Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1960 (SND Vol. V). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

HEEZIE-HOZIE, n., v., adj. Also heezy-ho(o)zy, hesi-hosi; eezie-ozie.

I. n. A game played by rustics and children in which two players stand back to back, interlink arms and by stooping alternately raise each other from the ground (Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B. 325, s.v. wee, Rxb.⁴ 1956, eezie-ozie). Hence applied to the pitching motion of a ship.Sc. 1814 Scott Letters (Cent. ed.) XII. 117:
Round the extreme point of Fife we had a touch of a deep rolling pitching kind of heezie hozie as the children call it.s.Sc. c.1830 T. Wilkie in Proc. Bwk. Nat. Club (1916) 70:
There is a common amusement in the harvest time among reapers, called “Hesi hosi, or weigh butter weigh cheese.” A man and a woman stand with their backs to each other, the woman grasping the man round the breast, and he, the woman round the waist with his arms. The man then bends forward and lifts the woman off the ground and at the moment when the man erects himself, and when the woman's feet touch the ground; then she bends forward and lifts him from the ground. This being begun at the first slow, is increased till it becomes like the motion of a balance, at which they continue till one of them gives in as beat.Edb. 1876 J. Smith Archie and Bess 75:
A never ending game o' shuttlecock an' battle dore; a playin' at heezy-hozy; this yin up the day, the ither yin doun the morn.

II. v. To bob up and down.Fif. 1872 Mrs G. Cupples Tappy's Chicks 241:
Ye ken, mem, I hae to keep heezyhoozying up an' down when I'm sitting on my loom weaving.

III. adj. Uneven, bumpy. Cf. II. Edb. 1923 A. G. Leighton Tibbie's Yarns 60:
It wis a fine heezy hozy sofa, the springs wanted screwing up ticht.