The Scottish Book Trust recently announced the results of its poll of Scots words as part of Book Week Scotland. The Scots language word that has been voted ‘most iconic Scots word’ is the word dreich. Dreich, which is recorded in Scots since the 15th century, and was also once used in Middle English, originally described something that was dreary, tiresome or wearisome. Since then it has also come to mean bleak weather, any task that is difficult, or refers to people who are slow or tardy. The top ten words voted in the poll were dreich (259 votes), glaikit (225), scunnert (199), shougle (125, wheesht (114), fankle (93), ootwith (80), braw (77), beastie (76), and bumfle (59).