A bottling is the Glasgow name for a pre-wedding ritual in which the bride-to-be is dressed up in outlandish clothes and paraded through the streets by her female friends and relatives to the accompaniment of banging potlids. Any man such a group stumbles across is expected to give them money in return for the privilege of kissing the bride. In some other parts of Scotland where this is carried out, for instance parts of Lanarkshire, it is known as a creeling.
bourach (boor-aCH) A variant of boorach.
bowff or bouff (bowf) 1 To bowff is to smell strongly and unpleasantly, like something which has decayed and gone off: Eeugh! This beer’s bowffin! A bowff is a strong unpleasant smell. 2 To bowff is also to bark, or to speak aggressively or cough in a way reminiscent of barking.
bowly or bowlie (rhymes with jowly) Someone who is bowly or bowly-legged has bow legs: his rounded shoulders and bowly legs.
box 1 The box is an informal name for the accordion, often used in Scottish country dancing or folk music circles: He is a singer and a good box player. 2 Someone’s box is their head. This sense is usually enountered in the idioms out of one’s box meaning very drunk, or to do one’s box in meaning to baffle or exhaust mentally.
boy A boy is an apprentice.
brae (bray) A brae is a hill or hillside. In place names such as the Gleniffer Braes, the word braes means a hilly upland area.
braeheid (bray-heed) The braeheid or the heid o the brae is the area at the top of a hill.
bramble In Scotland, bramble is a name for the blackberry fruit and not just the blackberry bush. To go brambling is to go out picking blackberries.
brammer A brammer is a West of Scotland slang term for something very good: Is that a new tie? It’s a brammer. [The word may be a Scottish form of the army slang term brahma with the same meaning, and possibly comes via the former British military presence in India from Brahma, who is one of the most important Hindu gods, and hence worthy of great respect and admiration]
brander A brander is the metal grating covering a drain in the street.
braw
braw Something which is braw is fine or excellent: It’s a braw day. [The word is a Scots form of brave]
bree The liquid in which something edible has been boiled or left to soak is known as bree. Some types of soup are also traditionally called bree, such as partan bree, a type of crab soup. In the Northeast, to bree potatoes or other vegetables is to drain the water from them after they have been boiled. Barley bree is a poetic or old-fashioned name for whisky.
breeks Breeks are trousers or, occasionally, underpants. [The word is a Scottish form of breeches]
breenge To breenge is to go somewhere or do something in a hasty and forceful, and usually clumsy or thoughtless, manner: He breenged his way through the crowd. A breenge is a forceful but clumsy rush.
breenger (breenge-er) In West Central Scotland, a breenger is a person who acts impetuously and without proper thought.
breid (breed) Breid is the Scots word for bread. In parts of the Northeast, it also means oatcakes.
bridie A bridie is a type of semi-circular pie or pasty consisting of pastry folded over a minced meat and onion filling. They originated in the town of Forfar in Northeast Scotland, and are therefore sometimes known as Forfar bridies. [They were apparently originally served at weddings, hence the name, which is a shortening of bride’s pie]
brig A brig is a bridge.
broch (rhymes with loch) A broch is a type of wide round stone tower, dating from the Iron Age, which was large enough to serve as a fortified home. The ruins of brochs can still be seen in various places, mainly in the North and the Islands.
Brocher (broCH-er) A Brocher is someone from the towns of Fraserburgh or Burghead in Northeast Scotland. [The name comes from an old sense of broch, a burgh or town, still used as local nicknames for Fraserburgh and Burghead]
brocht (brawCHt) Brocht means brought: He’s been weel brocht up.
brock (rhymes with lock) or bruck (rhymes with luck) Brock is rubbish or broken or leftover pieces: He called the plan “a load o bruck”. [The word ultimately comes from the Old English brecan to break]
brogan (rhymes with slogan) Originally a brogan was a type of Highland shoe made from untanned hide and stitched with leather thongs, but nowadays it is used to refer to any type of heavy walking shoe, especially the brogue, a style of shoe decorated with a pattern of perforations along the seams. [The word comes from the Gaelic bròg a shoe, plus the diminutive ending -an]
broo A variant of buroo.
brook In the Northeast, soot is known as brook. Something which is brookie or brookit is sooty or dirty.
brose (rhymes with rose) Brose is an old-fashioned porridge-like dish consisting of oatmeal or peasemeal mixed with boiling water, a pinch of salt, and sometimes some butter. See also Atholl brose.
bruck (rhymes with luck) The usual Orkney and Shetland form of brock.
bubble To bubble is to cry, snivel, or weep: The wean came in from school bubblin. A bubble is a cry: She had a wee bubble at the end of the picture.
bubbly Someone who is bubbly is in, or on the point of, tears, or is sulking: Ah thought ye wantit to go. Well stick, bubbly!
bubbly jock A bubbly jock is a male turkey. [It is probably so called because of the noise it makes]
bucket In Scotland, a bucket can be a wastepaper bin or dustbin as well as a pail: Chuck it in the bucket, will you? A bucket is any undefined but large amount of alcohol. In this sense the word is usually encountered in phrases such as we’d both had a fair bucket or he takes a good bucket.
buckie
buckie
