Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

†LING, n.¹, v. Also ¶laing. Obs. variant of Line, n.

I. n. 1. In adv. phr. sting and ling, lit. “pole and line”, used to describe the manner of carrying a ladder, a burden suspended from a pole or the like, on the shoulders of two men, one behind the other, sc. in a line. See also Sting; comb. lingtow, a long rope used by smugglers for carrying their goods. Hence lin[g]tower, lingtowman, a smuggler. The word is used in 1835 quot. appar. to mean rope, prob. from the association with carrying by sting and ling.Edb. 1764 Edb. Paradise Regained 19:
One gross of full bottles … is portable by two men, in a suitable carriage by chair-poles, or sting and ling.Kcb. 1829 MS. Letter, Train to Scott (N.L.S.) (16 May):
Upward of two hundred Lingtowmen there with double the number of horses.Ags. 1833 J. S. Sands Poet. Effusions 97:
And wi' a flutter Brought the auld ladder sting and ling.Rnf. 1835 D. Webster Rhymes 151:
'Tween lings, and strings, and sticks, and stanes.Ayr. 1864 J. Paterson Hist. Ayr. II. 84:
A hundred Lintowers, some of them armed with cutlass and pistol, might have been seen waiting with their horses ready to receive them, to convey the goods by unfrequented paths through the country.Kcb. 1893 Crockett Raiders i.:
My father let me have a horse from the stable and a lingtow over my shoulder to go out to the Free Trade among the Manxmen.Dmf. 1937 T. Henderson Lockerbie xvi.:
The shore gang or lingtowmen, so-called from the special rope slings which they carried for the purpose of fastening the casks and bales across their horses' backs.sm.Sc. 1979 Alan Temperley Tales of Galloway (1986) 275:
The 'lingtowmen' were the smugglers who accompanied these strings of horses, so named because of the 'lingtow', or rope, which they used to tie up the burdens and at other times wore bound about their waists or shoulders. Often they were tinklers ... wm.Sc. 1986 Robert McLellan in Joy Hendry Chapman 43-4 21:
I'll gang through the byre and tak the ling tow.

2. A quick, even, striding gait, “a quick career in a straight line” (Sc. 1721 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 256).Sc. 1904 A. Geikie Reminisc. 378:
He [Hugh Miller] had the true “Highlandman's ling” — the elastic, springy and swift step of the mountaineer.

II. v. 1. To move with long, swift steps, to move with a sort of swing, to stride along (Sc. 1808 Jam.; Fif. 1825 Id., laing); to gallop (Sc. 1721 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) I. 256).Slk. a.1835 Hogg Poems (1874) 375:
Then the carle beheld them swoof alang, … They seem'd to ling asklent the wind.

†2. In ppl.adj. lingit, leanet, like a line, hence thin and narrow, lank, lean (Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B.). Slk. 1817 Hogg Tales (1837) II. 167:
Do nae ye see that he's lingit like a grew — and he'll rin like ane?Rxb. 1825 Jam.:
The lingit cat; she's just like a lingit haddo.Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch (1898) xxiii.:
My nephew … who is as lingit in the waist as a wasp.s.Sc. 1897 E. Hamilton Outlaws v.:
We're just ower-quallied wi' beasts … poor wan-thriven, lingit-looking things they are.