CHOOKIE, n.

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language gives a range of meanings for chookie. Today we are focusing on chicken or bird.

An early example comes from John Service’s The Memorials of Robin Cummell (1913):

“They leeved [lived] on milk and meal wi’ whyles a fat chookie boiled in their kail”.

Later, in 1985, we have this from Elizabeth Case writing in Original Prints, New Writing from Scottish Women:

“‘Ah well, who’s for a bit of chookie birdie then?’ he said brandishing the carving knife”.

Those two examples undoubtedly refer to chickens, but this, from the Herald in 1997, references birds in general:

“This is a man who knows Eigg like no other, having surveyed every square inch of it in a ceaseless quest to observe and record the life and times of thousands of wee chookie birdies who call the place home.”

Also from the Herald (2019) - a reminder that it pays to read the ingredients

 “…I grabbed a frozen meal... promising tender minced lamb and vegetables in gravy, topped with sautéed potatoes… in fact, there’s just 13% of the meat in the meal. And its so-called chicken hotpot is even skimpier, with just 9% chookie.”

Finally, from Thomas Clark’s poem for kids, Nae Pets Allowed (Dinnae Mak Me Laugh, Scots Hoose 2021):

“I’m no allowed tae hae a dug, (Ma Maw thinks they’ve got fleas.) A sparra or a braw wee sprug, (They’d mak ma Granda sneeze.) … I’m no allowed a chookie-hen, (Their cleuks get awfy maukit.) I’m no allowed a tod, ye ken, (I’d need a lead tae walk it.)”

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

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