Word of the week

• Uphalyday, n. The Feast of the Epiphany on 6th January, marking the end of the Christmas holiday
• Handsel
• YULE n Christmas
• Hollin n. holly, a holly tree
• Messan n. a small pet dog, a lap-dog.
• Hoast n., v. a cough, to cough
• Droukit past participle drenched, soaked.
• Wifie n. a woman.
• SLAP n. a gap in a wall etc.
• HAP v. to cover, to wrap up.

Words by month

• Jan 2009
• Dec 2008
• Nov 2008
• Oct 2008
• Sep 2008
• Aug 2008
• Jul 2008
• Jun 2008
• May 2008
• Apr 2008
• Mar 2008
• Feb 2008
• Jan 2008
• Dec 2007
• Nov 2007
• Oct 2007
• Sep 2007
• Aug 2007
• Jul 2007
• Jun 2007
• May 2007
• Apr 2007
• Mar 2007
• Feb 2007
• Jan 2007
• Dec 2006
• Nov 2006
• Oct 2006
• Sep 2006
• Aug 2006
• Jul 2006
• Jun 2006
• May 2006
• Apr 2006
• Mar 2006
• Feb 2006
• Jan 2006

Sponsored by

Supporters of

HAP v. to cover, to wrap up.

“HAP v. to cover, to wrap up.”

3rd November 2008

Hap

This is the season to be weel-happit. Advice in child-care comes from William Stewart’s Croniclis of Scotland (1535): “All young childer sould rudlie nureist be In meit and drink, in haping fra the cald”. Several quotations in the Dictionary of the Scots Language refer to being happit up in a cosy bed, the earliest being from John Barbour’s Legends of the Saints (1380): “He mad a bed & bare hyme til, & happyt hyme ful tendirly”. Any part of the body can be individually happit, from the head as in Sir David Lindsay’s Dreme (1528), “With my hude my hede I happit warme”, to the hurdies as D. Webster in Original Scottish Rhymes (1835) says of a fellow poet, “Droll Will Dunbar was a rhymer they say, Whas hurdies were happit wi’ gude howden grey”. Happit is therefore an appropriate name for the Dunfermline based chain of clothing retailers.
It is not only people who can be happit. James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd writes hauntingly of “When gloamin’ o’er the welkin steals, And haps the hills in sober grey” in The Forest Minstrel (1810). Fires may be happit or banked up overnight. Cottages and tattie clamps may be happit with thatch. A contributor to the People’s Friend (29 July 1950) recalls “My uncle called this ‘happit’ porridge [porridge sprinkled with dry meal]. If any morning the sprinkling ceremony was forgotten, he would say — ‘Barfit porridge the day, lass! Ye ken I like mine happit!’”
A figurative usage is found in G. Seaton’s Robert Urquhart (1986) “What way will ye seek to rake up what I’ve happit awa’ for years?” At a time when many Scots words are being happit awa, perhaps this is one we can rake up and make full use of, at least until the warmer weather returns.