This is a word known and used throughout Scotland, but surprisingly, it does not have an entry of its own in the Scottish National Dictionary. Instead, it appears in its singular form under ‘breek’. The reason becomes clear when we look back at the history of its use. The earliest example in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue comes from John Barbour’s Legends of the Saints (1380): “Al nakit bot sark & breke” and its use in the singular continues until the late eighteenth century. We first find the plural form attested in the Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland for 1494: “Ane greit hude, coit and brekis”, and thereafter the plural becomes more frequent. Breeks come in many materials and styles. The Edinburgh Burgh Accounts (1558) refer to “Twa ledderone skynnis till be ane pair of breiks to the gray freir”. Those described in John Spalding’s Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and in England, 1624–1645 sound more comfortable: “Ane brave company of tounes soldiouris, all cled in white satein doubletis, blak veluot breikis, and silk stokingis”. Less grand trouser-wearers appear in James Dalrymple’s translation of John Leslie’s Historie of Scotland (1596): “Breickis thay had verie slichte, and indeid mair to hyd thair memberis than for ony pompe or pryd”. When boys wore dresses in infancy, ‘breekless’ meant too young to wear trousers. So, when you you ‘filled yer breeks’ you were grown up. Now that phrases is used of babies in a different way. Being breekless can also mean wearing the kilt, hence the proverbial difficulty of ‘takkin the breeks aff a Hielander’. In Old Mortality (1816) Sir Walter Scott humorously refers to the kilt as ‘bottomless-breeks’: “Ou, the country’s weel eneugh, an it werena that dour deevil, Claver’se ... that’s stirring about yet in the Highlands, they say, wi’ a’ the Donalds and Duncans and Dugalds that ever wore bottomless breeks”.

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

This week's Word is spoken by Avril Nicol.