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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1934 (SND Vol. I). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BAIRNIE, n. dim. Also used attrib.

1. n. A little child.Sc. 1737 Old-Lore Misc. x. ii: 46:
A wife in delicate health and two young bairnies.Cai. 1992 James Miller A Fine White Stoor 215:
Her hands folded across her breists? Her knees drawn up, like a bairnie in a wame? Her sumptuous hurdies and her cream-white thighs? Rs. 1996 Alec John Williamson in Timothy Neat The Summer Walkers: Travelling People and Pearl-Fishers in the Highlands of Scotland 49:
He cried out, but the other kids were playing and took no heed of him. At last his grandfather came out and took the bairnie in beside the fire. But the ice had burned him. ne.Sc. 1991 Lilianne Grant Rich in Tom Hubbard The New Makars 23:
There at its heichest sclims the rinnin tide
Scatterin the bairnies' game -
Slappin the fisher-hooses' side
Wi green-white faem. Abd. 1990 Stanley Robertson Fish-Hooses (1992) 72:
For the space of three months he stuck it oot, but Jessie could see the signs of him breaking up again. And she wis right... Innes bung avree with aa the money and the fairmer put them oot and Jessie had tae walk tae Aiberdeen with her bairnies. Abd. 1991 George Bruce in Tom Hubbard The New Makars 23:
crack addicts, chancers wha didna tak their chance,
traivellers wha's traivellin's ended, a deein man
wi a dog, a lassie wi a bairnie at her breist Ags. 1872 J. Kennedy Jock Craufurt 15:
To think the bairnie by her side Wad live to be a usefu' man. Bwk. 1879 W. Chisholm in Minstrelsy of the Merse ed. W. S. Crockett (1893) 201:
Mammie there her bairnie sees, Playin' aye sae bricht and canny.wm.Sc. 2000 Liz Lochhead Medea 6:
away in you go my bairnies

2. attrib. Childish.w.Dmf. 1908 J. L. Waugh Robbie Doo (2nd ed.) 3:
My wee bairnie hert was sair aboot something.

3. Phr.: “bairnie of the e'e, the pupil of the eye” (Jam.² 1825 for Mearns).