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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.

TINSEL, n. Also tinsell, tinesel, tinsal. [′tɪnsəl]

†1. Loss, deprivation of anything, damage by loss (Sc. 1782 J. Sinclair Ob. Sc. Dial. 223; Abd. 1808 Jam.). Now obs. or liter.Sc. 1721 J. Kelly Proverbs 132:
He that's far from his geer, is near his tinsel. A man may soon be wrong'd when his back is turn'd.Sc. 1736 Ramsay Proverbs (1776) 87:
Your winning is no my tinsell.Abd. 1754 R. Forbes Journal 23:
We had been at nae great tinsel apiest we had been quit o' her.Sc. 1913 H. P. Cameron Imit. Christ iii. xliv.:
A temporal tinsel is gritly maened; bot spiritual tinsel is sune forgotten.

2. Sc. Law: forfeiture of a thing or right by failure to perform some stipulated condition, now arch. Tinsel of the cause is the loss of the right to sue in a Court, — of the feu, of the possession of a feu by failure to pay the feu-duty, — of superiority, of the rights of a Superior who fails, when required to do so, to enter his vassal to the feu. See Enter, v., 2. and W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. (1838) 995.Sc. 1709 Morison Decisions 1372:
The Lords found this was not such a beating and invading, as to fall under the act of Parliament [of 1594] inferring tinsel of the cause.Sth. 1736 C. D. Bentinck Dornoch (1926) 298:
A ffyne of ten pounds Scots toties quoties to be payed to the ffish of Court Besides the Tinsell of the Muck or ffulzie.Sc. 1772 Faculty Decisions VI. 11:
He brought a declarator of tinsel of superiority, wherein he obtained a decree in absence.Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 995:
Tinsel of the Feu, is an irritancy incident to every feu-right, by the failure to pay the feu-duty for two years.Sc. 1871 Erskine Institute iii. viii. § 80 Note:
The action of declarator of tinsel of superiority is practically superseded by the enactments referred to.Sc. 1891 J. Craigie Conveyancing 60:
The irritancy ob non solutum canonem, or tinsel of the feu is rather a remedy against non-payment of the feu-duties.

¶3. The delivery of a cow at calving, poss. a diffferent word. ? Cf. Norw. dial. tynnsla, a becoming thin.Ork. 1929 Marw.:
The Eday woman speaking of a cow about to calve said it was ‘at the point o' tinsal'.