (m.) ‘lea-land; turf, sward; green, lawn; (earth’s) surface’ (GPC). Owen and Morgan (2007, lxix) give W ton m/f ‘unploughed land, grassland, sward’, and do not mention tonnen.
*trev 1 place-name
Language: Brittonic (Br), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A farm; a settlement'; compare Welsh tref. See also BLITON under *treβ.
-ing- 6 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: S
A linking element common in place-names but not found elsewhere. It links a first element, which is most commonly a personal name but may be another type of name or an appellative, with a final element, which is most commonly tūn but may be another generic. The two main explanations discussed in EPNE (s.v. -ing-4, -ing(tūn)) are that it either represents a connective particle or has a collective function. According to the first interpretation, it 'denotes the association of a place with a particular individual and in the broadest sense has something of a genitival function without necessarily implying possession'. According to the second, it represents a shortened form of -inga-, a genitive plural formation denoting a group of people. An alternative view, preferred in some later volumes of the Survey of English Place-Names, is that it represents the locative suffix -ing, to which a further element has been added, and that this type of name-formation has in turn led to -ing- taking on a connective function.
-ingahām 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: S
'Settlement of the followers of' or 'Settlement of the people at'. The genitive plural of a group name in -ingas, followed by hām, is one of the earliest OE place-name forming terms, associated with the initial phases of Anglo-Saxon settlement. In a Scottish context, however, James (2010) presents detailed arguments for a later development in connection with monastic communities.
-ingas 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: S
Originating as the plural of the patronymic suffix -ing, an extended meaning to denote groups of people with a single leader had already developed during the pre-Old English period, but became obsolete at an early date. Such folk-names, later transferred for use as place-names, are therefore archaic. A further development of meaning to denote groups of people living at a particular place continued in use throughout the Old English period, so the resulting place-names do not have the same dating implications. Formations where the first element is a personal name belong to the former type; formations where the first element is a topographical term or toponym (often a river name) belong to the latter type.
abbey 7 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'An abbey; a monastery or convent whose head is an abbot or abbess'.
Abbey St Bathans 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Sometimes shortened simply to St Bathans, as in St Bathan's House.
āc 1 historical form
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'An oak (tree)'. The term is mostly attested in charter bounds and place-names (DOE A–I, VEPN, s.v.). Although predominantly feminine, with the genitive singular form ace, it is also on record as a masculine noun, so there may be a possibility that the historical spelling of Penmanshield Wood as Akesside could reflect a masculine genitive singular -es inflection.
acre 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'An acre'; a land measure, originally approx 6,000 square yards (0.5 hectares). In place-names it can also refer to arable land, while from the 19th century it developed a meaning 'a piece of ground (of at least an acre) rented by a villager from a neighbouring proprietor' (CSD2).
acre 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'An acre'; in plural also 'fields, arable land' (DOST). See DOST for a wide variety of spellings, including aiker.
aiky 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Covered with oak’; this adj., from Scots aik, ake ‘oak’, is not attested in the lexicon (DOST or SND).
alane 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Alone; on its/their own'. An older alternative is 'the lane', found in an early form of Standalane HUT (for which see Paxton South Mains HUT).
Albane 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
An anglicised version of Albainn, the genitive of Gaelic Alba 'Scotland', found in such names as Breadalbane.
ald 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Old'. A very common adjective, with c.3,000 occurrences (DOE A–I, s.v. eald). Also frequent in English place-names, as well as being the most common qualifying element in Anglo-Saxon boundary clauses (VEPN, s.v. ald). VEPN notes that the OE adjectival inflection -an is preserved in place-names such as Aldenham in Hertfordshire. Auchencrow in Berwickshire is another example of this rare phenomenon.
Allan 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname recorded within the Berwickshire OS Name Book.
an 1 place-name
Language: Gaelic (G), Part of Speech: D
‘The’, the definite article (declinable). In modern Scottish Gaelic it is frequently used with place-names, mainly those consisting of one element whose meaning is transparent e.g. Errocht INV (NN143823), in Gaelic An Eireachd, from G eireachd f. ‘assembly, meeting-(place)’.
angel 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'An angel', possibly used with reference to St Michael the Archangel.
Arkil 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Anglo-Scandinavian personal name.
back 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Back, back-lying'.
bæc-stān 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A baking-stone, a flat stone for baking on'. The term is independently recorded only once, in a 12th-century glossary entry (DOE A–I, s.v.). It is more common in place-names from (mainly) the north of England, again from the 12th century onwards (VEPN, s.v.). Although the term survived into Middle and later stages of English, it is not recorded in Scots outside place-names, and hence has no entry in DSL.
bank 1 historical form7 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A slope or bank'; also SSE.
bank 2 historical forms14 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A slope or bank’; also Scots.
barn 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A barn'; also Scots.
bastle, bastille 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
From OSc bastailȝe, bastalȝe etc. ‘a wooden siege-tower’ or ‘a defensive tower’ (DOST). SND under bastile, bastel, bastle defines it as ‘a strong stone tower or fortress, used for securing prisoners’. Note also the modern (technical) usage of this term to refer to ‘a fortified house of two or three storeys, the lower floor being used for storage and/or to house animals and the upper floors for domestic use’ (Canmore definition).
'A fortified house or tower'.
beau 1 place-name
Language: French (Fr), Part of Speech: Aj, Gender M
'Beautiful, fine, handsome' (m.), belle (f.).
bee 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A bee'.
bell 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A bell; a feature resembling a bell'. DOST under Scots bel or bell adds: ‘Attributively with akyr, custume, stok, tour. Bell akyr, bell custume(s), probably denote land and custom-dues applied to the upkeep of a bell’. As a generic it can also mean 'a bell-shaped hill', as found in the neighbouring Northumberland in Yeavering Bell (see VEPN under belle). Note also bell of the brae, 'the highest part of the slope of a hill’ (SND n.3).
bell 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A bell; a feature resembling a bell'. Also Scots.
bēmere 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A trumpeter’, ‘a bittern’. Only the literal meaning ‘trumpeter’ is on independent record, as evidenced by six glosses (DOE A–I, s.v. bȳmere). The extended meaning ‘bittern’, referring to a bird with a trumpet-like voice, is only known from place-names. The interpretation is discussed in the context of English place-names by Hough (1998, 60–63), and in a Scottish context by Hough (1999).
benty 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Covered in bent, a strong, coarse, or wiry variety of grass (esp. the sea reed-grass), growing upon moorlands or links' (DOST).
Bermuda 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
A transferred name referring to the British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean, used of a remote piece of land.
berry 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A berry'; also Scots.
Bessborough 1 historical form
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
A ship-name. See the discussion under Kames ECC for full details.
bield 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also beild; 'shelter; a place affording shelter, as, a house to a man, a byre or a fold to cattle, a nest to a bird' (SND).
bile 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A bill, a beak'. In English place-names, this is used of 'a pointed projection, either with reference to topography (a promontory or pointed hill) or to the shape of a boundary' (VEPN, s.v.).
bill 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A sword'. VEPN (s.v. *billing) discusses the possibility that this may underlie a hill-term *billing in English place-names.
bita 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A bit, a morsel'. A rare term, with only 6 recorded occurrences in Old English (DOE A–I, s.v. bita2). The Middle English derivative occurs in English place-names, possibly in the senses 'food for animals' and 'pasturage', but possibly also in an unattested sense 'small piece of land' (VEPN, s.v. bite).
black 5 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Black'; also Scots.
Blackadder Water 1 historical form4 place-names
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
This name derives from Blackadder Water, formerly Blackadder.
blæc 3 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Black, dark'. As noted in both DOE A–I and VEPN (s.v.), it is difficult to differentiate orthographically from OE blāc 'pale, shining'.
blinkbonny 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Ph
A Scots phrase coined in the 18th century, perhaps on the model of Fr beauvoir and Italian belvedere, to indicate a settlement with a good view or outlook. It is fully discussed by Liz Curtis (2018).
blithe 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Blithe, happy, glad, in good spirits, cheerful, pleasant', also of inanimate objects (DOST). See discussion under OE blīðe.
blīþe 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Pleasant'. The primary meaning identified in DOE A–I (s.v. blīþe adj.) is 'joyful, happy'; most relevant to occurrences in place-names is sense 1.d. 'of objects, places, periods of time: pleasant, agreeable, delightful'. In England it is most common in river-names (VEPN, s.v. blīðe).
bow 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A bow', sometimes referring to shape.
bower 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A tenant who hires dairy cattle and grazing rights'.
brae 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘(Steep) slope’, in singular usually applied to a slope on a road, but in plural simply meaning ‘slopes, sloping upland’.
brae 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
See Scots brae for discussion.
briery 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Brambly, thorny'.
brig 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A bridge'. In some cases it has been Englished to bridge, but it can be assumed that any name coined before about 1700 will have brig rather than bridge, while those coined after that time will usually have bridge. In modern Scots brig is the usual form for all bridge-names.
broom 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Broom (plant)'; also Scots.
broomy 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Growing with broom'.
brother 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A brother; a monk'; possibly used in place-names to refer to a pair of features such as standing stones.
Brōþor 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Old English personal name.
brōþor 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A brother'; also used in various extended senses including fellow members of a religious order (DOE A–I, s.v.). VEPN (s.v. brōðor) suggests that some place-name occurrences might refer to monks or friars. Further extensions of meaning are possible in place-names, for instance to refer to a pair of features such as standing stones.
brycg 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A bridge'. The term refers both to structures over watercourses, and to causeways across them. However, it is uncertain whether it encompasses natural as well as man-made causeways. Its occurrence in the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon is the sole evidence provided by the editors of DOE A–I (s.v.) under sense 1.c. 'in poetry: "bridge" thought to be used here with reference to a natural causeway'. However, VEPN (s.v.) takes the same occurrence to refer to 'a man-made "hard" which served as a tidal causeway'. The element is common in English place-names, and has an extensive entry in VEPN.
buck 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A male deer'.
bune(1) 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A drinking vessel'. The term is recorded only 8 times, in poetry and glossaries, in contexts that do not make it possible to identify the type of drinking vessel (DOE A–I, s.v. bune1). Its use in place-names would fit a common pattern whereby terms for containers are used metaphorically of topographical features, particularly with reference to shape.
bune(2) 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
'A reed'. The term is attested only by one uncertain occurrence in a glossary, from which its grammatical gender cannot be determined (DOE A–I, s.v. bune2). It is likely in several English place-names (VEPN, s.v. bune).
burh 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A stronghold'. The main senses identified in DOE A–I (s.v.) are 'a fortified enclosure, fortification' and 'town'. In place-names, it is 'applied to a range of defended sites, including Iron-Age hill-forts, Roman stations, and Anglo-Saxon and medieval fortifications, towns and manor-houses', with a shared characteristic perhaps being 'the presence of an outer wall, rampart or fence' (VEPN, s.v.). Draper (2009) argues that the primary sense is not that of defensive function but of enclosure: 'Furthermore, many of these enclosures performed important social and legal, rather than military, functions in the Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon periods, defining significant monastic, seigneurial and urban settlements' (103).
burh-tūn 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
?‘A settlement associated with a stronghold’. The meanings of the individual elements are discussed under their respective entries; the meaning of the compound term is problematic. It is independently recorded only once in poetry, a genre that shares much vocabulary with the toponymicon, and is defined by the editors of DOE A–I (s.v.) as 'enclosure, earthwork, or wall, around a city or fortification ? enclosed dwelling in a city or town ? walled city or town'. However, it occurs more than 60 times in English place-names, where it may, as suggested in VEPN (s.v.), refer either to 'a tūn administratively linked to a burh', or to a settlement that resembled a burh in appearance or function. It is particularly common on the Anglo-Welsh border, 'where even small settlements may have required defences against raiders' (VEPN, s.v.), and its occurrence on the Anglo-Scottish border may reflect a similar situation. More recently, however, Draper (2009, 115) finds 'little evidence' for a military sense of burh in the compound, and suggests that the most common meaning was '"farm dependent on a burh", using burh in either its monastic or manorial sense'.
burn 4 historical forms28 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A burn, a stream'; also SSE.
burn 2 historical forms59 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A burn, a stream’, the standard word in Scotland, both in Scots and SSE for southern English ‘stream, brook’, northern English ‘beck’. It usually occurs as a generic, but it is sometimes found as the specific element of a settlement name, describing the settlement in relation to the burn (e.g. Burnbank FOU).
burna 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
‘A stream’. This is a very common term, of variable (masculine and feminine) grammatical gender. It referred to a wider range of watercourses than its Scots descendant burn, being defined in DOE A–I (s.v. burna, burne, burn) as ‘stream, brook, river’. Its uses in place-names have been extensively discussed, most recently by Gelling and Cole (2000, 9–14) and in VEPN (s.v. burna).
buskin 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Used of various types of clothing, including a half-boot (16th century) and a women's cap or hood (17th to early 19th centuries).
buss 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A ledge of rocks projecting into the sea’, with specific reference to the Firth of Forth, defined thus by Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary, cited by SND; ‘any small sea rock that is exposed at low tide’ (SND). It is probably an extended meaning of Scots buss ‘a bush’, also appearing as busk and bush (SND). Note that it is also found in the Northumbrian dialect (English Dialect Dictionary, cited SND). For Fife examples, see PNF 5 Elements Glossary under buss. However, Alison Grant has suggested it may be connected with Scots boss, bos ‘a projection, a round mass’ (SND, the related DOST entry being bos, boys ‘a rounded prominence, a boss’). This has then been wrongly Englished as bush (Grant 2013).
butter 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Butter', typically used in place-names of rich pasture producing butter; amongst variant spellings are buttir, -ur; buiter, buytter, bowtter. Also SSE.
bý(r) 1 place-name
Language: Old Norse (ON), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A settlement, a village'.
Cada 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Originally an Old English hypocoristic personal name apparently based on a Brittonic stem /kad/-, Welsh cad 'battle' (DLV ii, 171).
cairn 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A cairn, burial mound, pile of stones'; also SSE.
cairn 7 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A cairn, burial mound, pile of stones'; also Scots.
cald 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Cold'. Of the sub-senses identified by the editors of DOE A–I (s.v. ceald adj.), those particularly relevant to place-names are 2.b. ‘of water, including bodies of water: cold’ and 2.c.i. ‘of features of the landscape: cold; ? exposed ? bleak’. VEPN (s.v. cald) observes that in place-names other than those referring to water, it ‘tends to imply “exposed, windswept”’, and suggests that ‘“exposed, isolated” is probably meant when the adjective is applied to trees’.
calf 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A calf’. Although usually grammatically neuter, the term can also be masculine (DOE A–I, s.v. cealf). In place-names it is usually used literally with reference to farms or pastures, but can also be used metaphorically to refer to the smaller of two or more features (VEPN, s.v. calf).
caller 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Fresh (of fish, meat etc.)’; ‘fresh and cool (of air, water etc.)’ (DOST, s.v. callour). According to DOST, "App. a variant of ME. calver, calvur (calwar), applied to salmon."
camp 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A place of encampment'.
carl 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A man of the common (esp. peasant) class; a husbandman or rustic’ (DOST).
carr 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A (coastal) rock’. This word is unattested as a lexical item in Scots, and is said to derive from northern OE carr ‘rock’, ‘generally thought to enter OE from Celtic’ (VEPN under carr). It is found as a generic element in the names of various rocky islets along the south-east Scottish and north-east English coast, such as Out Carres, Farne Islands, Northumberland.
carse 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'(An extensive stretch of) low alluvial land along the banks of a river', frequently in place-names la13- (CSD2).
castle 1 historical form9 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A castle; a big house'; also a feature that resembles a castle, or is interpreted as the remains of a castle.
castle 5 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A castle'. Although Scots castle (also castel(l)) and SSE castle generally refers to a high-status, fortified dwelling, the word can in some instances refer to prehistoric features, while in others it may simply refer to a relief feature perceived as a place where a castle might have stood or which looks a bit like a castle, such as coastal rocks.
catch 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: V
'Catch'. The application of the term in place-names is variable, and often uncertain.
causeway 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A causeway'.
ceaster 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
‘A Roman town’ is the most common meaning in English place-names, although the term also develops a more general meaning ‘a city, a walled town, a fortification’, alongside specialised uses documented in DOE A–I, s.v. ceaster. Old Northumbrian, like the West Saxon and Kentish dialects of Old English, has the form ceaster, which characteristically develops into ‘chester’, while central Anglian has the form cæster, which characteristically develops into ‘caster’. However, the phonological development is problematic, and is discussed by Coates (2006). VEPN (s.v. cæster) notes that in those English place-names not referring to Romano-British settlements, the main combinations are with river names, folk-names or personal names. Of the few occurrences with other elements, one is Whitchester in Northumberland, a doublet of Whitchester BWK.
Cēolwulf 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
An OE personal name.
chaipel, chapel 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A place of worship, a chapel'.
channon 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A canon of a cathedral', according to DOST. However, canons also made up the community of a collegiate church. It can also refer to a priest living under a monastic rule such as the Augustinian or Premonstratensian.
cheek 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The side of anything' (SND); in place-names, possibly a metaphorical use of 'side of the face'.
chester 2 historical forms10 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
As a noun it is not attested in Scots until the late eighteenth century, in the sense of a circular fortification (SND), and many of its occurrences in Scottish place-names seem also to be late, some of them antiquarian. However, it appears in place-names from the late 11th century onwards (CSD2), and the vernacular word chestris (pl.) occurs in a Latin charter of 1235 from east Fife (see PNF 3, 329–30, 332).
church 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A church'.
cild 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A child’, with related meanings including ‘a young nobleman’, ‘a young monk’, and possibly ‘a young animal’. Although historically a neuter noun, it is also recorded with masculine inflections in Old Northumbrian. Interpretation in English place-names is often problematic, as discussed in Hough (2004) and VEPN (s.v. cild). Hough (2004, 75) notes an apparent absence of the term in place-names north of the Anglo/Scottish border, but this gap has now been filled by Channelkirk BWK.
cirice 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A church'. As a generic element in place-names, it refers to a building. As a qualifying element, it may refer either to a building or to the Church as an institution, as for instance in its role as land-holder. Both meanings are common in English place-names (VEPN, s.v. cirice) and are widely attested in literature (DOE A–I, s.v. cyrice).
claper 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A rabbit-burrow, warren', perhaps specifically an artificial enclosure (VEPN, s.v.).
clapper 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Scots clappers ‘small wooden instruments used in butter-making’ (SND); OSc clapper (also clappir, clapar, -er) ‘a means of making a clapping noise, especially that used by lepers’ (DOST).
cleek-him-in 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Ph
'Hook them in'.
cleugh 11 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A narrow gorge or chasm with high rocky sides' (SND).
cleugh 7 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A narrow gorge or chasm with high rocky sides’. From Scots.
clint 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A cliff, a crag, a precipice', also 'a rock, a stone', 'a cleft or crevice (in rocks)' (CSD2).
cnapa 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A boy, young man’. The term also develops a meaning ‘male servant’ which can be used in a religious context to mean ‘servant of God’ (DOE A–I, s.v. cnapa). Any of these meanings is possible in place-names. VEPN (s.v. cnapa) draws attention to a geographical distribution in the north and east of England consistent with Scandinavian influence from the cognate ON knapi ‘servant’, but also notes that the Old English term is widely attested in literature.
cock 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A male bird, especially of the domestic fowl' (CSD2).
Cockburn 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname from Cockburn in the parish of Duns, BWK.
cold 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Cold', often with names of water-courses; also 'inhospitable, cheerless' or 'bleak, exposed'.
common 5 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A common', i.e. common land.
constable 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'An officer of the peace; a police officer'; earlier 'the commander of an army under the king; the warden of a royal castle' (CSD2).
cottage 2 historical forms11 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A cottage'.
country park 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A country park'.
cove 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A cave or cavern’ (SND), Older Scots cove, coif, etc. ‘a recess in a rock; a cave’ (DOST). Note also its meaning 'a worn-out ledge or hag on a river-bank' (cited in SND as a Roxburghshire usage). See Patie's Cove HUT.
cover 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A thicket, a place which gives shelter to wild animals or game'; also appears as SSE covert.
covert 9 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
The OED defines this word as 'a place which gives shelter to wild animals or game, esp. a thicket'. It is a variant of SSE cover, and in the same name can be interchangeable.
covey 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
A game bird, perhaps a partridge. Attested in OED as a collective noun, and in SND quotation evidence as a collective noun and (once) as a term for a single game bird.
craig 8 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A rock, crag'; also Scots.
cran 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A crane'. The term is independently attested only by gloss evidence (DOE A–I, s.v. cran), but bird names are an area of vocabulary often better represented in place-names than in literature. In English place-names, it usually combines with terms for bodies of water (EPNE, s.v. cran, cron).
crib 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A manger, a fodder-box’; ‘a hen-coop’; in the Borders ‘a reel for yarn’ (CSD2); also in Berwickshire ‘a fish-trap’ (OS Name Book). The meaning in place-names is uncertain. In connection with topographical features, one of the CSD2 senses might be used metaphorically to refer to shape; in connection with water, it might refer literally to fish-traps. Discussing Crichness Craigs, Hardy (1879–81, 492), states: 'A very deep ravine is said to occur there – possibly what is here called a "Crib".' This would appear to support a metaphorical interpretation.
croft 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A small land-holding (leased by a tenant)', frequently in place-names 16- ; 'a piece of enclosed land (adjoining a house), a small field (used for tillage or pasture)', frequently in place-names 13-19 (CSD2). It can also appear as craft (SND).
crook 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A curved or crooked piece of land, a nook or corner', also 'a curve, a bend; a river-bend' (CSD2).
cross 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A cross'; frequently used in place-names of 'a crossing, a cross-roads; a market cross, a market-place'; also 'a cross as a boundary marker; a cairn, a pile of stones on a hill-top' (CSD2).
cross 6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A cross', a crossing', sometimes indicating the presence of a cross at or near the place named; sometimes indicating a crossroads or junction.
crowfoot 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
The name of various plants whose leaves or other parts are taken to resemble a crow's foot, including buttercup and wild hyacinth.
crown 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A crown’. It also has various other meanings including ‘The rounded summit of a mountain, hill, or other elevation; the top of an incline’ and ‘The highest or central part of an arch or of any arched surface, as a road, bridge, ridge in a field, etc.’ and the term also forms plant names such as crown fern and crown-thistle (OED, s.v. crown, n.). Also potentially relevant in place-names is a metonymic use in relation to land belonging to the sovereign, as in Crown land (OED, s.v.).
cruik 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A curved or crooked piece of land; a nook or corner'; frequently in place-names 13- ; 'a curve, a bend; a river-bend' la13- (CSD2). Also an adjectival form, cruikit, crooked, crukit 'bent, crooked; curved’.
crunckled 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Crinkled'. Past participle adjective from the verb crunkle, crunc(k)le (SND).
cū 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A cow'. The term features prominently in legal and medical texts, reflecting the importance of the animal to the Anglo-Saxon economy. The genitive plural is attested as cyna in Old Northumbrian (DOE A–I, s.v. cū). According to EPNE (s.v. cū), it 'is rarely found combined with habitative terminals', but some of the examples cited contain words for farms and other buildings.
Cwic 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
An OE personal name; on record only as first element of compound personal names.
Cynebriht 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
An OE personal name.
cyrn 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
‘A churn’. This is a rare term, with only three attestations (DOE A–I, s.v. cyrn), and is not found in English place-names. The equally rare Mercian synonym corþer is used literally in the English place-name Cotterstock ‘dairy farm’ in Northamptonshire. However, words for containers are often used as shape metaphors for landscape features, both in place-names and in lexis. The shape of the hill on which Chirnside BWK stands supports such an interpretation for this, the only known occurrence in Scottish place-names.
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dæl 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A valley, a pit’. DOE A–I (s.v. dæl) treats this as a single meaning, but Gelling and Cole (2000, 110–13) discuss the possibility that ‘pit’ is the earlier sense, and was replaced by ‘valley’ as a result of influence from the Old Norse term dalr. As they point out, this is supported by the distribution of the term mainly in areas of Scandinavian settlement. It is more common in place-names than in literature; and of the various Old English terms for different types of valley, it refers to a main valley, sometimes alternating with the synonymous denu.
dale 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A share' and various derived senses, of which 'a share, portion or division of land; a piece of land, a field' (CSD2 sense 3) is the most likely in place-names.
darling 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A darling'. Also an adjective. Perhaps used as a term of approbation in place-names, as has been suggested for the field-name Darling in Milburn, Westmorland.
dean 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A deep valley; a gorge'. See under Scots dene.
dene 11 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A small valley, generally with a rivulet running through it’ (DOST). It often refers to a very steep valley or a gorge. It survives in Berwickshire chiefly as dean, whereas north of the Forth in Fife it is den (see PNF 5, Elements Glossary s.v.). It derives from OE denu.
denu 9 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A valley’. The term is widely attested (DOE A–I, s.v. denu, dene), and is very common in English place-names, where Gelling and Cole (2000, 113-22, at 113) describe it as 'the standard OE term for a main valley'. However, all three occurrences in BWK refer to narrow, steep-sided valleys, corresponding to the meaning of the Scots reflex den(e). See discussion under Foulden FOU for the suggestion that this may reflect a distinctively northern development of the term.
dēor 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'An animal, a beast'. The OE term had a wider range of meaning than its descendant deer, but usually referred to undomesticated quadrupeds, including game (DOE A–I, s.v. dēor noun).
.
dere, deir 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Deer' (collectively, or a single animal) (DOST).
dich 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Older Scots dich, dych 'a ditch' (OE dīc). This seems to be an alternative form of the more usual Scots dyke, influenced by English ditch. In Thornydykes WRR early forms have dich, later forms dyke.
ditcher 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A person who makes and repairs ditches' (OED). No entry in DSL (or CSD2), but several occurrences in the quotation evidence.
dod 5 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A bare hill with a rounded top; a (rounded) lump or shoulder on a larger hill' la12- (CSD2).
dog 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A dog, a hound'. However, the term has a wide range of metaphorical meanings in compounds, several of which are plant names, as well as the unexplained topographical dog buss in DOST.
dog 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A dog, a hound'. However, the term has a wide range of metaphorical meanings in compounds, several of which are plant names. Also Scots.
dog-law 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Not on record, but would parallel dog-hillock, 'A small mound or hillock covered with long grass' la16- (CSD2).
doocot 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A dovecot’. While doocot is still the most common way of referring to these conspicuous and often elegant structures in the Scottish lowland landscape, the SSE spelling (though probably not the pronunciation) dovecot starts to appear in the eighteenth century.
doun 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hill'; DOST describes it as occurring 'only in poetry, and coupled with dale'.
dovecot 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A house for doves or pigeons'.
dow 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A dove' (DOST). The headform in CSD2 is doo, with dow as the Borders form, and the definition 'a dove or pigeon'.
drake, draik 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A male duck' (DOST).
drone 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A male honey-bee'.
drone1 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The buttocks, the backside' la18-19, 20- (CSD2). Potentially used topographically in place-names, as is the corresponding Gaelic term dronn 'rump, back, ridge, summit, hump'. However, it is not recorded in the Borders. CSD2 locates the term in the North-East and Tayside, and although SND has an earlier (1768) occurrence, it is from Aberdeenshire.
drone2 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A male honey-bee'. Not in SND or CSD2, but DOST has a compound dron bee.
Drummond 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname.
drȳge 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Dry’. Of the various inter-related meanings set out in DOE A–I (s.v. drȳge adj.), the most relevant in place-name contexts is sense 1 'of land: lacking moisture, arid, dry'. In English place-names, it is mostly used to refer to a dried-up stream (EPNE, s.v. drȳge).
dub 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A pool, especially one of muddy or stagnant water; pond; waterhole in a moss; puddle; a sea pool, especially one only visible at low water’ (in this last meaning, FIF and BWK); 'a puddle' (SND). SND also gives a specifically BWK usage of dub meaning 'a pool in a river'. Also Scots.
dub 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A pool, especially one of muddy or stagnant water; pond; waterhole in a moss; puddle; a sea pool, especially one only visible at low water’ (in this last meaning, FIF and BWK); 'a puddle' (SND). SND also gives a specifically BWK usage of dub meaning 'a pool in a river'.
dun 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Dun, dull brown'.
dūn 6 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
‘A hill, mountain’ is the general meaning given in DOE A–I, (s.v. dūn noun), but fieldwork by Gelling and Cole has established that in England, 'This word is consistently used in settlement-names for a low hill with a fairly level and fairly extensive summit which provided a good settlement-site in open country' (2000, 164). Its variable gender (mainly feminine, but occasionally masculine or neuter) may account for the plural [s] morpheme in Duns BWK. However, it is rarely found as a simplex name, more commonly functioning as the second element of a compound.
dun 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'An iron-age stone-walled defensive homestead; a fortified eminence', la17- (CSD2).
dun 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Dun, dull brown (said esp. of animals or cloth)' (DOST).
Dunglass 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Lord Dunglass, the title of the eldest son of the Earl of Hume.
dyke 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A ditch, a wall, a dyke'.
dùn 1 place-name
Language: Gaelic (G), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A (fortified) hill, a defensive hill, a fortification'; also 'hill, hillock, heap, tower'.
ēa 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
‘A river’. This is a commonly attested term (DOE A–I, s.v. ēa noun), which forms simplex river-names and also appears in compound settlement-names in England, mostly as a first element (Gelling and Cole, 2000, 14–16).
Earn 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Probably a short form of a name such as Earnulf or Earnwig, both of which appear in PoMS.
east 3 historical forms8 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Easterly, east-lying'.
east(er) 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Lying to the east'.
easter 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Lying to the east'.
edge 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Edge'; OSc ege ‘the crest of a sharp ridge’ (DOST). It can also be SSE.
edge 1 historical form2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The crest of a ridge' la15- (CSD2). Also Scots.
ēdre 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
In place-names, the meaning is ‘a channel, a water-course’ (DOE A–I, s.v. ǣder, ǣdre sense 5), although the term has a wider range of meanings including ‘a vein, an artery’ and other senses relating to conduits. It forms part of the LANDSCAPE IS A BODY metaphor discussed by Hough (2016, 17–20).
elba 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'An elbow'. Used topographically in place-names to refer to a bend or crook.
ellen 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘An elder-tree’. Of c.40 occurrences of the term, the only attested form of the dative plural is ellenum (DOE A–I, s.v. ellen noun2, ellern). The form ellum in early spellings of the former BWK parish name Ellem is not found in the full online Corpus of Old English (DOEWC), but may be based on the variant elle listed as an alternative spelling of the noun both in DOE A–I, and in EPNE (s.v. ellern, ellen, elle).
eller, elder 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The elder tree' 19- (CSD2).
Elwald 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
Surname from the OE personal name Ælfwald.
end 7 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'End' (of a feature such as a wood or a hill).
end 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'An end', usually referring to the far point of a feature.
evil, evill, ivill, iwill 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Inferior, of poor quality; badly made or maintained la14- (CSD2).
fæger 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Beautiful, fair’. Of the various applications set out in DOE A–I (s.v. fæger adj.), the most relevant in place-name contexts is sense 1.a.vi. 'of places and inanimate things'.
fair 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Fine; good quality'.
farm 3 historical forms12 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A farm'.
farny 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Overgrown with fern'. Both this and the corresponding noun are mainly found in place-names. DOST, s.v. farny, has a single citation from 1611, but draws attention to place-name occurrences from the 13th century. There is no entry for the adjective in SND or CSD2, but CSD2, s.v. fern, fairn, farne, n. 'bracken; a fern or ferns', describes the noun as frequent in place-names la13-.
fast 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Fixed, firm', 'strong against attack' (DOST).
fauld 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A pen, an enclosure for animals’ 13- ; ‘an enclosed piece of ground used for cultivation; a small field’ 15- ; ‘the part of the outfield which was manured by folding cattle on it’ 18-19 (CSD2).
faw 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Speckled, variegated’.
Fawcett CHM 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Not on record, but such a name would be paralleled both within Berwickshire and in northern England.
fell 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A steep, rocky hill; a tract of hill-moor', frequently in place-names 15- (CSD2).
ferny 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Covered in, or surrounded by, bracken’; variously spelled fairny/ie, fearny/ie etc.
feuar, feuer, fewar 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A person who held land in perpetual lease; the tenant of a feu' 16-20 (CSD2).
field 12 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A field; infield'; of the medieval field (Latin campus) G. W. S. Barrow writes: 'It seems that a village would normally have two big fields ("north" and "south" or "east" and "west" are commonly found), and it is likely that as much as practicable of the dung from sheep and cattle was concentrated on these fields, the "infield" of later record' (1981, 4).
fisc 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A fish’. The term also had a more general sense ‘any animal that lives exclusively in water (as distinct from a bird or land-animal)’ (DOE A–I, s.v. fisc). In place-names, it usually refers 'to streams where fish are caught or to places where they are cured or sold' (EPNE, s.v. fisc).
fit 2 historical forms1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A foot’, also fuit, fute ‘foot, lower end of a piece of ground, a stream, a street etc’ (CSD), and thus frequently found in combination with elements such as bank, brae, burn, hill, loan and rig.
flat 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A piece of level ground’, also flatt, flett. DOST describes this word as ‘frequent in early place-names’, and states that the earliest example in Scotland dates to c.1220. The earliest so far identified in Berwickshire is Colemannesflat 1198 x 1214 Kelso Liber i no. 140 (Langton parish).
Fleming 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A Fleming; a person from Flanders'. Also SSE.
foal 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A foal'; Older Scots fole, foill (also fol, foll, foyle, foile, foall) (DOST).
fog 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘Grass left in the field during winter’ (DOST).
fola 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A foal’. Although mostly used of a young horse, the term could also refer more generally to a young animal (DOE A–I, s.v. fola).
ford 1 historical form
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A ford; a shallow place, natural or artificial, across a stream, river or other water, by which a crossing can be made’. This is one of the most common, and apparently also one of the earliest, OE elements in English place-names (Gelling and Cole, 2000, 71). Of c.225 occurrences in documentary sources, however, most are in charter bounds (DOE A–I, s.v. ford, forda), perhaps suggesting that the term belonged mainly to the toponymic register of language.
forest 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A forest', used to designate not only ancient forests but modern, recreational woodland areas.
foul 1 historical form2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Foul, muddy, dirty'.
foul 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Dirty, muddy'.
friar, freer, frere 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A brother in or member of a religious order' la14- (CSD2).
fugel 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A bird’. The word has a much wider sense than its descendant fowl, referring to birds in general as well as to particular types of bird such as wild birds, birds of prey, water birds and domestic fowls (DOE A–I, s.v. fugel). It has undergone a process of semantic change known as 'narrowing' or 'specialization', whereby the meaning of a word becomes more specific over time.
fuird 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A ford'. It can also appear as foord etc (SND). Frequently in place-names la11- (CSD2).
fūl 1 historical form
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Foul’. Of the various inter-related meanings identified in DOE A–I (s.v. fūl, adj), the most relevant in place-names is sense 2.a. ‘in bounds, referring to features of the landscape, mainly of bodies of water: foul, dirty, miry’. The fact that all occurrences of this sense are in charter bounds or place-names may suggest that it was limited to the toponymic register of language.
fulyie 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also fuilzie, foul(z)ie etc. 1. Filth, dirt, the sweepings of the street, domestic garbage; dung, excrement’; 2. Manure in general; a mixed compost of dung and earth;’ earth fuilzie ‘composts of earth made of dung or lime’ (SND under fulyie). As a place-name element the most likely meaning is that of a (well)-manured piece of ground.
gair 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A strip of green grass (on a hillside); a patch of marshy ground in heather' la18-19, 20- Ork EC SW Bor (CSD2).
gairy1 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A vertical outcrop of rock, a crag' 19- (CSD2).
gallow(s) 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A gallows'.
garrick 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A corner patch of land, an odd, irregularly shaped patch of land' (SND); the term is only recorded in Orkney.
gars 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Grass'. Also gers, gras(s), gres(s).
George 2 place-names
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A personal name.
gled, glaid 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The kite Milvus milvus', frequently in place-names 12- (CSD2).
glen 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A (narrow, steep-sided) mountain valley traversed by a river or stream' la12- (CSD2).
glida 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A bird of prey, kite, glede'. The term has only 15 attestations in OE, mainly in glossaries (DOE A-I, s.v. glida). EPNE (s.v. gleoda, glioda) notes that most examples in English place-names are from the back-mutated form gleoda, and combine with words for 'wood'.
God 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
'God, the Christian deity'; Sc and SSE.
gor 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'Dung, ordure; filth'. Of the 23 occurrences in literary sources, most are in glossaries or medical texts (DOE A-I, sv. gor). The term also appears in English place-names in combination with (mainly) topographical generics (EPNE, s.v. gor1).
gorse 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Gorse, furze'.
gowl, goule 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The throat, the jaws' 16- ; 'a narrow pass or hollow between hills', frequently in place-names la16- (CSD2).
græf 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A grave, trench, ditch' (DOE A-I, s.v. græf1). The element is difficult to differentiate from OE grāf ‘a grove, a copse’, OE grāfa ‘a grove, a copse’, or OE grǣfe ‘a thicket, copse, cluster of brambles’, also ‘brushwood, brambles after having been cut or cleared’.
grǣfe 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
‘A thicket, copse, cluster of brambles’, also ‘brushwood, brambles after having been cut or cleared’ (DOE A-I, s.v. grǣfe, ? grǣf). The element is difficult to differentiate from OE græf ‘a grave, trench, ditch', OE grāf ‘a grove, a copse’, or OE grāfa ‘a grove, a copse’.
grǣg((2) 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N
'A wolf'. This is a transferred use of the colour adjective above, established from one literary occurrence (DOE A-I, s.v. grǣg, sense 2.d.i.a) and several in place-names (Hough 1995, Biggam 1998: 78–80). From the 15th century, the same semantic development led to the term being used of another grey animal, the badger (see OED, B.2), and this is the meaning erroneously given for the OE element in EPNE.
grāf 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A grove, a copse’ (DOE A-I, s.v. grāf). The element is difficult to differentiate from OE grāfa ‘a grove, a copse’, OE græf ‘a grave, trench, ditch' or OE grǣfe ‘a thicket, copse, cluster of brambles’, also ‘brushwood, brambles after having been cut or cleared’.
grāfa 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A grove, a copse’ (DOE A–I, s.v. grāfa). The element is difficult to differentiate from OE grāf ‘a grove, a copse’, OE græf ‘a grave, trench, ditch' or OE grǣfe ‘a thicket, copse, cluster of brambles’, also ‘brushwood, brambles after having been cut or cleared’.
grain 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A branch or fork of a stream or river' (SND), the basic meaning being a branch.
grange 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A grange; (monastic) farm’; also Scots. Derek Hall, in his book on the impact of the medieval monasteries on the Scottish landscape, describes a grange as follows: ‘The grange or estate centre formed the main focus of control for a monastic house on its landholdings’ (2006, 17). A large part of his book is taken up by a ‘Gazetteer of Scottish Monastic Granges’ (86–202), the Borders section, including Berwickshire (144–61), compiled by Ray Cachart, containing 26 entries of sites identified by documentary evidence and/or place-name as those of monastic granges.
great 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Large (in size, quantity, extent or importance)' la12- (CSD2). Also Scots.
green 2 historical forms6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Green, grass-covered’ (CSD), in place-names often indicative of good grazing. Also SSE.
green 1 historical form9 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Green'.
grēne 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Green'. The meaning ‘grass-covered’, identified by DOE A–I (s.v. grēne, senses B.1.a and B.2.a) in charter bounds, is also relevant to place-names.
Grizel 2 place-names
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
Early form of Griselda, found particularly in Scotland.
gruel, growl 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Boiled oatmeal; thin porridge' la15- (CSD2). In place-names it might perhaps be used with reference to sticky soil.
hag 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A soft marshy hollow piece of ground in a moor, e.g. where channels have been made by water or where peats have been cut; “moss-ground that has formerly been broken up; a pit, or break in a moss”’ (Jamieson, Dictionary etc.). ‘Also used attributively and in such combinations as moss-hag, peat-hag, etc. Now General Scots. Also found in northern English dialect' (adapted from SND).
halh 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A nook'. This is a much-studied term, especially as regards its applications in place-names. DOE A–I (s.v. healh), gives only a handful of occurrences each for sense 1 ‘corner (or a room/building’ and sense 2 ‘recess, corner, hidden place’, but gives sense 3 as ‘in charter bounds: senses identified in different areas and place-names have included: a nook, corner of land, piece of land projecting or detached from its main administrative unit; sunken place, small valley, hollow, recess; land almost enclosed in the bend of a river, low-lying land by a river, a river-meadow, haugh’. An additional meaning ‘slightly raised ground isolated by marsh’ has also been identified in English place-names, and the most extensive recent discussion suggests that ‘halh is used for formations which are not sufficiently well-defined or firmly-shaped to merit the terms cumb or denu’ (Gelling and Cole 2000, 123–33, at 125).
hālig 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
‘Holy’. This is an exceptionally common adjective (c.8400 occurrences), with both Christian and pagan applications, and a very wide range of inflected forms including haelga and hælga in Old Northumbrian (DOE A–I, s.v. hālig). In place-names, it is generally associated with Christianity, referring variously to topographical features dedicated to sacred use or thought to have miraculous (e.g. healing) properties, or to property belonging to the church (EPNE, s.v. hālig).
hall 2 historical forms8 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A large, spacious building, the residence of a landowner' 14-; 'a large public meeting room' la16-; 'a farmhouse, the main dwelling of a farm or estate' 18- (CSD2). It also appears as ha'. The term has undergone a semantic change known as 'deterioration'; thus the characteristic referent moves from a high-status to a low-status building, as reflected in the dates above and in the low-status specifics with which it frequently combines in later names.
hall 3 historical forms16 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A large, spacious building, the residence of a landowner' 14-; 'a large public meeting room' la16-; 'a farmhouse, the main dwelling of a farm or estate' 18- (CSD2). As in Scots, it can be used ironically, often coupled with a low-status specific, to refer to a small, lowly building.
hals 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A neck’. This term is attested less frequently than OE hnecca, the ancestor of SSE neck, and is found mainly in poetry and place-names. Apart from one occurrence in a riddle, all lexical uses are literal (DOE A–I, s.v. heals). In place-names, it is used in a transferred topographical sense ‘neck of land/water’, referring to a narrow stretch of land or water (EPNE, s.v. hals). As such, it represents a shape-motivated example of the LANDSCAPE IS A BODY metaphor. Although not included in Nicolaisen’s (1995, 111) list of cognate pairs in the West and North Germanic toponymica, nor the subsequent additions outlined in Hough (2010b, 4–5), similar toponymic uses of ON hals ‘neck’ raise the possibility that the transferred use may be prehistoric.
haly 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Holy'. Alternative forms are hely, helly, hellie (DOST).
hām 4 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A settlement'. Of the six main senses identified for this noun in DOE A–I, those most relevant to place-names are ‘estate’, 'dwelling-place' and ‘monastic house’. As with most generics denoting buildings, the latter two are used metonymically in place-names to include the surrounding land. Although the noun itself continued in use throughout the Old English period and beyond, developing into the word home, it fell out of use as a place-name forming term around the middle of the seventh century, and is therefore important as an indicator of early Anglo-Saxon settlement. Potential exceptions are metonymic uses of the names of monastic houses to refer to their landholdings. As Watts (1994) demonstrates in a northern English context, and James (2010) in the context of southern Scotland, OE hām was still being used to name monastic houses during the ninth century, so such place-names may post-date the majority of hām formations.
hammer 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A hammer'; used metonymically in place-names to refer to a blacksmith's workshop or forge.
hār 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Grey, hoary'. The colour adjective is applied in place-names particularly to rocks and stones, trees and bushes. Some of these are recorded as boundary markers, and hence a derived meaning 'boundary' has sometimes been suggested. Kitson (1993) argues strongly against this, and DOE A-I treats it as a colour adjective only. Biggam's (1998) exhaustive study also concludes that the meaning 'boundary' cannot be substantiated, but she leaves open the possibility that such a meaning may have been in process of development.
hard 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Hard'; when applied in place-names it can refer to hardness of the soil, also 'stoney' or 'difficult to cultivate'.
hare 1 historical form11 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Grey, greyish' (of ground, rocks or stones) 14-e16; 'bare, leafless or grey with lichen' (of woods) 13-16 (CSD2). However, since the term develops from OE hār (see entry for more detail), it is likely that usage was continuous despite the gap in records. Because hare-stanes (‘grey stones’) so often appear as boundary stones, Sc har(e) seems to have developed the sense of ‘boundary’ (used adjectivally, as in ‘boundary stone’ or ‘boundary hill’). For more details see Place-Names of Fife vol. 5, Elements Glossary under hare.
hare 9 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hare'; OE hara, gen. sing. haran.
Harriet 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
A personal name.
hart 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A stag'; earlier spellings include hert, hairt, heart (CSD2).
haugh 6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Level ground, usually on the bank of a river, river-meadow land’. It is a development of OE halh. See under halh for more details.
haugh 4 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A haugh, a water-meadow; low land by water'. Also Scots.
head 12 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A head, end, top; (coastal) head-land, promontory'. Also Scots.
heathery 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Heathery; associated with heather'. SND has: heatherie or heathery, adj., also hed(de)ry ‘covered with, made from heather; having the appearance of heather; hence, rough, dishevelled; mountain-bred’.
hehstald 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A young unmarried man' is the most common meaning, with 'recently enlisted soldier' being attested by a single gloss occurrence, and the primary sense 'virginity' also indicated by compounds. The term is more common in Old Northumbrian than in Common Old English, where it takes the form hagosteald (DOE A-I, s.v. hago-steald noun1, hæg-steald). Its application in place-names is uncertain. One suggestion is that it may refer to land held by a younger son without inherited property.
heid 6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘Head, end, top’. In late coinings, or names which appear late in the record (i.e. post 1750 or thereabouts) it is not always possible to distinguish between Scots heid and SSE head. Locally both are heard depending on the language of the speaker.
hen 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A female domestic fowl'. Used in place-names with a wider sense, including wild fowl.
hen 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A female domestic fowl'. Used in place-names with a more general sense, including wild fowl.
hen toe 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Ph
'A hen's toe', referring to shape.
herd 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A herd', in the sense either of 'herd of beasts' or of the person charged with their care.
Heriot 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname derived from the lands of Heriot in Midlothian, but with some currency in the Borders.
heritage 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
The technical term for property in the form of land and houses, 'because it passed to the heir on the owner's death' (SND).
heuch 1 historical form6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A precipice, crag, cliff, a steep hill’; the form heuch is the head-form in both DOST and SND, but it appears in place-names more frequently as heugh. The Scots reflex of OE hōh ‘heel’ (DOST), it describes a different landscape-feature from that proposed by Gelling and Cole for its OE counterpart (2000, 186). See also under OE hōh.
OED under heuch, heugh ('Scottish and northern [English] dialect') defines it more precisely as: '1. A precipitous or hanging descent; a craggy or rugged steep; a precipice, cliff, or scaur; most commonly, one overhanging a river or the sea' (examples predominantly in Scottish sources). 2. 'A glen or ravine with steep overhanging braes or sides; a cleuch' (all examples from Scottish sources). 3. 'The steep face of a quarry or other excavation (quarry heugh); an excavation for coal, originally open; a coal-pit; figurative a pit' (all examples from Scottish sources).
heuch 1 historical form4 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A precipice, crag, cliff, a steep hill'; also Scots.
Hextild 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
Personal name recorded from the twelfth century.
hextild 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A young unmarried man'; possibly also 'warrior'. The term is not recorded in Scots, but could have developed from Old Northumbrian hehstald.
hill 2 historical forms22 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hill'; also 'upland grazing'.
hill 2 historical forms91 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A hill'; can also be Scots.
hind 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A female deer'.
hindberry 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The wild raspberry', also recorded in the spelling hyndberry.
hirst 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A piece of barren, unproductive ground; a hard or rocky mound or ridge, the summit of a rocky hill' 15-19, 20- ; also 'a bank of sand or gravel in a harbour or river; a ford or shallow in a river' la16-19, 20- (CSD2).
hlǣne 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Poor quality, unproductive (land)'. The OE term is rare, and recorded only in connection with the human body (‘thin, lean’ etc.: DOE A–I, s.v. hlǣne), but a transferred meaning referring to poor quality land appears in English from c.1300 (MED, s.v. lēne adj.(1), sense 2(b)), and in Scots from 1380 (DOST, s.v. lene, adj, sense 2).
hlāw 5 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A burial mound, barrow, tumulus; a low rounded hill’ is the primary sense in DOE A-I (s.v. hlǣw, hlāw), as also in place-names, where Gelling and Cole (2000, 178) describe it as ‘primarily a term used for artificial mounds’. The DOE A-I editors note that most occurrences are in charter bounds; other citations are mainly from poetry, a genre that frequently shares vocabulary with the toponymicon. Whereas the West Saxon form hlǣw generally survives as lew, Anglian hlāw develops into low in the North-West Midlands, and law in Northumberland and Durham (EPNE, s.v. hlāw, hlǣw). The latter also develops into Scots law in the sense ‘(conical) hill’ (DOST, s.v. law, n.2). In English settlement-names, it often combines with personal names and descriptive terms.
hog 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A young sheep, a yearling'.
hōh 5 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A projecting ridge of land, promontory’ is sense 2 in DOE A–I (s.v. hōh). This, the usual meaning in place-names, is a transferred meaning from sense 1 ‘heel’, drawing on the ubiquitous LANDSCAPE IS A BODY metaphor. In some English place-names, it is used of any type of hill-spur; in others, it refers to a particular type of hill-spur with a shape resembling ‘the foot of a person lying face down, with the highest point for the heel and the concavity for the instep’ (Gelling and Cole, 2000, 186). The latter use occurs as far north as Inghoe in Northumberland, within the Old Northumbrian-speaking area. For a landscape term, it is unusually frequent as a first element, particularly in combination with tūn (ibid.). It develops into Scots heuch, heugh ‘a precipice, crag or cliff; a steep hill’ (DOST, s.v. heuch, hewch).
holding 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A small-holding'.
hole 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hole; a shallow pool, a puddle'. The last two meanings are from SND with Berwickshire given as one of the areas in which this usage is found (the others being Shetland, Caithness and Kirkcudbrightshire, 1957). However, in the context of a salmon cast or salmon fishing beat, it may rather refer to a deeper pool.
Home 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
The family name of the Earls of Home, alternatively spelled Hume.
home farm 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The home farm of an estate'.
hop 1 historical form2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A remote, enclosed place’. The definition is taken from Gelling and Cole 's discussion (2000, 133-40), which supersedes Smith’s entry (EPNE, s.v. hop1). Gelling and Cole (2000, 133) write: ‘With very few exceptions OE names in hop fall easily into one of two main categories, “enclosure in marsh or wasteland” and “remote valley”. The sense of concealment is probably the link between the two’. Although widely evidenced in place-names, DOE A–I (s.v. hop) cites only four occurrences, two of them in charter bounds. It has developed into Older Scots hope (also hoip, hop, howp) ‘a small enclosed upland valley, a sloping hollow between two hills’ (DOST), so used only to refer to a relief feature.
Hope 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname; common among the informants listed in the Ordnance Survey Name Book for Berwickshire.
hope 1 historical form6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also hoip, hop, howp; ‘a small enclosed upland valley’; ‘a sloping hollow between two hills’ (Jamieson, Dictionary). ‘Early examples occur frequently in southern Scottish placenames, as Ruhope, Berhope (c.1190), Elrehope (c.1200), Hollehope (1200–2)’ (DOST). DOST gives a good citation from Wyntoun, VII, 51 (W) [Chron. Wyntoun: The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun, ed. F. J. Amours, 6 vols, STS 1903–14]: ‘A faire braid plane and a plesand, But hope or hill’ (‘without valley or hill’), where hope is used as the generic word for ‘valley’ reciprocating with hill. It has developed from OE hop ‘remote, enclosed place’ (see Gelling and Cole 2000, 133-40).
hopper 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hopper, the receptacle for grain passing into a mill' (DOST), perhaps used metaphorically in place-names with reference to shape.
horn 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A horn', used metaphorically in place-names for something shaped like a horn, such as a projecting piece of land or a river-bend.
horseshoe 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A horseshoe-shaped feature'.
horu 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘Dirt, filth’ is sense 2 of the entry in DOE A–I (s.v. horh, horu), and appears to be a transferred use of sense 1 ‘phlegm, mucus’. (EPNE, s.v. horu, mistakenly takes the two terms to be distinct but confused.) Compounds such as hor-pytt ‘mud-hole, slough’ and hor-wylla or horwylle ‘muddy spring, dirty well’, both found only in charter bounds (DOE A–I, s.vv.), may support a meaning ‘mud’ in place-names.
hound 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A hound, a dog'.
house 6 historical forms43 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A house'; in place-names often referring to a relatively grand dwelling.
howe 1 historical form4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A hollow or low-lying piece of ground’ (SND); also how, earlier holl and hol(e). It can also be an adjective ‘hollow, deep-set’ as well as being used attributively as in how road ‘a hollow way’ (SND).
hrīs 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘Twigs, branches, brushwood’. The term is rare in OE, with only two occurrences (DOE A–I, s.v. hrīs noun) and one potentially as an adjective ‘? covered with brushwood’ (DOE A–I, s.v. hrīs adj.). Occurrences in English place-names are discussed in EPNE (s.v. hrīs), and include one in combination with a term for hill, paralleling Ryslaw BWK, and three in combination with OE tūn, paralleling Reston BWK.
hule 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A perverse or objectionable person or animal; a troublesome child' 19- East Central, South West, Borders; 'a name for the devil' la19- South West, Borders (CSD2).
hummel 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Naturally hornless'; also 'polled', of animals, hence 'without projections, with a flat, level appearance, smooth' (CSD). Apparently also used substantively (i.e. as a noun for an entity thus distinguished), as Humbles Knowe appears to have a genitive singular noun inflection.
hund 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A dog’. The term also functions as an element in insect-names and plant-names (DOE A–I, s.v. hund2, senses 3 and 4). Occurrences in street-names are ambiguous between high-status hunting dogs, or low-status stray dogs. In settlement-names, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate from the personal name Hund (EPNE, s.v. hund).
hund 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A dog, generally'; also 'a hunting dog, a hound' (DOST).
hungry 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Hungry'. In place-names, referring to infertile land requiring a lot of manure.
hunta 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A hunter'. Place-name occurrences in the genitive singular are difficult to differentiate from the personal name Hunta (EPNE, s.v. hunta).
hunting 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The practice or act of hunting' la14- ; 'hunting-grounds' la15-17 (CSD2).
hurker 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Apparently a term for a rock, but unattested outside place-names.
hūs 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A building’, either in a general or a specialised sense. Of the various senses identified in DOE A–I (s.v. hūs), the most relevant to place-names is 1.b ‘building for human habitation, typically the ordinary residence of a person or family’. According to EPNE (s.v. hūs), it usually combines ‘with a descriptive word, often of the material of which it is built or of location or age’.
Huxton 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname recorded among the Ordnance Survey Name Book informants for Coldingham. It may derive from the place-name Huxton in Coldingham, or it may have given rise to it.
hwīt 4 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
‘White’. Like many colour adjectives, the term covered more of the spectrum in OE than in later English, including ‘various light hues approaching white’ (DOE A–I, s.v. hwīt adj.). In Scottish and English place-names, it has a range of applications including white stone used as building material, clear water, infertile land, the appearance of tree-bark or blossom, and dairy produce (Hough 2003).
hyll 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A hill’. The noun is variable as regards both gender and declension: mostly masculine, but also feminine; mostly strong, but occasionally weak (DOE A–I, s.v. hyll). Gelling and Cole (2000, 192–5, at 192) regard it as a general term ‘used for hills which do not have the clearly defined characteristics of those called beorg or dūn’, and suggest that ‘it may, on the whole, belong to the later stages of Old English name-formation, perhaps coming into more frequent use as the precision of the earliest topographical vocabulary weakened’.
inch 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Low-lying land by water’; also ‘a piece of rising ground in the middle of a [boggy] plain’ (CSD). It is also occasionally found with the meaning ‘small island’ (CSD). It is a loan-word from G innis, with a similar range of meanings.
Inchkeith 2 place-names
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
A farm in Lauder parish and an island in the Firth of Forth (Kinghorn FIF).
inner 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Inner'; i.e. as opposed to 'outer'.
kame 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A comb; a long, narrow, steep-sided mound or ridge, a hill-ridge’ (SND).
keel 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Ruddle, red ochre, used especially for marking sheep’ (SND).
Kennetside 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
A hypothetical name, surviving only in Kennetsideheads ECC.
king 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A king'.
Kinsham 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Similar place-names exist in England (e.g. Kinsham in Herefordshire and Worcestershire) but none such has been identified in Scotland.
Kinsham 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
Perhaps a locative surname from a place-name in England.
kippit 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'(Of a hill) 'having "kips" or jutting outcrops of rock or boulder' (?) DOST.
kirk 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A church'; used both in Scots and SSE.
kirktoun 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A town or village situated by a church; especially, the hamlet in which the parish church of a rural parish is. (Chiefly in place-names.)’ (DOST).
kittle 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Easily upset or offended, difficult to deal with; unreliable, fickle' (CSD2). In place-names, forms a derogatory name-type Kittlenakit, referring to poor land.
knock 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A (small) hill'. It is usually said that, in Scotland at least, this is a loan-word into Scots from Gaelic cnoc 'a hill'. However, both EPNE and VEPN posit a native OE *cnocc ‘a hill, hillock’. Although this does not appear in the OE lexicon or corpus of words, its existence is ‘fairly well supported by cognates’ such as knock, a word found along the south-east English coast meaning ‘sand-bank’ (VEPN under *cnocc). There is also a Danish dialect word knok 'little hillock' (EPNE i, 103).
knowe 2 historical forms6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A small hill, a knoll'; also Scots.
knowe 2 historical forms7 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A knoll or small hill'.
Kolbrandr 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Annglo-Scandinavian personal name.
kyle 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A ninepin, a skittle' (both DOST and SND).
Kyle 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A family name deriving originally from Kyle in Ayrshire (Black 1946, 409).
lady 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A lady, Our Lady'; in place-names usually referring to St Mary ('Our Lady'). See Hough 2009.
lair 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A place where cattle or sheep lie down; a part of a pasture where cattle or sheep go or are taken to rest’ (DOST); similarly CSD.
lamb 3 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A lamb'. The noun belongs to a type of declension that forms plurals in -r-: nominative/accusative lambru, genitive lambra, dative lambrum. However, 10 occurrences of a genitive plural form lamba are also on record. A Northumbrian variant is lombor.
landsend 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'(A feature at the) end of a piece of land or lands'.
lang 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Long'. According to EPNE (s.v. lang1), the most common meaning in place-names is 'extending over a great distance', while 'in ford- and bridge-names it refers to the distance from bank to bank of the river', 'with tree-names it usually means "tall, high"', and 'as an affix it generally alludes to the great length of a village main street'.
latch 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A small burn, especially one flowing through boggy ground; a mire, patch of bog’ (CSD; SND). It also appears as letch, leche; Middle English leche or lache (see discussion under *læc(c) etc. in EPNE ii). The word is defined in DOST under: lech(e), laich, lach(e), ‘a small stream or runlet flowing through boggy land. b. A patch of marsh or bog drained by a runlet’ (DOST).
latch 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
This is the Scottish Standard English form of Sc latch, 'a small burn, especially one flowing through boggy ground; a mire, patch of bog’ (CSD; SND). See under Sc latch, for more details.
law 6 historical forms55 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A rounded hill ... generally of a somewhat conical shape and frequently isolated or conspicuous among others' (SND). It can also mean: 'An artificial mound or hillock, specifically a tumulus or barrow, grave-mound' (SND).
law 3 historical forms31 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A hill'; also Scots.
Laws 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
The existing name Laws is also known as Whitsome Laws.
lazybed 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Rig and furrow'.
lea 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Pasture, grassland'.
lēah 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A forest, wood, glade, clearing’, later ‘pasture, meadow’ are the meanings identified by Gelling and Cole (2000, 237-42, at 237). Despite being the most common topographical element in English place-names, it is rare in early formations, and Gelling and Cole suggest plausibly that most names containing it ‘were probably coined between c.750 and c.950’ (2000, 237).
ley 10 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A tract of open grassland, a meadow, a pasture; a clearing in a wood’ frequently in place-names la12-, ‘uncultivated ground, fallow land (originally part of the outfield)’ frequently in place-names 16- (CSD2); 'untilled ground, ground which has been left fallow for some time and is now covered by grass, ground that has been tilled and which is now in pasture; originally part of the outfield; the second meaning is in rotational farming: the first crop of corn after grass, a shortened form of lea or ley corn. From OE *lǣge- "fallow"' (SND); OSc ley(e), lay lie etc. ‘lea, or land which has been left untilled for some time and allowed to return to grass, arable land under grass used as pasture; also, a piece of such land, and plural’ (DOST). Smith defines OE lǣge (adj.) as ‘fallow, unploughed, lying untilled’, pointing out that in OE it is only found in compounds, but is in more general use in ME as leye, laye (EPNE ii, s.v.).
lie 1 historical form
Language: French (Fr), Part of Speech: D
French form of the definite article used in Latin texts to signal a following vernacular word or to represent the definite article as part of a place-name.
light 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Light-coloured'.
linn 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A waterfall, cataract, cascade of water'; also lin, lyn(n), lyne etc., deriving from OE hlynn ‘torrent’, literally ‘the noisy one’ (CSD and EPNE i, 254).
little 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Small in quantity or size' la14-; of two places of the same name 'smaller or less important'; frequently in place-names la14- (CSD2). Also Scots.
little 3 historical forms3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Small in quantity or size' la14-; of two places of the same name 'smaller or less important'; frequently in place-names la14- (CSD2).
Liulf 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Also spelled Ligulf.
loan 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A grassy track for livestock’ usually leading through arable land to the grazing lands; originally ‘before the enclosing of fields, a strip of grass of varying breadth running through the arable part of a farm and frequently linking it with the common grazing ground of the community, serving as a pasture, a driving road and a milking place for the cattle of the farm or village and as a common green’ (SND).
loch 1 historical form5 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A loch, a lake'; also Scots, a loan-word from Gaelic loch.
Lockie 1 historical form
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
For details of the surname Lockie, see under The Howe LAU.
lodge 2 historical forms3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A gate-house'; also 'a hut, a shelter'. It can also refer to a small, remote house, as in Lockies Lodge, a small house in the Lammermuirs occupied by a (shep)herd.
longphort 1 place-name
Language: Gaelic (G), Part of Speech: N
'Encampment', 'hunting lodge or bothy', 'shieling'. This word has a variety of meanings, for some of which see Watson 1926, 493-5. See also PNF 5 (Elements Glossary) s.v. for a full discussion, and the tentative suggestion that it may originally have been a loan-word from Old English into Old Gaelic.
Lowry 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A hypocoristic form of Lawrence, also written Lowrie/Laurie etc.
Maccus 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
This name is found as the first element in the surname Maxwell and the place-name Maxton ROX. For a detailed discussion, see Thornton 1997, including Appendix II: Talkarn Mackus, O. J. Padel, 95-98.
Magdalene 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
Possibly the saint.
maide 1 place-name
Language: Gaelic (G), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A stick, staff, cudgel’ (Dwelly), Old Gaelic maide m. ‘a stick, staff, beam, log’.
maiden 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A maiden'.
mains 6 historical forms29 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘The home farm of an estate, cultivated by or for the proprietor’, ultimately from Latin dominicum ‘the lord’s (lands)’, via Old French demeine, whence also English demesne (also English domain) (OED). Also Scots.
mains 5 historical forms10 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘The home farm of an estate, cultivated by or for the proprietor’, ultimately from Latin dominicum ‘the lord’s (lands)’, via Old French demeine, whence also English demesne (also English domain) (OED). Also SSE.
Maldred 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
For a discussion of this personal name, see under Manderston DNS.
May 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The month of May'.
may 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Hawthorn' especially hawthorn in bloom.
meadow 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A meadow'.
Meadow House 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
See Broadmeadows House HUT, which is the later name of Meadow House.
Meg 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
A hypocoristic (pet) form of Margaret.
mere 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A pond, lake, pool; wetland'. According to the detailed discussion in Gelling and Cole (2000, 21–27), the term was applied to both natural and man-made ponds and lakes irrespective of size, but not to those that formed part of a larger water feature, such as a bay of the sea, estuary or pool in a river. It is common as both a first and second element, with about 30 instances of the compound mere-tūn in English place-names.
merry, mirrie 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Cheerful, happy, carefree' (CSD2) might perhaps be used in minor names to refer to good quality land in the same way as terms such as laughing.
mersc 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A marsh’. Gelling and Cole (2000, 57–58), note that it is found in about 60 English place-names, often as a second element or simplex name, but in 33 instances as the first element in combination with tūn. An alternative form is merisc. DOST (s.v. mersk) cites OE męrse, merise 'a tract of low-lying alluvial land', noting the modern south English dialect word mersk 'marsh'. It may be the equivalent of Sc carse, found for example in the Carse of Gowrie, the fertile, low-lying land between the Tay and the Sidlaws in Perthshire.
mid 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE)
'Middle; situated between two other similar features'.
middle 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Middle, mid-'.
millar 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A miller' (also milner etc) (DOST).
Miller 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname. Can also be spelled Millar.
mire 3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘Mire, marsh, bog’, found in dozens of Scottish place-names, and spelled both mire and myre.
mire 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Swampy ground, bog'.
mittenful 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A mitten- or handful'.
monk 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A monk'.
mooth, mouth 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The outfall of a river', frequently in place-names la11- (CSD2).
mōr 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Marsh', 'barren upland', 'moor'. The relationship between the first two meanings is uncertain, and is discussed by Gelling and Cole (2000, 58-59), who draw attention to 'numerous instances' of the term used for both high and low features, particularly 'low-lying wetlands' and 'boggy uplands'. In England it is most common as a first element, and combines with tūn in 44 place-names.
morning 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
In the sense of east-facing, exposed to the (morning) sun. See Dixon 1947, 76-7.
morþ 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Death, murder’. EPNE (s.v. morð ‘murder’), gives as examples Morpeth (Northumberland) and Mortgrove (Hertfordshire), both apparently referring to places where a murder had been committed. The element is not in VEPN M-draft.
Morþ 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
The existence of this OE personal name is highly uncertain, although a dithematic Morthgeorn is recorded among the 12th-century additions to DLV (II, 245). See discussion under Mordington.
moss 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Boggy ground, moorland', also 'a peat bog; a stretch of moorland allocated to tenants for cutting fuel' (CSD2).
moss 2 historical forms9 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A marsh, bog, tract of wet ground’, also ‘a bog from which peats are dug, a moorland allocated to tenants of an estate for cutting fuel’ (CSD). Also Scots. This is to be distinguished from SSE moss referring to the plant.
moss-road 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A road to a moss or peat-bog'.
mount 6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A (small) hill'; it is often used in an antiquarian or fanciful way to refer to small hills or (artificial) mounds.
mouth 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A mouth'; often used of the mouth of a river.
muir 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A stretch of rough grazing'; often confused with Scots and SSE moor.
muir 8 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A muir; a stretch of rough grazing'; in Older Scots also mure, mor(e), moir, etc., defined as 1. 'barren open country, moorland, heath'; and 1b as 'a tract of open uncultivated ground appropriated to a proprietor or a community; a common; a park’ (DOST under mure). Later Sc muir is defined in CSD2 as: 'A tract or expanse of heath; barren open country', also 'rough, uncultivated land belonging to an individual proprietor or estate', or 'unenclosed uncultivated ground; the common land belonging to a burgh'. For a re-assessment of this word, stressing its importance as a grazing resource, see Whittington 1991, 17-18.
muiry 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Muir-like'. Adjective from Sc muir 'rough grazing' etc. See under muir in SND.
Mungo 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A hypocoristic form of Kentigern, the patron saint of Glasgow. It also occurs as a male personal name.
mwry 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Marshy, fenny, boggy’ (only in place-names) (DOST).
næss, nes 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A projecting piece of land'. According to Gelling and Cole (2000, 196-97), 'the commonest use is for low-lying land jutting into water or marsh'. Referents include 'flat, marshy, coastal promontories', 'promontories with slightly raised ground', 'a tongue of land between streams', and, occasionally, 'striking inland hills or ridges'.
nakit 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Naked', frequently used in place-names of land 'devoid of vegetation, bare, barren' (CSD2).
Namel 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
An otherwise unrecorded personal name, although this is unlikely.
Nan 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
A hypocoristic or pet form of Ann(e).
nature reserve 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Ph
'A nature reserve'.
Neithon 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
British personal name related to Gaelic Nechtan.
ness, nes 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A headland or promontory', frequently in place-names la12- (CSD2).
Net 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
A hypothetical name for the river now known as Monynut Water.
neuk 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A nook, outlying or remote place, an obscure corner, a lurking place’ (CSD), also ‘projecting corner of land’.
new 6 historical forms4 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'New'.
north 1 historical form4 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'North, north-lying'.
north 1 historical form2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'North, north-lying'.
nun 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A nun'.
of 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Pr
'of'.
of 3 historical forms
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Pr
Often translated into Latin as de.
old 3 historical forms7 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Old'.
orchard 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'An orchard'.
outer 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Outer'; i.e. as opposed to 'inner'.
Pace 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A male name. See discussion under Paxton HUT.
pæð 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A path'. Grammatical gender is variable. Gelling and Cole (2000, 89-91) note that the term is more common in charter boundaries and minor place-names than in major settlement names. It mostly refers to an upland track, and combines with animal names, descriptive terms, personal names and references to danger (ibid.).
park 1 historical form6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A park, a piece of land enclosed for a particular purpose, a field’; in names dating from the middle ages, it always refers to land emparked or enclosed for hunting. In modern times it is a standard Scots and SSE word for a field. Also Scots.
park 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
In Older Scots it is defined as ‘a piece of land enclosed for a particular purpose; originally a tract of land in which beasts of chase were kept; a piece of enclosed woodland or forest;’ also ‘land set aside for recreation; gardens'; and ‘a meadow or pasturage; a field (? chiefly or only, for grazing)’ (DOST). In modern Scots, and to some extent in SSE, it is this final meaning, which has come to dominate, applied to any kind of field. It is found as both a specific and a generic in place-names.
partan 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A partan, edible crab’, from G partan ‘A small, edible crab’.
Pate 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
According to Black 1946, Pate (as a surname) derives from a pet-form of Patrick. See also under Patie. It can therefore be either a family name or the name of an individual (male).
peel 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also pele, peil etc. (1) 'A palisade or fence of stakes, a stockade; the ground enclosed by such' (SND). See also the elements Scots pilmuir and Scots peelrig. (2) 'A fortified house or small defensive tower, ? originally one surrounded by such a stockade or by a moated rampart' (DOST).
peelrig 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also peil-rig 'a ridge or strip of land on a pilmuir. Found in place-names, as Pilrig in Edinburgh' (SND). A pilmuir is 'a piece of common land [or rough grazing] enclosed by a fence (a peel or pele) and cultivated as arable ground' (SND).
See also Scots pilmuir.
peth 5 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A path, steep road’; DOST also defines peth as ‘(a) A cleft, re-entrant or ? water-course, running up and down the slope of a steep hill, and so offering a passage to its top. Passing into: (b) A steep path or track leading to the top of a hill’. Compare OE pæð and ME peth ‘cattle track, path’ (see also EPNE ii, 58, s.v.).
pickie 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
A reduced form of Scots pickiemaw or pickymaw (also pickmaw) 'the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus)' (SND).
Piers 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A form of Peter, originally French.
pike 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A pike’, also ‘a projecting spur or spike’, or ‘sharp pointed hill or pile of stones’ (SND).
pilmuir 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A piece of common land enclosed by a fence (a peel or pele; also pale, pail) and cultivated as arable ground, common in place-names in various counties of Scotland’; see SND under peel.
pitill 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A bird of prey (of uncertain identity), possibly ... the buzzard, Buteo buteo, or the kestrel, Falco tinnunculus’ (OED under pyttel). Note that pitill is not in DOST or SND.
place 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A town or village; a residence or house; a holding of land; an estate, farm or croft' (CSD2, sense 3).
place 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A town or village; a residence or house; a holding of land; an estate, farm or croft' (CSD2, sense 3).
plantation 4 historical forms29 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A plantation (of trees)'.
pleasant 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Pleasant, pleasing'.
pleuchland 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Ploughland'; it can be compared with 'Middle English and early Modern English plouȝ-lond (c.1394) the name used in the northern and eastern counties of England, after the Norman Conquest, for the unit of assessment of land, based upon the area capable of being tilled by one plough-team of eight oxen in the year’ (OED) (approx. = 120 acres); ... 'A ploughland, equivalent to eight oxgangs or (more or less) 104 acres' (DOST). It can also appear as pleuchgate (later ploughgate) or carrucate/carucate.
point 1 historical form6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A point; a headland'.
poo 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Also pou, pow. The common edible crab, Cancer pagurus' (SND).
pow 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A slow-moving stream or ditch flowing through carseland' 14- (CSD2).
prēost 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A priest'. As in English place-names, it may be difficult to decide whether the term is used in the singular or the plural.
priest 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A priest'; OSc prest(e), preist(e) (DOST). In place-names it can be usually be assumed to refer to a minister of the Pre-Reformation (pre-1560) Church.
pudding 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A pudding of the haggis variety’ (SND 1a); 'a type of something worthless’ (SND 1c).
pyttel 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A mouse-hawk' is the definition in Bosworth-Toller Supplement. EPNE (s.v. pyttel) gives 'a hawk, a mousehawk', adding 'possibly used sometimes as a by-name'. OED (s.v. pittel) gives the forms as OE pittel, OE pyttel, ME puttel; OSc pitill, and defines as ‘a bird of prey (of uncertain identity)', noting that the quotations 'may possibly refer to the buzzard, Buteo buteo, or the kestrel, Falco tinnunculus’. DOST (s.v. pitill) defines as 'a bird of prey, prob. some kind of hawk'.
quarter 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A quarter; one piece of land or territory divided into 4'.
racecourse 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A racecourse'.
ramage 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
Applied to a bird or animal ‘wild, untamed, unruly’; to a person ‘fierce, violent; furious’ (DOST); of persons ‘wild, excited, unruly, unmanageable; frenzied, crazed with drink; sexually excited, voluptuous’; of the ground ‘rough, broken, uneven; or phs. scrubby, covered with brushwood’ (SND). Also rammage.
raw 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A row of houses'.
raw, row 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A row of houses'.
reed 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The reed plant'.
Regna 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A short form of the personal name Regenwald (Williamson 1942, 9).
reid 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Red'; it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between Scots reid ‘red’ and Scots rede or reid ‘reed’.
reservoir 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A reservoir'.
rice 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A small branch or twig of a growing tree or bush; such small branches or twigs, collectively, a bush; dense, twiggy wood-growth, brushwood, freq. along the banks of a river’, with variants rise, rys(e), ryis, rysse, ryce) (DOST). From OE hrīs 'shrubs, brushwood'.
Rickie 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A hypocoristic form of Richard.
rig 5 historical forms29 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A ridge, long narrow hill or strip of land’ (SND); a 'strip of ploughed land raised in the middle and sloping gradually to a furrow on either side, in the pre-agrarian revolution system of agriculture, usu. bounded by patches of uncultivated grazing ground' (SND).
rig 1 historical form16 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A ridge of land; a strip of arable'. Also Scots; see Scots rig for more details.
roadside 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A roadside'.
rock 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A rock'; also Scots.
rook 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A rook', a member of the crow family.
ros 1 place-name
Language: Gaelic (G), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Promontory, isthmus, peninsula’ (Dwelly), gen. sing. rois. OG ‘a wood, frequently of a wooded height or of a promontory on shore of a lake or river; common in place-names, either alone or followed by a genitive’ (DIL). It would appear, however, to be used in Scottish place-names almost exclusively to mean ‘promontory, headland’. It is cognate with Welsh rhos ‘promontory, moor’.
ross 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Headland, promontory'. A hypothetical loan-word into Scots from Gaelic ros, same meaning. See discussion under Ross MRD BWK.
ruck 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also rowk(e), rook 'a stack of hay or corn of a standard shape; a heap or pile of any material' (SND).
rye-miln 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A mill for grinding rye; a mill which mainly grinds rye'.
sainfoin 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Sainfoin', the fodder crop Onobrychis sativa (OED, s.v. sainfoin, n.).
scaur 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
The SND under the head-word scaur gives the following variants: scar(re), skarre; scare, skair, skare, sker(r), skear (Dmf. 1812 W. Singer Agric. Dmf. 539); skir, skyr (Sc. 1887 Jam.)’, defining it as: ‘a sheer rock, crag, precipice, cliff, a steep hill from which the soil has been washed away’.
sceaga 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A small wood'. Evidence from English place-names suggests that the sense ‘strip of wood’ was probably established by the 9th century, but that an earlier sense referred to more substantial woods (Gelling and Cole 2000, 245-7). Compounds with terms for wild animals and birds are common. Cranshaw and Cronkshaw in Lancashire both refer to the crane, and are doublets of Cranshaws in Berwickshire.
Scott 2 place-names
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A common Borders surname, the best-known bearer being Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the famous writer from the Scottish Borders.
scoured 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Scoured, rubbed bare'.
scout 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Common guillemot (Uria aalge)' or 'razorbill (Alca torda)' (SND); according to OED it can also apply to a puffin, while green scoot is a green cormorant (i.e. a shag). Almost all the examples given in OED are from Scotland, with one from Northumberland. Its origin is obscure, but it is probably related to scoter, as in the common scoter (Melanitta nigra nigra), a black sea-duck.
setl 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A seat’ is the literal meaning, but the term develops a metonymic sense ‘a dwelling’ and a metaphorical sense ‘a (geographically) high situation’, both of which occur in English place-names. The noun is grammatically neuter, but also takes masculine inflections in Old Northumbrian.
several 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
Applied to land or territory it means 'a. privately owned or occupied. b. belonging to an individual (kingdom), sovereign, not common or debateable' (DOST).
shaw 6 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A small wood; copse; grove, thicket’ (DOST; also schaw(e)). From OE sceaga, scaga m., pl. sceagan, ‘a small wood, a copse, a strip of undergrowth or wood’ (EPNE under sceaga). It can appear in English place-names as Shaw and Shay (for which see also Higham 1989).
shiel 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A shieling; a bothy'.
shiel 2 historical forms13 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also spelled sheil (with shiel the head-word in CSD2); a shieling or shiel is defined by SND as: ‘A hut or rude shelter, a temporary house of stones, sods, etc., esp. one built for the accommodation of shepherds and dairy maids in the higher or more remote areas used as summer grazing ground for sheep and cattle’. In *Samsonshiels CHK they are translated into Latin as logis (dative plural), as in Logis Samsonis in the phrase 'a meadow in the shielings of Samson' (unum pratum in Logis Samsonis) c.1250 x c.1290 Dryburgh Liber no. 183; while Samson himself is referred to as Samsonis de Logis ('Samson of the Shiels') c.1220 x 1229 (Dryburgh Liber no. 176). See under Shielfield LAU for more details). They are also Latinised as scalingas (feminine accusative plural) (e.g. 1165 x 1170 Kelso Liber ii no. 321).
shot, schot 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A piece of ground, especially one cropped rotationally; a smallholding' la16- (CSD2). As noted in DOST, s.v. s(c)hot, "In our records only in south eastern Scotland, south of the Forth". This supports a derivation from OE scēot 'corner of land' suggested by CSD2, despite the gap of more than three centuries between attestations.
shuttle 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A shuttle'; in place-names, used metaphorically to refer to shape, or metonymically to refer to a weaver.
side 5 historical forms13 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A hill-side; side'; the latter usually referring to land or settlement beside the feature which forms the specific element of a compound name, as in Burnside, Gateside etc.
sīde 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
‘A side’. The term develops a meaning 'hill-side', and is also used to refer to land beside a feature such as a river or wood.
side 3 historical forms6 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A side', e.g. used of a hill-side, or of land beside a feature such as a stream, moor, bog, road etc.
sister 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A nun, a sister (female religious)’; its basic meaning is a female sibling, but in place-names it generally refers to nuns.
skaith 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
The most recent thinking on the difficult element skaith in both English and Scottish place-names is to be found in Whaley 2017. In this article she sets out the many theories as to the meaning of this element, along with the supporting data from both England and Scotland, concluding that in at least some cases the meaning is likely to be 'racecourse, running track', deriving from Old Norse (Old West Scandinavian) skeið (n.) with the same meaning.
slæd 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A valley’. Whereas finely nuanced meanings have been identified for many OE topographical terms, including those for different types of valleys, Gelling and Cole (2000, 141) describe OE slæd as ‘difficult to give a meaningful translation for’. Their discussion (2000, 141-2; see also 295) suggests that the term was probably not used for main valleys, and may characteristically denote those that were small, flat-bottomed, and wet-bottomed. Part of the problem is that it is uncertain which if any of the range of dialect meanings of modern slade were already present in OE. These include ‘a valley, dell, or dingle; an open space between banks or woods; a forest glade; a strip of greensward or of boggy land’ (OED, s.v. slade, n.1). Williamson (1942, 106) defines OE slæd as ‘low flat valley, slope, hollow’, but as Smith observed in 1956, there may have been ‘some more particular application which has not yet been determined’ (EPNE, s.v. slæd).
slaid 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also slaid, slede ‘an open space, a forest glade or dell, a hollow or valley’ (DOST). It cites as the earliest attestation of this word the Berwickshire place-name Whitslaid, giving the form Witslede from ‘Liber Calchou 205’ (i.e. Kelso Liber i no. 248). While this certainly contains the element in question, it cannot refer to Whitslaid LEG (see the discussion under that name).
Williamson, in her discussion of OE slæd, mentions ‘ModSc slaid, “hollow between rising grounds, especially with a rivulet”’, citing Jamieson, Dictionary under slaid (1942, 106). It should be noted that neither CSD or SND appears to have this word.
sleg 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A large, heavy hammer, a sledgehammer' (DOST).
snāw 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'Snow'. The term appears in several English place-names, characteristically referring to ‘hills where the snow lies long’ (EPNE, s.v. snāw). Among them are Snowden in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Snowdon in Devon, both of which – alongside the more famous Snowdon in Wales – are doublets of Snawdon in Berwickshire.
sneep 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
This is not recorded as a word in DOST, SND or CSD2, but its existence in place-names such as Sneep BWK suggests that there was a Scots descendant of OE *snæp which probably means ‘a boggy piece of land’, and which can be compared with present-day English regional (south-west) snape ‘a swampy place in a field’. Smith, in his discussion of this OE word, also mentions Icelandic snap ‘a patch of scanty grass for sheep to nibble at in snow-covered fields, poor pasturage' (EPNE ii, 132). See also the discussion by Maggie Scott (2003) under snape, sneep, which she defines as Middle Scots.
snuke 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also snuk, snwk, snook, 'a projecting piece of land, a headland, a promontory' (DOST).
sooty 1 historical form
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Sooty, black like soot'.
souter 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
' A shoemaker, a cobbler'. it is most famously applied to the Souters, 'the two hills enclosing the entrance to the Cromarty Firth on the north and south, and resembling cobblers bent over their work. Cf. The Cobbler in Argyll' (SND). However, the BWK Souter is a vertical rock-stack, perhaps reminiscent of a shoemaker's needle.
south 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'South, south-lying'.
southside 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
With reference to a feature lying to the south of another, similar feature.
spēc 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'Speech, the act of speaking'. This is the first element of the English place-names Speeton in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Spetchley in Worcestershire (KEPN), but is difficult to differentiate from the homonymous OE spēc ‘brushwood’. It appears to refer to meeting places where speeches were made.
spech(e), spek(e) 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘Speech, the act of speaking’ (DOST).
spital 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A hospital’; also spitall and spittal(l), referring to an institution chiefly but not exclusively concerned with treating the sick, since the care of the poor and giving shelter to pilgrims and other travellers were also functions of the spital. Many were founded by medieval religious orders. For more discussion, see Hall 2006, 43–59 and Appendix 2 (‘List of Scottish Medieval Hospitals’).
Spot 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
This is a hypothetical personal name (see under Spottiswoode WRR). Despite the fact that Williamson states that OE Spot occurs as a personal name in Searle’s Onom., as well as Spothild (f.), neither of these names appears in the PASE Database.
spring 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A spring (of water)'.
St John ns 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
St John (non-specific).
St Leonard 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
'Supposedly a 6th century mionk and hermit at Noblac, near Limoges, France. His cult is first known from the 11th century, after which it becomes popular, and his cult is linked to the patronage of prisoners (and also pregnant women), with a narrative link to the crusades which may have influenced its growth. ODS. Leonard’s cult was popular in western Europe from the 11th century. There is a Life of c1025 according to which he was a Frankish noble who converted to Christianity; he became a monk at Micy, and a hermit at Noblac where, though his help, the wife of Clovis I (founder of the Merovingian dynasty) gave birth in safety to a male child. Through Clovis’s endowment, the abbey of Noblac was founded. Here Leonard died and was buried. His cult spread from France to England, Italy and Bavaria He may have lived in the 6th century but his historical existence is not proved. He was patron of pregnant women and captives. ODS, 320.' Taken from https://www.saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk/saint.php?id=556
In Scotland he is especially associated with the care of the sick more generally, and is the patron saint of several hospitals.
St Mary 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender F
Mary the mother of Jesus also known as the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM).
stack 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
This has a range of meanings, from the topographical, 'a tall column of rock rising out of the sea in front of a cliff of which it had originally formed part till separated by weathering' (SND), to the agricultural and domestic, 'a pile of grain or other crop; a pile of peat' (SND).
stān 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A stone, a rock’. Smith (EPNE, s.v. stān) identifies a range of meanings in place-names, including allusions to the stony character of the ground, to places where rock was obtained, to stone paving, to a monolith or standing-stone, to a boundary stone, and possibly to a stone building.
stead 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
‘A farmhouse and its outbuildings, a steading’.
stede 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘An area of land, a landed property or estate, a farm. Also schepestede, a stretch of land grazed by sheep (see s(c)hep(e) n. 5 a (2)). .... There is particularly frequent reference to lands in the Borders’; a. 'The site of a building or buildings, etc., a piece of land on which a building stands; an enclosed area or yard attached to a building. b. A piece of land set aside for some function which, also, might entail a building or buildings. c. Passing into a place-name. Chiefly constituting an attribute specifying the nature of the building, enterprise, etc.’ (DOST).
steel 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Steep bank, especially spur of a hill ridge’ (SND). May Williamson (1942, 149) discusses this element under Middle Scots steil, which she states ‘has varied meanings. Generally ... “a precipice, rock, ridge, tongue of land” (English Dialect Dictionary, J. Wright, 1898-1905). In Liddesdale the meaning is “wooded cleugh or precipice: lower part of a ridge projecting from a hill where the ground declines on each side” (Jamieson, Dictionary). The origin of the word is OE stīgol, “steep, precipitous”’. She gives various examples, such as The Steele ROX and Ashiesteel SLK but none in BWK.
sting 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A wooden pole, stake, stave, bar or beam’ (DOST); ‘a pole, a long bar of wood, specifically one carried on the shoulders of two men, from which a load can be suspended by ropes or the like; a mast (of a boat); a punt-pole, etc. (see dictionary entry for other, technical meanings’ (SND).
stob 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A stump of a tree or shrub; stake, pole' (DOST); note also the specific use in burghs of ‘a stake driven into the ground to serve as a boundary-marker, at a spot ascertained by measuring with a line (hence, once, lyne stobbis)’ (DOST). It can also refer to other objects reduced to stumps, or looking stump-like, as for example in Stob Cross (Markinch) FIF PNF 2, 395.
In an English context Smith (EPNE ii, 164) discusses *stobb as a hypothetical variant of OE stubb ‘a stub, a tree-stump’. The former is attested only in place-names e.g. Stobswood (Northumberland) (Stobbeswod 1250, cited in Ekwall 1960 (4th edn)). Note it seems to have very northern English distribution.
stock 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A block of wood, a log, a tree-stump’ (SND); OSc stok(k), stock etc. ‘the trunk of a tree, chiefly as stripped of its branches; a tree stump; a block or length of wood; a log’ (DOST). It occurs several times in the compound stockbrig, later stockbridge, ‘a bridge made out of logs’, the earliest example being Stokbryg 1295 Paisley Reg., 94, with reference to a bridge near Paisley RNF.
stot 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A young castrated ox, a steer, bullock, generally one of the second year and upwards’ (SND).
strēam 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
‘A flood, a current, a river’. The term is rare in Old English, and unknown in English place-names before the thirteenth century.
strip 3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A strip of woodland'.
struther 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘Bog, marsh’; also strother, it occurs comparatively infrequently north of the Forth-Clyde line (see DOST under strother). It is a variant of OE strōd, ‘marshy land overgrown with brushwood’, and appears in northern English place-names as strother (see EPNE, under strōd and *strōðer; and Gelling and Cole 2000, 63).
sunny 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
In most cases this probably simply refers to land ‘exposed to, warmed or illuminated by the (rays of the) sun’ (DOST under son(n)y, sun(n)y etc, 1). It may, however, sometimes have to do with the division of lands into sunny (Latin solaris) and shady (Latin umbralis) halves, quarters etc, as for example in ‘the sunny third’ (of Wester Rossie CLS FIF) (tertiam partem solarem 1611 × 1615 RMS vii no. 1171). See PNF 4, 236.
It can also be SSE.
swīn 3 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
‘A pig’. The term is fairly common in English place-names, but is sometimes difficult to differentiate from OE *swin ‘a creek, a channel’ (EPNE, s.vv. swīn1, *swin2).
swine 2 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A pig; swine'; also swyn(e), etc. (see DOST for a list of variant spellings).
syke 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A small stream'.
telegraph 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Telegraph'.
temple 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A temple; a temple-like structure or building'; also an antiquarian term used to associate a place with the medieval Knights Templars (later the Order of the Knights of St John). The older equivalent, Scots temple, almost always indicates land or property owned by the Order before the Reformation.
the 2 historical forms7 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: D
'The'.
thirlstane 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A stone with a hole through it'.
thorny 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Filled with or composed of thorn trees or bushes' (DOST).
þyrelstān 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A stone with a hole through it'. The compound occurs twice in English place-names (EPNE, s.v. þyrel 'a hole, an opening (as in a wall)').
þyrne 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A thorn-bush'. The element occurs in English place-names both as a qualifier and as a generic (EPNE, s.v. þyrne).
titlin 2 historical forms1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A meadow pipit', also titling (SND); in Older Scots titling can mean, besides 'meadow pipit', any small bird (DOST).
toddle 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: V
(Of running water): 'to glide, purl, ripple' (SND).
toft 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘The site of a house or buildings; a homestead, also apparently sometimes with reference to land ? attached to a homestead’ (DOST). In charters it is often paired with croft (Latinised ‘toftum et croftum’) which specifically relates to the land, while in this collocation toft refers exclusively to the site of the dwelling-house and attached buildings. For a wide-ranging discussion of this element in Scottish and Manx place-names, see Gammeltoft 2001.
toun 9 historical forms19 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A farm, a settlement'.
toun heid 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'The upper end or highest point of a town' (DOST); for 'town' read any collection of houses, ferm-toun, hamlet etc.
tower 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A tower'.
Townhead 2 place-names
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Townhead of Old Cambus CBP.
Trasnagh 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Trasnagh on Strangford Lough, Co. Down, Northern Ireland.
trottand 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
This is the present participle of Scots trot 'to trot', used adjectivally.
trow 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A troll; a mischievous sprite or fairy, a supernatural being common in Scandinavian mythology from which it passed into Shetland and Orkney folk-lore' (SND). Other instances of Lowland Scottish usage need to be found before this element can be confidently regarded as productive in Berwickshire place-names.
tūn 19 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A farm, a settlement'. This is the most common element in English place-names, with an extensive entry in EPNE (s.v. tūn) setting out meaning developments and characteristic types of formation.
turf 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Turf'. Turf could be used as both fuel and building material. Also Scots.
twin 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'(Consisting of) two; double' (DOST).
Ulfkil 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
Ulfkil or Ulkil, an Anglo-Scandinavian name (ON Úlfkell). See discussion under Oxton CHK.
up, upp 1 place-name
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: Av
'Up, higher up, upon’; adverb and preposition. The main uses in English place-names are to denote ‘(land) higher up than something else’, ‘the higher one (of two)’, or ‘a place with a lofty situation’ (EPNE, s.v. upp, up, uppe).
upper 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Upper, higher-lying'; often the equivalent of Scots over.
view 2 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
A common element in house-names coined over the past two hundred years or so. Its use is more complex than first appears. As a general rule, if it combines with the name of an object (or direction) which can be seen well from the site, that object (or direction) comes first in the name as a kind of specific element, while view comes second, e.g. Bayview, Seaview etc. Alternatively, view can come in first position to indicate a place from which there is a good view, such as The Viewfield and Viewbank. For more discussion on this element, see PNF 5, Elements Glossary under view.
It can also refer to a view enjoyed by an individual, as in Scott's View MER.
ville 1 place-name
Language: French (Fr), Part of Speech: N, Gender F
'A town', used in place-names also to mean a single settlement.
Waddel 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
According to Black (1946) under Waddel, this surname derives from Wedale, the old name for Stow MLO.
Wallace 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P
A surname. In a number of Scottish place-names the surname concerned refers to William Wallace (d. 1305), prominent figure in the first Scottish war of independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
wanton 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Unrestrained'; in place-names usually in combination with Scots wall 'a well', and so probably applied to a vigorously flowing well or spring.
washing 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Associated with washing'.
water 2 historical forms5 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'Water', usually in the sense of 'river'.
water 1 historical form5 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A river, a large burn'.
waulkmiln 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A (water-powered) mill where the process of waulking or fulling is carried out’; fulling or waulking makes ‘cloth thick and felted by a process of soaking, beating and shrinking’ (CSD).
weasely 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Weasel-like, intentionally misleading (OED); devious, untrustworthy'.
wedder 4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A wether; a castrated ram'. See also SSE wether.
Wedderburn 1 historical form1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
As this first appears as the name of a burn, it is fully analysed under *Wedder Burn.
weel 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
‘A deep pool in a stream or river; an eddy, whirlpool' SND, which adds that it is also found in northern English dialect, is frequent in place-names, and gives the variants wele, wiel, weal; wheel.
west 4 historical forms12 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Westerly, west-lying'.
west 3 historical forms5 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Westerly, west-lying'.
wester 1 historical form3 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'Westerly, west-lying'.
wester 1 historical form4 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
'Westerly, west-lying' (usually reciprocating with Scots easter).
Westmains 1 place-name
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Westmains is now West Foulden FOU.
wether 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A wether; a castrated ram'. See also Scots wedder.
whelp 1 historical form
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
Also quhelp(e), whelp(e) and welpe ‘the young of a dog, a pup; the young of a wild animal; a cub’ (DOST).
whin 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
OSc quhin(n) 'a name given to various very hard, dark-coloured rocks or stones; whinstone' (DOST).
white 1 historical form5 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
'White', with various connotations, for which see PNF 5, Elements Glossary s.v.
white 1 historical form18 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: Aj
‘White’, earlier quhite, quhyte.
Whitfield 2 historical forms
Language: Existing Name (en), Part of Speech: P
Check that this is Whitfield AYT.
wīc 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender N
'A dwelling, a building or collection of buildings for special purposes, a farm, a dairy farm' (EPNE, s.v. wīc). Also 'a specialised farm, work-place, trading-place’. Originally a neuter noun, it was later treated as feminine (Bosworth-Toller). This element is not mentioned in DOST or SND, although it does seem to have been used occasionally north of the Forth in a Scots-speaking milieu (see PNF 5, Elements Glossary under *wik).
wick 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'An inlet of the sea, a small bay' (SND), also occurring in Older Scots as wick or weike, and in 17th-century English as weeke) (DOST).
wildlife reserve 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Ph
'A wildlife reserve'.
Willie 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
A hypocoristic form of the male forename William.
win 1 place-name
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'Win, gain, profit'; also wyn(e) 'wealth, possessions, goods; gain, profit, income' (DOST). In a specifically agricultural context it can also mean ‘the quantity of standing corn that a team of reapers can cut while moving in one direction, generally one or two rigs taken together, according to the size of the team’ (SND).
wind 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'The wind', used in place-names of a place exposed to the wind.
windy 1 place-name
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: Aj
Can also be Scots.
wood 2 historical forms37 place-names
Language: Scottish Standard English (SSE), Part of Speech: N
'A wood'. For names containing the Scots equivalent, see under wuid. Wood-names clearly coined after c.1750, especially those referring to plantings on the policies of big houses, can be assumed to be SSE rather than Scots.
worð 2 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'An enclosure'. The element was in use from the early Anglo-Saxon period, appearing in documents as early as the 7th century. It characteristically combines with a personal name (c.75%), and was particularly productive in Northumbria. It became obsolete in the literary period, and another element has been substituted in two of the only three place-names previously known to contain it in Scotland: Cessford and Jedburgh, both in Roxburghshire. Similarly in the neighbouring county of Northumberland, wood has been substituted in at least five place-names originally from worð. (Adapted from EPNE, s.v. worð, and Nicolaisen 2001 [1976], 99-100).
wudu 1 historical form5 place-names
Language: Old English (OE), Part of Speech: N, Gender M
'A wood'. Gelling and Cole (2000, 257-61) identify this as the most common term for ‘wood’ in English place-names, but draw attention to its unusually high frequency as a qualifying element.
wuid 1 historical form10 place-names
Language: Scots (Sc), Part of Speech: N
'A wood'. It is often difficult to know whether a name referring to a wood was coined in Scots or SSE, so all occurrences of this word are included under Scots wuid. Wood-names clearly coined after c.1750, especially those referring to plantings on the policies of big houses, can be assumed to be SSE rather than Scots.
Ēadgar 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
An OE personal name.
Ēadmær 1 place-name
Language: Personal Name (pn), Part of Speech: P, Gender M
An OE personal name.
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