Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

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

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First published 1937 (DOST Vol. I).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Cost, Coist, n.³ [ON. kost-r (Norw. kost), food, victuals, corn.] In Orkney: Victuals or farm-produce (in later use esp. meal and malt) as a medium of payment for rent or dues.‘Cost, a denomination for meal and malt, in the proportion generally of two-thirds of malt, and a third of oat-meal, was rendered a principal article of feu-duty’ (Agr. Surv. Orkney 31). 1503 Orkney Rentals i. 29.
Summa de land male in coist vj lastis 1563 Orkney & Shet. Rec. I. 138.
Pro dicto molendino sex melas de lie coist tanquam pro firmis dicti molendini solui solitis 1564 Ib. 150.
Sexdecim marcarum victualium, vulgo coist nuncupatarum 1566 Reg. Great S. 419/1.
Reddendo … 3 lastas, 20 melas, 3 settinas victualium vocat. lie coist 1570 Rec. Earld. Orkney 131.
Tua mellis and four settenis cost melling 1597 Skene Verb. S. s.v. Serplath.
Of meille and malt callet coist ane last makis ane Scottish chalder 1609 Acts IV. 455.
The thriddis of benefices within the boundis of Orknay … alsweill money victuall, as cost of buttir, oyle, and vtheris customes within the saidis boundis 1614 Lett. Eccles. Affairs I. 340.
Comptand ane last of coist to ane chalder of malt