The Your Scottish Archives Glossary defines archaic words and phrases, mostly Scots law terminology, commonly found in documents and records in Scotland’s archives. If you think a word or phrase should be added to the glossary, or an existing entry could be defined better, please contact us at your@scottisharchives.org.uk.
You can also use the Dictionary of the Scots Language as a further resource at https://dsl.ac.uk/ for Scots words and phrases (including legal terminology).
To find a term within the glossary, click on the initial letter of the word you are looking for, then select the relevant syllable segment displayed below.
Example: to find the term “roup” select section “R” then sub-section “Ro”
historic term referring to Romani peoples in use from the sixteenth century. The term arose from the incorrect belief that Romani Gypsies had come from either Egypt or the Peloponnese peninsula known as “little Egypt”. The term “Egyptian” was the source of the later term “gypsy” sometimes used to describe Romani and Traveller groups.
More information on the origin of this term is available through Our Migration Story and The Traveller Movement.