Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

PLATFORM, n. Also pletform (Gsw. 1904 H. Foulis Erchie iii.). Sc. form and usages:

Sc. form of Eng. platform.Lnk. 1991 Duncan Glen Selected Poems 47:
They'll get fixed up themorrow.
It's warm enough unner the brig.
They'd walk me back safe to my pletform
but the polis'll be in the station.Fif. 1998 Tom Hubbard Isolde's Luve-Daith 6:
The follie waa that a laird biggit lang syne
Ti baur oot tinks; or the pletforms an pillars o stane

Sc. usages:

1. In Mining: a junction of two or more lines in a colliery hutch railway, orig. laid on a raised board or platform, points (Sc. 1886 J. Barrowman Mining Terms 51; Lth. 1960).

2. A flat roof (Sc. 1952 Builder (20 June) 942). Hence platform boarding, roof boarding on a flat roof (Ib.).

3. A general income level, specif. in the Free and United Churches in Scotland: “the position or general level of churches drawing an equal dividend from the Sustentation Fund, as opposed to embryo or merely mission churches not yet ‘on the platform'” (Sc. 1909 N.E.D.), short for the equal dividend platform.Sc. 1856 J. Aiton Clerical Econ. Title:
Directions, social, rural, and household, showing how ministers and others of limited incomes may raise the whole platform of their order.Sc. 1862 Proc. Free Church Scot. 168:
Charges formed out of Home Mission efforts and not yet admitted on the equal dividend platform.