Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1963 (DOST Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Lubric, Lubri(c)k(e, a. [e.m.E. lubrik (Caxton), -ic, -ick, F. lubrique lascivious (14th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), also, shifty (15–16th c.), L. lūbricus slippery, also, shifty, unsettled, in med. L. lewd, also, transitory.]

1. Lascivious, lewd, wanton. 1535 Stewart 3470.
In word and work this king he wox rycht vile … Lubrik and lous, with licherous appetyte Ib. 58281.
Becaus tha [nuns] vsit so greit insolence, Sa lubrik war and maid so greit expens In drinking dansing [etc.] 1604-31 Craig ii. 17.
So haue I presumed to publish these my castrat rimes vnder, o lasciuious Lais, thy protection, … So when the lector shall be weary to ouerread these lubricke lynes [etc.]

2. Smooth and slippery. 1587-99 Hume 171/120.
How narow a rift that awld lubrik serpent hathe slydin in

b. Of the bowels: Lax, moving freely. c1580-90 Rules of Health (Moray Mun.).
There is na thing mair pernitius … nor to haif ȝour belly constipate or litle lubric Ib.
It is maist heilful to haif the samin lubric and slipping oftymes

c. fig. Shifty, unreliable, undependable, unsettled, changeable, vacillating.This sense recorded for e.m.E. 1631–1660 only (OED). 1676 Lauder Notices Affairs I. 98.
The faith of witnesses was never more lubrick and vacillant 1684 Wodrow Hist. IV. 77.
The memory of witnesses may be lubric 1684 Lauder Observes 135. 1694 Fountainhall (= Id.) Decis. I. 649.
But the Lords found, tho' there was some diversity, yet it is so lubrick a trial that per se it is not illative of falsehood 1699 Ib. II. 37.
Answered for the merchants, that their price must not depend on so lubrick and various a circumstance as the price of retailing