Several of the dictionary quotations for ashet show a degree of affection for this practical item. John MacTaggart’s The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824) gives this definition: “Aschet, the king of the trencher tribe. Some time ago they were made of pewter...and stood on the loftiest skelf [of the dresser] like so many shields.” The Edinburgh Evening News (2001) also has a rather grand opinion of ashets if “images of massive haunches of venison served on large ashets with pomp and ceremony suggest baronial splendour”. Sheena Blackhall in The Bonsai Grower (1998) thinks of ashets as round –“Fin Nell gaed oot tae feed the chukkens, he’d wauk aside her, wi braw tales o farawa airts an fremmit fowk. Syne, Nell’s een wad grow roon as ashets” – but they are by no means so restricted in shape, according to a poem by J. Thomson (1812) describing “Assiets oval, round, and square, Puddin plates the best o’ ware”. Indeed for many Scots the word conjures up a picture of a deep pie dish, probably rectangular, of white enamel with a blue rim. In this receptacle The Independent (1996) describes a lunch “served, free of charge, to old-age pensioners at the parish church in the Scottish town of Wishaw. The menu was scotch-broth, ashet pie and ice-cream. The ashet pie – named after the Scots dialect term for a shallow oval dish with pastry on top but none below – was of steak”. The Sunday Times (2000) might adopt a scathing tone: “We bang on about centuries of fellow-feeling, the cultural and military group hug that was the Auld Alliance and how ‘ashet pie’ and ‘bunnet’ were phrases happily handed over by our Gallic cousins”, but we have many good Scots words to thank the French for, including such tableware as the tassie and the ashet.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.

This week's Word is spoken by writer and broadcaster Billy Kay.