In Scotland, a wirry-cow [ˈwɪɾɪkʌu, ˈwʌɾɪkʌu] is a bugbear, goblin, ghost, ghoul or other frightful object. [1] Sometimes the term is used for the Devil or a scarecrow.
Draggled sae 'mang muck and stanes, They looked like wirry-cows
The word was used by Sir Walter Scott in his novel Guy Mannering.
The word is derived by John Jamieson from worry ( Modern Scots wirry [2]), in its old sense of harassment [3] in both English [4] and Lowland Scots, [5] from Old English wyrgan cognate with Dutch wurgen and German würgen; [6] and cowe, a hobgoblin, an object of terror. [7] [8]
Wirry appears in several other compound words such as wirry hen, a ruffianly character, a rogue; [9] wirry-boggle, a rogue, a rascal; and wirry-carle, a snarling, ill-natured person, one who is dreaded as a bugbear. [10]
References
- ^ SND: worricow Archived March 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Online Scots Dictionary: wirry
- ^ Jamieson, John (1808) Jamieson’s Dictionary of the Scottish Language p. 606
- ^ Online Etymological Dictionary Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ DOST: wirry Archived March 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Onions, C.T. (ed.) (1966) The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology Oxford, p.1013
- ^ The Online Scots Dictionary: cowe
- ^ SND: cowe Archived March 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ DOST: wirry hen Archived March 7, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ SND: worry
