Hurdies

Defined by the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as

“the buttocks, the hips, haunches, of human beings and animals”,

this word has a long pedigree. An early example is found in Sir David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (1540):

“Of hir hurdies scho had na hauld”.

Later, in Burns’ Tam o Shanter (1790), it appears again:

“Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair… I wad hae gi’en them aff my hurdies For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!”.

In Neil Munro’s The New Road (1914), he conjures up an interesting sight:

“A claymore swinging plainly at my hurdies would look ridiculous”.

And we can picture the poor woman described thus in Ellie MacDonald’s The Gangan Fuit (1991):

“an there she stud - a shilpit wee craitur wi naither briests nor hurdies fit tae grace the glossies lat alane the ploo”.

Aberdeen-based author Sheena Blackhall provided us with many alternative names for the same body part in her Lament for the Raj (1995):

“His dowp, behouchie, his dock or hurdies, Are twa roon meens [moons] ower grim fur wirdies”.

Finally, in a Press and Journal article (July 2022), Moreen Simpson bemoaned the experience of waiting for a bus on a hot day:

“Sun beatin’ doon. No bench to sit on at the stop. I waited. No 23s going in the opposite direction – an ominous sign. … The lesser-spotted green thingie finally arrived, half an hour late. By then, I was near passin’ oot, hurdies achin’. Of course, the bus was packed”.

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

Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.