Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1976 (SND Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

FORE-ELDER, n. An ancestor.Lnk. 1832 C. Thomson Lesmahagow Martyrs (1928) 29:
In the muirlands of Lesmahagow his memory is held in great veneration, and often does the grey-headed peasant relate, to his assembled children, the wonderful deliverances of their “great fore-elder.”