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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SCAUP, n.¹, v. Also scawp, ska(a)p, †scap(e). Sc. forms and usages of Eng. scalp. [skǫ:p, skɑ:p]

I. n. †1. As in Eng., the scalp (Sc. 1825 Jam.), the skull, cranium. Now only dial. in Eng.Sc. 1724 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) III. 82:
To . . . skonce my Skap and Shanks frae Rain, I bure me to a Beil.Rnf. 1788 E. Picken Poems 64:
Shave awa' his scaup in spite.m.Lth. 1801 J. Thomson Poems 103:
Else I'll come out o'er your scap, An' gar your very harns to jap!Rxb. 1847 J. Halliday Rustic Bard 166:
Be't Yankee scaup or Russian knob.Ags. 1882 Brechin Advert. (7 March) 3:
A man licht i' the scaup.e.Lth. 1899 J. Lumsden Poems 198:
I wat for't sure his Scotch scap reissils!Sc. 1928 J. Wilson Hamespun 61:
See ilk bane Doon frae yer hairy scaup to taes.

2. Thin shallow soil, an infertile piece of stony ground, a small bare knoll (s.Sc. 1802 J. Sibbald Chron. Sc. Poetry Gl.; Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 148; Sh., ne.Sc. 1969). Adj. scappy, scalpie, -y, bare and exposed, thin and shallow, of soil (Sc. 1784 A. Wight Husbandry III. 471).Sc. 1709 Fountainhall Decisions II. 547:
An insufficient glebe lying in a Muir on the top of a scalpie hill, at a distance from the Kirk and Manse, and in a very barren soil.Sc. 1721 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 165:
Plenty shall cultivate ilk Scawp and Moor, Now Lee and bare, because the Landlord's poor.Kcb. 1754 Session Papers, Forbes v. Miller (18 July) 17:
Scappy Knows and unarable.Peb. 1782 Session Papers, Petition W. Laidlaw (8 March) 6:
Mostly a bare scap or craig.Dmf. 1812 W. Singer Agric. Dmf. 672:
White scap metal . . . 5 ins. [depth of stratum].Ags. 1823 Scots Mag. (May) 574:
I could let you see scaups into the field, whare the corn will no gang o'er the heuk.Sc. 1871 Daily News (21 Aug.):
There is a bare “scaup” of boulders and scanty turf.Abd. 1929 J. Alexander Mains and Hilly 201:
Ye widna 'a' thocht it possible on yon scaup.

3. A bank for shellfish in the sea, esp. a bed of mussels or oysters (Sc. 1808 Jam.; Sh. a.1838 Jam. MSS. XII. 194). Gen.Sc. See also Mussel, 9. Comb. scalp-mail, the rent paid for the right to fish for mussels; skaapnet, a mussel dredge-net, used fig. in quot.Sc. 1723 W. Macfarlane Geog. Coll. (S.H.S.) I. 326:
The muscle scape and Ladies scape where are plenty of muscles to be gathered.Nai. 1763 Session Papers, Grant v. Rose (19 Dec.) 14:
Each coble paid him ten merks yearly as scalp-mail.Mry. 1798 Grant & Leslie Survey Mry. 151:
Oysters also, about 20 years ago, were planted by Sir Hector Monro; but the scalp having never been dragged, their fate is wholly unknown.Ags. 1821 Montrose Chronicle (2 March) 72:
To be Let the Muscle Scalps and White Fish Bait, on the Sands of Dun.Sh. 1898 J. Burgess Tang 55:
Scooping up the coppers with their two long wooden ladles, or “skaapnets” as Magni Sharp, with something of his father's jocular irreverence, usually called them.Sc. 1953 Scots Mag. (Nov.) 141:
Scalps in the Forth died out about 1920, and those in the Orkneys, Outer Hebrides, many West Coast lochs, and Luce Bay, also disappeared, possibly because of hard indiscriminate fishing without care for breeding oysters.Abd. 1961 P. Buchan Mount Pleasant 34:
The young quines gaed to the mussel scaup On a bitin' winters' morn.Sc. 1989 Scotsman 3 Jun 3:
Yet in its frequent battles with Edinburgh Corporation to preserve for its members the lucrative oyster beds, ..., the society was almost always successful, the High Court of Admiralty ruling that, though the society did not own the beds, it had the exclusive right to dredge the city scalps, a privilege conveyed on them by James IV.

4. Crustacea in gen. which cover the rocks between low and high water (Cai. 1921 T.S.D.C., Cai. 1969).Ags. 1845 Stat. Acc.² XI. 256:
Goose-tongue, anchor-fish, scaup, and clip-fish, which stick to rocky bottoms.

II. v. 1. To pare off the top or surface soil from a piece of ground, to denude the soil (Sh. 1866 Edm. Gl., Sh. 1969, scalp).Sc. 1806 R. Forsyth Beauties Scot. IV. 524:
Scalping and tearing up every bit of better soil.Sh. 1874 Trans. Highl. Soc. 243:
In other places the rock is laid bare, “scalped” as it is called.Sh. 1918 T. Manson Peat Comm. I. 66:
Great pieces o da hills fairly scalpid clean, becaas da bare moor wis left exposed ta da wind and da rain.Sh. 1939 A. C. O'Dell Hist. Geog. Sh. Isl. 150:
An area which has been carelessly worked for peats and had the peat cover removed leaving a mass of stones on boulder clay is said to be “scalped”.

2. To ruffle the surface of the sea. Gen. in vbl.n. scaupin, a light breeze which does this (Abd. 1911).

3. To dredge (mussels) from a mussel-bed.Fif. 1879 G. Gourlay Fisher Life 106:
There'll be mussels scauppet the day whaur they never were before.