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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

STEEPLE, n.¹, v.¹ Also steepel, stiple. Sc. usages of Eng. steeple, a tower.

I. n. 1. As in Eng., in combs. and phrs.: (1) Falkirk steeple, a bank-note of the Falkirk Banking Co. (1787–1825), which had as its design a picture of Falkirk Parish Church with its large and conspicuous steeple; (2) steeple-backit, hunch-backed (Rxb. 1971); (3) steeple-ruit, the foot of a (church) steeple (Per. 1915 Wilson L. Strathearn 268); (4) to put up the steeple, to put in jail, the Tolbooth of many burghs having a steeple in which prisoners were lodged. See II.(1) Sc. 1802 Three Banks Rev. (March 1960) 37:
What are we to make of this Grocer Walker and Falkirk Steeples? — should he not be obliged to take up his notes here?(3) Ayr. 1887 J. Service Dr Duguid 55:
Robin used to lay down the law to us at the steeple-root.(4) Ayr. 1870 J. K. Hunter Life Studies 51:
They raised a rippet somehow and were put up the steeple.

2. A heap or stack of fish laid crosswise in a pile to dry (Sh. 1866 Edm. Gl., 1914 Angus Gl., Sh. 1971).Sh. 1794 Stat. Acc.¹ XII. 361:
They [fish] are then laid in heaps for a day or two, and then, at proper intervals, exposed to the sun, till perfectly dried, taking care gradually to increase the piles or stiples into which they are built as they harden.Sh. 1822 S. Hibbert Description 519:
The fish . . . are afterwards built into a large stack named a “steeple”; and for the sake of equal pressure the steeple is again taken down and rebuilt, by which means the fish that were the uppermost in one steeple are the undermost in another.Sh. 1931 J. Nicolson Incidents 27:
Scrubbing and washing fish, spreading these on the beach to dry during the day, and gathering them in heaps, or “steepels,” as they are termed, when night came, or on the approach of wet.Sh. 1952 J. Hunter Taen wi da Trow 246:
Da dry fish steeples by da shore.

¶II. v. 1. To imprison in a (tolbooth) steeple. See I. 1. (4).Gsw. 1881 G. MacGregor Hist. Gsw. 149:
The keeper was forbidden to allow any of those who had been “steepled” to have other than prison fare.

†2. To pile or stack up. Cf. I. 2.Sh. 1747 Hjaltland Misc. (1939) III. 127:
On August 4th it is reported to the Session that one of the sawstoks was sawn into 63 pieces, “all steepled up in the Kirkyard.”