spait
Middle Scots
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Etymology uncertain; possibly related to English spatter and Dutch spatten (“to spatter, splash”),[1] possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sp(y)ēw, *spyū (whence English spit (“to evacuate (saliva or another substance) from the mouth, etc.”)),[2] which is imitative of spitting.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]spait
- (archaic) spate
- 1902, G. Gregory Smith, “Prologue to Aen. VII”, in Specimens of Middle Scots, William Blackwood and Sons, page 124:
- Reweris rane reid one spait with watteir broun […]
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- 1820 January, “The Marmaiden of Clyde”, in The Scots Magazine, and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany[1], volume VI, number 1 (overall work in English), page 423:
- A spait the river rase
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
References
[edit]- ^ “spate, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
- ^ John Ayto (1990) Dictionary of Word Origins, New York, N.Y.: Arcade Publishing, →ISBN.
Further reading
[edit]- John Jamieson (1825) “SPAIT”, in Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: […], volumes II (K–Z), Edinburgh: […] University Press; for W[illiam] & C[harles] Tait, […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC, page 452, column 1.