People in Scotland have shared some of their favourite Scottish words that are commonly used in the country.
There are countless words and phrases us Scots say all the time without thinking twice. It is not until we come across someone from England or another country that we realise that not everybody knows that they mean.
Recently, one person took to forum social network Reddit to ask what others’ top Scottish word was. Posting on the website’s Scotland community, they wrote: “What’s your favourite Scottish word?”
The top response was the word ‘outwith‘, with 499 upvotes. The word means ‘outside of’ or ‘beyond’, and is only commonly heard in Scotland.
Fellow Reddit users shared their surprise that people outside of the country don’t usually use the word, with one writing: “This blew my mind when I found out other people don’t use it. No idea it was a Scottish word.”
A second echoed: “Everyone in my old office only found out this was a Scottish word when a journal returned an annotated manuscript to my colleague where it was noted that outwith was ‘not a word’.”
Meanwhile, another Reddit user chose ‘dreich’ as their favourite Scottish word. The word means ‘gloomy’ or ‘bleak’, and is most often used to describe the weather.
With 241 upvotes, another popular choice was ‘shoogle’. The meaning of the word is ‘to shake or rock rapidly’.
The user who suggested ‘shoogle’ wrote: “It’s found a new lease of life in the age of the air fryer.”
Another replied: “I moved up here from England a couple of years ago and my new boss asked me to give something a good shoogle. The best thing about the word shoogle is that I knew exactly what my boss wanted me to do, despite never having heard the word before.”
Other words included ‘scunnered’ and ‘drookit’. The former refers to irritation or being fed up, while ‘drookit’ means ‘drenched’ or ‘soaked’ — and is often used alongside ‘dreich’.
Elsewhere, another Reddit user said their favourite Scottish word was ‘jobbie’. They wrote: “Just makes me laugh. I have the same sense of humour as my five year old.”
What is your favourite Scottish word? Let us know in the comments below!
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