Essential Scots-English Dictionary

In this section you will find helpful points for using Scots in education settings. Depending on the age of your learners, these may be useful for discussion amongst the pupils themselves, or as part of your professional development and conversations with colleagues.

The Essential Scots–English Dictionary is a fantastic resource for use in classrooms of any age, in any part of Scotland. As the place of the Scots language in both education and wider society continues to become more accepted, there is more demand than ever for a reliable source of English definitions for Scots vocabulary. That is exactly what this resource provides. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language, available through the DSL Online platform, are an unparalleled resource in reliability for the Scots language. Specific resources such as the Essential Scots–English Dictionary have been specifically curated and tailored to be used by teachers and pupils in Scottish schools today.

It is a very simple and user-friendly tool. Just type your Scots word in and hit search:

Here we have searched the Scots word “fankle”.  The results will then show in light blue which type of speech it is (including multiple types of speech for some words, like “fankle”) then we are told what the English translations are. No mention of a particular part of Scotland or dialect means that it is used across all of the country.

As we see for words that have very similar (sometimes identical) spellings but different meanings, any teacher or pupil needs to be careful when they look up a word and find more than one result. The image above is the result when we search the Scots word “wee”. You will see that the first entry tells us that it is an adjective and means small or little, i.e. the Scots phrase “a wee drap” is “a small drop” in English. It can also be used as a noun. 

This is where we should always be mindful of context. We can use the relevant context clues to help understand what the dictionary is offering and which answer is the one we are looking for. The context tells us that the line in English should not be, and would not make sense, as “a weigh drop”. It is exactly the sort of fankle that can occur when learning or researching any language. (See the English word “dear” for a similar example!)

If in doubt, a great way to be sure is to doublecheck, so in this case let’s look up the Scots word “wey” and see:

We find there is a variety of options for how Scots speakers have used, and may use, the word “wey” – but none of them are correct when wanting to say small or little.

A particularly helpful feature is the option to hear the word – with all recordings voiced by young people themselves from across Scotland. Not every single word comes with audio: just those whose correct pronunciations are less obvious. Notice the audio symbol beside “wey” and “wye” above. As with all work produced by Dictionaries of the Scots language SCIO, the detail of dialect diversity is equally helpful – as well as an area which may cause the odd wee fankle. Sticking with the Scots word for small, what about those in the Northern Isles, where the word “wee” isn’t as common as across mainland Scotland? Instead, the phrase “a peedie drap” will be said across the Orkney Isles as often as kettles are boiled in Orcadian homes:

We see that both Orkney and Shetland have a unique word which, same as “wee”, is an adjective meaning small or tiny. So that’s good. But what does that “2” mean next to “peerie” – what does that tell us? As with “wee” and “wey” the best way to find out is to enter “peerie” into the dictionary and search to find out:

It means that there are two Scots words with the same spelling but different definitions (just like there are multiple English words with different definitions but the same spelling e.g. “dear”). The “2” in the previous search result showed us that it was the second of two entries for peerie in this dictionary. The first entry doesn’t mention Shetland or Orkney, is a different type of speech, and has a completely different definition. These clues allow us to understand not only the different parts of Scotland where we could find the word “peerie” being used, but also how it could be used in a Scots phrase or sentence – just as we used context clues to examine the definitions of “wee” vs “wey”.

So we can see there is an abundance of material available within the Essential Scots–English Dictionary, with plenty to read, listen to, analyse and understand. As with any dictionary of any language, we need to tread carefully at times and be wary of straying away from our intended outcome. There are helpful ways to get back on track if we do ever veer off course.