Accessing the dictionary
There are 3 ways to access the entries in the dictionary.
- Browse the dictionary: navigate a complete, alphabetically-sorted list of the headwords and subheadwords in the dictionary to link to individual entries.
- Search the dictionary: enter your term in the box to search the dictionary headwords. You have the option to use a wildcard search. For example, searching for ab* will return all entries where the headword begins with ab (capped at 10 entries). The Search the dictionary search box is available on every page of the site. Search results show the qualifying entries in full.
- Full text search: enter your terms in the box to search the full text of the dictionary entries. This will return entries containing your search term anywhere in the entry (not just as a headword). You also have the option to use a wildcard search here. Search results show qualifying entries in full and are capped at 10 entries.
Dictionary entries
The first-listed bold word in the entry is usually called the headword. Any variant forms of the headword are shown immediately afterwards separated by commas.
The part of speech of the headword eg noun, verb etc follows the headword. There may be more than one part of speech for a headword.
The Scots translations of the headword are given after the part of speech. These are sometimes split into numbered senses if the headword can have more than one meaning.
Regional labels are shown in small caps and identify words which are (or were) used only or mainly in certain parts of Scotland.
Examples of the Scots word in use are shown in italics.
Any related compounds and phrases are shown in a bulleted list under the main translation.