Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

EXPISCATE, v. To elucidate, lay bare, disclose (Sc. 1808 Jam.). Now rare.Sc. 1721 R. Wodrow Sufferings I. 511:
That the Reader may have some View of this wicked and inhumane Method of expiscating Matters by Torture, peculiar to this Time, I shall give as short an Abstract of this Account as I can.Ayr. 1830 Galt Lawrie Todd iii. xii.:
I just propounded the project that I might expiscate some kind of satisfaction to my curiosity.

Hence (1) expiscation, n., elucidation, investigation, lit. a fishing out; (2) expiscator, n., one who expiscates, an investigator; (3) expiscatory, adj., tending to expiscate or “fish out”.(1) Sc. a.1712 Fountainhall Decisions (1759) I. 292:
The assizers exceeded their duty in offering to stop this expiscation . . . and they gave occasion to an irregular and tumultuary noise that was raised in the Court.Sc. 1753 Scots Mag. (July) 364:
There should be the fullest expiscation into the truth or falsity of these deeds.(2) Sc. 1882 J. Brown Horae Subsecivae 320:
These mighty expiseators and exploders of myths.(3) Sc. 1829 Blackwood's Mag. (Oct.) 586:
I was moved thereunto by an expiscatory curiosity.Sc. 1837 T. Carlyle Critical and Misc. Essays (1840) V. 90:
By . . . expiscatory questions . . . this most involute of Lies is finally winded off.