BEGOWK, v. and n.

Dictionaries of the Scots Language defines begowk as meaning

“to befool; to jilt in courtship; to slight a woman”.

An early example of the befool usage comes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel of treachery and skullduggery, Kidnapped:

“Ah, but I’ll begowk you there!”.

Earlier still, there is this from a prize-winning short story published in the Dundee People’s Journal (1858):

“Confoond the auld leein vagabond! Gien me a bony begowk I trow!”

Later, William Neill’s Making Tracks and Other Poems (1988) gives us:

“I kent thay wad begowk ye in the end for aw yir gesterin aboot the toun tae mak daft lauds an glaikit lassies geck”.

Billy Kay listed several synonyms in the St Andrews Citizen (1993):

“For cheat you have a choice of chate, begowk, begunk, blink, wick, sconce, nick, jouk, quirk and pauchle…”

We have limited evidence for the jilted sense. However, it was noted as a usage from Peebles by John Jamieson in his 1825 Etymological Dictionary of the Scots Language. And in the same year we find this in the Belfast Commercial Chronicle:

“… the meenister was wantin’ to begowk the young leddy … it behoved us to remonstrate wi’ him on the subject… how surpreezed we a’ war, that he should think now o’ breakin’ aff his engagement.”

The word has even made it as far afield as the Nigerian newspaper This Day (2021).

“An electorate so gullible A people plain malleable And completely begowked You wonder how it worked? They’re one and all of a kind Stricken by poverty of the mind.”

This Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language.

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