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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1941 (SND Vol. II). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BRECKAN, BRECKEN, Brecan, Breaken, Brechan, n. Sc. variants of Eng. bracken. The name is given to any large and coarse kind of fern, gen. Pteris aquilina. The word is often used in the sing. in a collective sense. Also used attrib. [brɛkŋ, ′brɛkən]Sc. 1724–1727 Ramsay T. T. Misc. (1733) 222:
Nae birns, brier, or breckens gave trouble to me, If I found the berries right ripen'd for thee.Sc. 1904 B. of Otterburn in Ballads (ed. Child) No. 161 C. xxviii.:
Gae lay me in the breaken bush That grows on yonder lee.Abd. 1844 W. Thom Rhymes and Recoll. 45:
But wiled an' wiled the lithest beild Wi' breckans happet roun'.m.Sc. 1979 George Campbell Hay in Joy Hendry Chapman 23-4 (1985) 85:
Brecken will grow, docken will grow,
gerss will grow an' crofts will growLnk. 1929 T. S. Cairncross in Scots Mag. (March) 454:
He'd better be amang the brecan green Than peerin' on and readin' oot his een.Ayr. 1795 Burns Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle (Cent. ed.) i.:
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan.Gall. c.1870 W. Stewart Ross in Bards of Gall. (ed. Harper 1889) 67:
Over the neck in breckens In the burning summer days.

Hence: (1) breckany, ‡brechanie, adj., covered with brackens; (2) breckaned, adj., idem (Kcb.¹ 1935).(1) Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 91:
Breckany braes, rural solitudes, growing with fern; the haunts of innocence and rustic poets.Rxb. 1847 J. Halliday Rustic Bard 311:
The summer sun beats on the brechanie brae.

(2) w.Dmf. 1912 A. Anderson Surfaceman's Later Poems 38: [It] seemed like a ghaist to rise Frae the breekaned hicht o' the steep Knowe Hill.