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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.

SCHAME, Scheme, n., v. Also scame, schem, schaime, skaim. Sc. forms and usages of Eng. scheme. [ske:m, skim]

1. Sc. forms.Rs. 1716 W. MacGill Old Ross-shire (1911) II. 95:
To draw up a schame for a fflesh weekly mercat.Sc. 1746 C. D. Bentinck Dornoch (1926) 325:
They must ether abandon there scame of fighting the Duke in Murray.Abd. 1871 W. Alexander Johnny Gibb ii.:
A lang-heidit schaimin' carle.Abd. 1889 W. Allan Sprays 32:
Their ploys were skaims o' their youthfu' years.Wgt. 1912 A.O.W.B. Fables 101:
He dreamt an' skaim't, syne quately left the place.

2. Sc. usages (scheme).  (1) A local-authority housing estate.wm.Sc. 1991 Liz Lochhead Bagpipe Muzak 16:
When me, him and the weans got a hoose o' wur ain
In a four-in-a-block in this scheme.Gsw. 1991 John Burrowes Mother Glasgow 146:
They wanted houses and they got them. Nothing else. Even the name they were to give them was as basic as the featureless areas where they were to be built. They were called the schemes. And one of these schemes, a place the size of Perth, was so bereft of facilities it had neither a range of shops nor a pub and the number of police would have been stretched to maintain law and order in the smallest of villages.Sc. 1993 Herald (11 Aug) 10:
The consequential transfer of crime away from the city centre and towards "the schemes".Gsw. 1995 Chris Dolan Poor Angels 142:
Hails from the same scheme as Willie Connell.Gsw. 2000 Herald (2 Feb) 15:
The scheme is particularly appropriate for lesbian vegetarians as it abuts Greendyke Street.Sc. 2000 Herald (22 Oct) 6:
Miller, who sent his own three children to local Castlemilk schools, conceded that he might have been putting them at a disadvantage, but said they had all seemed to accept their life in the scheme.

(2) Derogatory term for a person from a housing scheme, and by extension for a person who evidences anti-social characteristics commonly associated with poverty and deprivation (Ags., Edb., Gsw., Ayr. 2000s) [(housing) scheme] Edb. 1992:
Tidy yer hair ya wee scheme - ye look like a scaff.

Deriv.:  schemie, (1) n. = 2. (2). Also schemo (Ags., Edb., Gsw., Ayr. 2000s).Edb. 1991:
schemie a person who behaves, dresses etc as if coming from a housing scheme (e.g. wearing wide-legged, light-blue jeans, shell suits, heavy make-up, jewellery etc).Edb. 1993 Irvine Welsh Trainspotting (1994) 64:
They'd rather gie a merchant school old boy with severe brain damage a job in nuclear engineering than gie a schemie wi a Ph.D. a post as a cleaner in an abattoir.Edb. 1995 Irvine Welsh Marabou Stork Nightmares (1996) 27:
We were the first family in the district to have all the key consumer goods as they came onto the market: colour television, video recorder and eventually satellite dish. Dad thought that they made us different from the rest of the families in the scheme, a cut above the others. Middle-class, he often said.
All they did was define us as prototype schemies.Sc. 1997 The List (30 May-12 Jun):
Adept on both stage and screen, Portobello-born Bremner starred in Gillies Mackinnon's Conquest Of the South Pole, featured in Heavenly Pursuits and refined his slack-jawed schemie in Mike Leigh's Naked and TV dramas Deacon Brodie and Ruffian Hearts.Sc. 1997 The List (25 Jul-7 Aug):
Closer to home, The Granton Star Cause is the TV premiere of Irvine Welsh's dramatisation of his tale of religion, revenge and football, with Maurice Roeves playing God with an Edinburgh accent and cursing like an omnipotent schemo.Sc. 1997 Herald (7 Aug) 17:
Replacing a yah from Eton with a schemie from Easterhouse as the next telegenic field commander - all well and good. But perhaps the bigger danger flows in the other direction - with the militarisation of society. Maybe Gordon Brown does have a "fifth option", after all.Sc. 2000 David Edwards in Jamie Byng Scotland into the New Era: The Canongate Prize for New Writing 62:
Which is one reason I have to hurry back; to avoid the packs of schemies who are drawn to the town in such weather.

Deriv.: schemie, (2) adj. Of or like a schemie.Edb. 1995 Irvine Welsh Marabou Stork Nightmares (1996) 148:
She wanted old thick schemie Roy Strang to hang himself, but naw, I wasnae gaunny gie the cunt the satisfaction.