‘Chore' or ‘chorie' was originally a word used by Scottish Gypsies and Travellers. The first record in the Scottish National Dictionary (SND) dates from 1911with a reference to the Scotsman of 23rd December. However, Walter Simson writing in 1865, recorded the forms ‘chor' and ‘tschor' and gives the example: “I asked her to leave this place fearing that her chavie [son] was a chor”. This meaning seems to have been only used by Gypsies and the modern noun meaning would usually be used in the phrase ‘on the chore' as the following extract from an anti-burglary poem in the Scottish Daily Mail of 10th April  2015 shows: “Staying in or goin oot? Lock the windaes ‘n' front door. A simple step maybe, that'll prevent access tae them on the chore”. The following quotation from Irving Welsh's Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995) shows the use of the verb in the language of the non-Gypsy population: “They must have thought we were gaunny chorie aypils or something.”

At what point and in what way, or why, many of these originally Traveller or Gypsy words came to be used by the general Scots-speaking population is unclear. It has been suggested by authors of Traveller origin - Betsy Whyte and Jess Smith - that the reason many of these words were used by children was because Traveller children had to attend mainstream schools for a certain number of days a year and naturally, took their language with them.

SND gives the etymology as coming from Romany ‘chor' ‘choar' “to steal”. Further research suggests a connection to Hindi or Sankrit which has the words ‘chor' and ‘chora' respectively with the same meaning.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Pauline Cairns Speitel of Scottish Language Dictionaries